The announcement today by the Audit Commission that councils have focussed too much on building new houses rather than revamping existing properties have some merit.
Huge amounts have been spent on constructing new houses while hundreds of thousands of existing properties stand empty in disrepair or even dereliction.
This is financially wasteful, neglectful of areas that could do with regeneration and environmentally harmful (why build on flood plains when you could repair houses on dry, elevated land?).
However, while the Audit Commission have rightly identified the problem, have they fingered the real culprits?
Much of this trend has in fact been driven by central government policy, which is forced on councils from above.
Often, the Government's obsession with new and shiny things means that any funding is contingent on it being used for new buildings rather than repairs. This is also a central plank of the Building Schools for the Future programme, which is going to force the costly demolition of viable schools that simply need refurbishment purely in order to fulfil the Government's PR-driven fetish for the new.
(As an aside, this cult of the new is a recurrent theme within this Government. Take criminal law, for example - rather than properly enforce existing historic laws, the Government has needlessly squandered Parliamentary time and taxpayers' money on creating reams of new legislation.)
Tax policy also drives the preference for new build over refurbishment. If you build a new house, you pay 0% VAT. If you want to repair a house in any way, even if it is uninhabitable, you pay the full rate of VAT. In the short term, the Government should scrap that absurd and harmful VAT burden in house repairs.
In the longer term, they must stop forcing their policies on local councils through funding restrictions. That is the message the Audit Commission should have delivered today.
