National politicians, with the general election only 15 months away, are waking up to the need to be seen to be doing something about the affordable housing crisis.

Like the proverbial London bus, nothing happens and then along come two inquiries – the Lyons Review for the Labour Party and the Elphicke Review for the Coalition Government. But will these make a difference?

The crisis is stark. There is a consensus that in England we need to provide approximately 100,000 new affordable homes each year, but we are building significantly less than half this figure.

The lack of investment is also a long-term issue. Gross fixed capital formation in housing (i.e. housebuilding and major renovations) as a proportion of GDP has lagged behind other Western European countries.

More specifically between 1996 and 2011, the figure was 3.3% in the UK compared, for instance, with France (5.0%), Germany (6.0%) and the Netherlands (5.8%). Current prospects are bleak.

Delivering affordable housing through the planning system is compromised. The Growth & Infrastructure Act, 2013, encourages housebuilders to appeal against previously approved planning agreements.

In January, the Government and the Homes & Communities Agency announced a three-year funding programme from 2015-2018 for 165,000 affordable homes. But this equates to only 55,000 units per year.

Innovation and creative thinking is required if we are going to solve this worsening crisis.

One source of new ideas is to learn the lessons from overseas.

The Centre for Comparative Housing Research at De Montfort University and Places for People with the support of the Economic and Social Research Council are investigating schemes in France and the USA for over 25 years that have used conditional tax incentives to boost affordable housing supply.

It is based on governments providing tax incentives for developers who in return provide housing at less than market rents and which are targeted at low income households for a set period of time.

In the USA, this was originally for 15 years and is now more commonly for 30 years.

Output has been impressive. In France, between 1995 and 2004, it accounted on average for over a third of private sector production (30,000+ units per year). In 2009/10, it amounted to over 50% of private sector production (60,000+ units).

In the USA it has helped to build, renovate or conserve more than 2.5 million affordable housing units since 1986.

Of particular interest is the state and municipal influence over the programme in the USA.

The Federal Government allocates tax incentives or tax credits on a dollar per person basis to each state within overall conditions on targeting low income households.

Each state in collaboration with local government produces an allocation plan based on local requirements.

This might prioritise refurbishment rather than new build or urban rather than rural communities. It might also set stronger targets in terms of housing low income households.

This is localism in action and, thus, the programme has support across the political spectrum from ‘tea party' republicans to left of centre democrats as well as from local communities.

More details of the schemes in France and the USA can be found on our research project website at http://housingsupply.our.dmu.ac.uk/.

But can we transfer these policies to this country? The straightforward answer is ‘no'. Simplistic transfer of strategies is problematic because of the different economic, political and social systems in countries.

For example, America has a federal system of government compared to our unitary top-down approach.

Nevertheless, this is not the end of the story. Lesson learning from other countries provides the opportunity to develop new innovative policies that address affordable housing supply while, at the same time, taking account of the economic and political framework in England.

During autumn 2013, the Centre for Comparative Housing Research and Places for People held a number of seminars with, for example, representatives of large housing associations, professional bodies, think tanks and civil servants.

No one categorically ruled out a conditional tax incentive approach and the vast majority considered that new approaches such as this are badly needed. We are now in the process of working with a number of organisations on developing a detailed model so that the costs and benefits can be assessed at a national scale as well as by public, private and third sector organisations at the local level.

As one contributor at a seminar commented, ‘if we don't produce a new way of providing affordable housing, we and our local communities are doomed!'                

Dr Tim Brown is director for the Centre for Comparative Housing Research at De Montfort University