How much for a loaf of bread?

If the cost of basic foodstuffs had risen in line with house prices, we’d probably have a riot on our hands. While that may be hard to imagine, Shelter’s grocery price comparison is certainly food for thought. Mark Cantrell reports

Imagine forking out £420 per week on food; not on Bollinger and Baluga Caviar, but the everyday groceries like bread and milk. Then consider that the average income hasn’t risen to quite match this inflation in the price of life’s basics.

That’s the scenario that the campaigning charity Shelter is asking people to think about in its latest efforts to highlight the problem of high housing costs in the UK. The exercise is perhaps less hard and fast statistical analysis and more a creative exercise in illustration, but it is hoping that comparisons with the weekly shop will engage people to provoke debate.

Of course, if the scenario played out for real then such a rise in the cost of bread and milk and other such basics would provoke rather more than concerned debate. So, it’s just as well it’s a thought exercise, but that in itself is a part of the point – we have tended to blithely accept house price inflation whereas similar inflation in other basic aspects of living would provoke outrage.

The charity has based its comparison on the difference between the average price of a house in 1971 (£5,632), and the average cost of £227,765 for a home in 2008. This represents a multiplication rounded to 40.44 times the 1971 price. To highlight the rise in housing costs, Shelter applied it to the price of basic goods and worked out the average cost of the weekly shop for a family of four.

An advertising campaign is currently using items such as bread, milk, eggs, chicken, washing powder and coffee to highlight how prices would be affected if they had risen similar to housing. It calculated that a pint of milk would cost £2.43, a chicken £47.51 and a jar of coffee £20.22. All told, that average family of four would be handing over £420 a week – or £21,840 for the year.

“These calculations show just how out of line the cost of housing has become – yet we seem to have just accepted these inflated prices as normal in a way we wouldn’t with anything else,” said Kay Boycott, Shelter’s director of policy and campaigns.

“We’re asking people to join our online discussion forum at www.Shelter.org.uk to have their say about the way high housing costs are affecting their lives. It’s time for people to make their voices heard and join the fight for affordable housing.

“Housing affects so many areas of people’s lives and high housing costs are increasingly influencing the choices people make about how they live their lives. In the election year, it’s vital that all political parties make housing a top priority so that future generations are not held back by the cost of housing.”

As reported in this edition’s news section, a survey conducted for the charity led the organisation to conclude that families are becoming increasing “isolated and fractured” because of high housing costs, with the average home now costing seven times the average UK salary.

Some 18 per cent of 18-44 year olds – equivalent to 2.4 million people – are actively being put off having children because of high housing costs, it said. Meanwhile, 1.5 million adults have said that they are unable to look after elderly parents because they cannot afford to live near to them. Conversely, 1.5 million grandparents are missing out on caring for their grandchildren.

According to the National Housing Federation (NHF), construction of new housing has fallen to an 87 year low with projected completions for 2009/10 expected to be no more than 122,700 homes. Indeed, it adds that the delivery of new homes expected this year was beaten eight times in the 19th Century, with 135,000 new homes delivered as far back as 1875/6.

Despite the economic hard times that have caused house prices to dip, the undersupply of homes is expected to lead to further price inflation in future years. With some 4.5 million people on housing waiting lists, and supply failing to meet demand, the organisation says the situation looks “bleaker than ever for millions of Britons”.