Bureau journalist Nick Mathiason makes Orwell Prize shortlist for affordable homes investigation
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Nick Mathiason has been nominated for one of Britain’s most prestigious prizes for political writing, the Orwell Prize.
He has made the 2015 shortlist in the “Exposing Britain’s Social Evils category” for an 18-month investigation into why, amid an escalating housing crisis, so few affordable homes are being built in the UK.
The centrepiece of his investigation was a longform feature, A Great British Housing Crisis, which also contained a podcast hosted by broadcaster, Owen Bennett-Jones.
A Great British Housing Crisis told how housebuilders try to avoid obligations to build affordable homes.
Mathiason also submitted a story detailing the profits made by Britain’s biggest housbuilders since the last boom in 2006.
He found profits for builders had returned to pre-crash levels while affordable housing completions had fallen to a seven-year low.
The final piece of Mathiason’s entry was written with former Bureau reporter, Will Fitzgibbon, who is now at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in Washington DC. They focused on the affordable housing delivery record of Britain’s historic landowners including the Crown Estate, the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duke of Westminster.
The pair discovered both the Crown Estate and Duchy of Cornwall had seen a surge in profits from housebuilding yet had backtracked on affordable housing targets.
Mathiason’s housing pieces also ran in the Observer, Vice News and prompted a Guardian leader on the affordable housing crisis.
