Nurses are being priced out of homes built on land the NHS has sold off, a study has revealed.
Out of 5,452 homes planned for NHS land, just 946 (17%) will be “affordable”, the New Economics Foundations says.
The average house price on NHS sites is £306,434 — 9.6 times an average nurse’s wage of £32,000.
The NEF says the Government wants to charge developers as much as possible for NHS land but that puts up house prices.
NEF’s Hanna Wheatley says: “Finding a decent, affordable place to live is becoming harder and harder for people and families across the country.
“A key part of this is the overinflated price of land dictating what gets built on it.
“Public land, if it must be sold, represents an opportunity to produce the kinds of homes people need, but the Government’s approach to the public land sale is a shambles.
“There is a clear tension between trying to raise as much money as possible from the land sale and also building the kind of homes we need — and right now the Government isn’t doing either.
“The one-off cash injection gained by selling land to the highest bidder is small compensation for the lost opportunity of more affordable housing, and a reduction in the housing benefit bill," she added.
