Figure 4.1 is the most famous graph in all analyses of housing supply in England. It shows the total number of homes built in each year between 1946 and 2014 and the tenure breakdown. The headline stories are obvious.

• 1. An exceptionally high level of output through most of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, prompted by the need to make good war-time losses and shortages, as well as an ambitious slum-clearance programme. New provision depended overwhelmingly on the two post-war growth tenures, owner-occupation and council renting.

• 2. A lower output of around 150,000 homes a year on average through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, but with a significantly different tenure breakdown. Owner-occupation cements its place as the dominant tenure, new council output declines to almost nothing, while housing associations emerge as substantial providers of social rented housing, but not on the scale that councils had previously met. At the end of this period private renting is once again growing and will soon overtake the social-housing landlords as the largest source of rented homes, but this comes largely through conversion from other tenures rather than from the purposeful construction of new homes to rent privately.

• 3. A further serious decline in output following the financial crisis of 2008, with a slow recovery still leaving output in 2015 below the pre-2008 levels. Owner-occupation remains the lead tenure, albeit at a reduced level, while housing associations continue as the main source of social rented housing and the growth of private renting is sustained.

Over-simplistic responses to the evidence in Figure 4.1 imply that we should, as a matter of policy, seek to return to the model of the initial post-war years to remedy the current shortfall and ensure a good supply of affordable homes to rent. While this is an entirely understandable reaction to the obviously inadequate current output of new homes, it is neither a practical nor a desirable policy response. It is impractical because local authorities do not have the capacity to deliver a housing programme on that scale, and it is undesirable because it would mean that we had failed to learn lessons from the adverse consequences of that post-war building boom.