Britain Becoming Overcrowded
Affordable housing
"There is a desperate shortage of affordable housing. In 2000/1 London boroughs were legally required to house 29,685 homeless households." x
"It is a scandal that a disproportionate number of children are exposed to poverty due to bad housing. Much of this suffering is caused by the lack of affordable housing around the country." x
The shortage of affordable housing is forcing many young people to migrate away from where they grew up, for example:
"The housing problems encountered on the island mirror those of rural communities across the country. Prices have spiralled in recent years and a shortage of affordable housing has seen locals struggle to gain a foothold on the property ladder." x
"The affordable housing crisis has reached boiling point in rural Wales. Young people are being forced to leave the communities in which they grew up just to buy a home." x
First-time buyers
"TWO in three young couples could soon be priced out of the homes market." x
"There were about 70,000 first-time buyers aged between 18 and 24 in 2003 - down from 87,000 in 2000, 117,000 in 1994 and a high of 201,000 in 1988." x
A reason for the reduced availability of housing for first-time buyers is in 1996: "the advent of the buy-to-let mortgage, which explicitly recognises that rental income will be used to service the loan". From April next year there will be the ability to put buy-to-let property into self-invested personal pensions. x
But buy-to-let does not decrease the availability of accommodation in general. I understand that it actually increases the availability by causing accommodation to be rented which otherwise would not be, such as above shops.
The Green Belt
Peter Lilley MP says in a press release Hertfordshire‘s Housing crisis caused by Government measures to boost inflow of Overseas Workers:
"His plans to promote mass immigration to boost Britain‘s labour force. This is not bringing the economic benefits the Chancellor claims. .. It is what is dictating the government‘s determination to build over the Green Belt - for example west of Stevenage.
The Chancellor deplores Britain‘s housing shortage. But he ignores the fact that it is this huge inflow which has largely caused the problem. The measures he announced to undermine planning laws will scarcely dent the problem." x
One of the "measures to undermine planning laws" are "rural exception sites" which enable building on the Green Belt. With the intention of increasing the supply of affordable housing, all local authorities are required to have "a rural exception site policy":
"All local planning authorities that include rural areas should include a rural exception site policy in the relevant development plan document. A rural exception site policy enables the authority to allocate or release small sites within and adjoining existing small rural communities, which may be subject to policies of restraint, such as Green Belt, x
This refers to "small sites within and adjoining existing small rural communities". John Prescott MP, Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions, said that: "The most sustainable greenfield option is to build town extensions." x
The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England is much concerned about the erosion of the Green Belt. x It disapproves of rural exception sites:
"It is inappropriate to meet local housing needs through the use of land which is neither allocated through the development plan process, nor regarded as suitable for development." x
There are numerous copies of newspaper articles about building on the Green Belt on: www.greenbelt-news.org.uk such as: "2,400 acres of green belt lost each year". x
Green-field development
Planning controls are apparently being weakened by the transfer of authority to regional assemblies. For example, an article Labour Will Concrete over the Green Belt Say Tories (2002) says:
"The Government are depriving local communities of having their say on planning by transferring decision-making to unaccountable and distant regional bodies." x
Building on the Green Belt and green-field sites is in general for families rather than single person households. x For example, Archie Norman MP, said in a debate on 3rd February 1999:
"I am delighted to speak tonight on an issue that threatens to herald one of the great environmental disasters of the 21st century unless we address the matter early.
The cost of green-field developments to the community and the public purse in the long run has an enormous multiplier effect, which is not necessarily the case with developments in towns. What was once a village called Paddock Wood in my constituency is now the major development centre in Tunbridge Wells. Migration into Paddock Wood is not from Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding community and does not consist of single person households." x
A threat to the countryside is the Sustainable Communities Plan. For example the Kettering Borough Council asks: "Why do we need sustainable development?" x The development at Kettering is mentioned in a Parliamentary debate:
"In Kettering, about 80 per cent. of new build will have to be on greenfield sites and in Northampton about 27,000 out of 49,000 homes will be built on greenfield sites. I believe that the plan for Milton Keynes is to build not just within the existing urban area but on greenfield sites on the edge of the city." x
The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee says in its report Housing: Building a Sustainable Future (2005):
"It became increasingly clear that the proposals for development and housing contruction already underway within the Sustainable Communities Plan (SCP) have significant implications for the environment. .. It would appear to us that many of the efforts directed towards sustainability within the SCP are little more than a window dressing exercise." x
"A window dressing exercise" means an excuse to build on green-field sites.
Hidden homelessness
"Crisis estimates that there are 380,000 Hidden Homeless people trapped in circumstances that leave them on the fringes of society. They live in hostels, squats and bed and breakfast accommodation or sleep on the floors of friends and family." x x
"We are experiencing a generation of 'hidden homeless' - young people who move from sofa to sofa because they can't afford to buy." x
"Help end the scandal of homelessness." x
Official homelessness
Homelessness is discussed by a report of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) [1] x which says:
"The number of people in temporary accommodation has risen to intolerable levels."
It shows "Statutory homelessness: homeless households in temporary accommodation" was 40,000 in 1997 and over 100,000 at the end of the year 2004 (paragraph 139), from ODPM data. x
"Homeless families total 100,000." x
"The number of official homeless has rocketed from around 40,000 when Labour came to power in 1997 to at least 99,000 in the second quarter of this year." x
There are many reports from particular areas of the country. x x x
"When you add in the 380,000 hidden homeless, those living in hostels, squats and other places, there are nearly half a million homeless people in the UK today." x
"The figures on children in temporary accommodation are particularly shocking." x
The report of the National Audit Office More than one roof (2005) says:
"Homelessness is inevitably influenced by the availability of housing, particularly affordable housing. .. The number of households presenting themselves to local authorties as homeless rose from 242,000 in 1997 to 300,000 in 2004, an increase of 24 per cent. .. They acccepted just over 137,000 as being unintentionally homeless and in priority need in 2003, compared to just over 100,000 in 1997." x
House prices
The rapid increase in house prices is discussed for example in a discussion group. x
"Why is satisfying a basic human need (a reasonably secure longish term shelter) so difficult in this country?"
"Property prices should not be allowed to wreak havoc on the fabric of society." x x
The ODPM Consultation Paper Planning for Housing Provision (2005) x gives a diagram Chart 1 - Ratio of Average Dwelling Price to Average Income, UK showing a steep increase from 1997.
Housing need
The NAO report says:
"Over 400,000 households are in urgent need of secure, affordable and self-contained housing."
Peter Lilley said in his speech:
"The Government have tried to give the impression that the main reason, apart from smaller households, for building millions of extra houses is movement from the rest of the UK to the south of England. In fact, this accounts for less than a tenth of the population growth in southern England. The most important factor is net immigration from abroad, largely to London, which results in a roughly equivalent number of Londoners of all races moving out to the home counties. .." x
Overcrowding
Shelter has "the million children campaign":
"Bad housing is making our children ill, robbing them of a decent education and damaging their future." x
"175,000 households are forced to live in horrifically overcrowded conditions in London." x x
"But with almost 100,000 households now living in temporary accommodation - over half of whom have children - and half a million families in overcrowded housing, the link between housing and educational outcomes needs to be confronted." x
Commentators on the current (November 2005) riots in France, say that they are caused partly by poor accommodation. I agree, judging from what I have seen when I worked in North Paris.
Plans
"A controversial plan to build 478,000 homes across east England has been given initial backing." x
"46,000 homes to be built in West Sussex." x
"200,000 new homes to be built in the south-east over the next 15-20 years." x
The government has a policy of unlimited immigration and more housing, as reported at the Prime Minister's Press Conference - 1 April 2004. x
Question:
Doesn't the government have to get into the numbers game to the extent that this factor implicates a lot on your other policies. How on earth are you going to calculate the housing needs, particularly in the south east, which you have referred to specifically, and also the size of transport infrastructure needed, if you have no actual policy about the amount of net inward migration each year?
Prime Minister:
Well you have a set of rules and you obviously base your policies, it is not that we don't know the numbers of people who have come in here to work for a period of time and go back again, it is just that you don't set some arbitrary limit on how many people should come in, it is a question of applying the rules. For example over the past few years there are more people who have come in with work permits, but that is because there has been a requirement for them. And as I say, in certain parts of the public sector we have got a policy deliberately of trying to make sure that people do come in. In respect of the overall effect on our services, again I think we have just got to be careful on this. Very often when you are doing meetings with people in local communities, they have a view about the numbers of asylum seekers and the impact on our public services that is not always correct.
Question:
If you have no limit on the number of incomers in circumstances where not just in London, but in other areas too, many people can't get a decent home for their family.
Prime Minister:
Yes, but let's be absolutely clear about this Patrick, the housing shortage is not a function of immigration, the housing shortage is a function of not enough houses being built. Now let's just be very, very careful about this, it is a function of the number of houses that need to be built because over the past few years we have not been building enough houses, not just merely social housing but in the private sector as well. That is the reason for Kate Barker's report. But it is not immigration that is driving that, it is down in the south-east of the country where you have got as I say virtually full employment and where there is a desire for people, particularly first time buyers, to get houses. That is why we are engaging in the policy of expanding housing in certain parts of the south-east in order to meet that. But there never has been a policy, as far as I am aware, of any government of saying we are going to set some arbitrary limit on people who can can come and people who can't."
Sustainable development
"New homes plan thrown into chaos
· Government agencies attack key Labour strategy
· Housing 'would threaten environment', says report
Juliette Jowit, environment editor
Sunday October 30, 2005
The Observer x
Plans to build millions of homes across the UK have been thrown into doubt after damning criticism by two key government agencies.
The revelations strike at the heart of Labour's plans to solve Britain's housing crisis by building homes on swaths of wild countryside and will be acutely embarrassing for ministers.
More than 4 million new homes are to be built across the nation. One project in the east of England - involving the construction of 500,000 homes - is regarded as the flagship project.
But the Countryside Agency and English Nature will warn in a joint report this week that the east of England plan poses 'serious risk' of damage to 'nationally important landscapes and habitats'.
The scheme would cause 'significant harm' because it would degrade the character of the English landscape, fragment natural habitats, and require water supplies that would have an unsustainable impact on the environment.
The report is a serious blow to the credibility of the government's promise to provide affordable housing.
The two agencies comprehensively condemn Labour's Sustainable Communities Plan and other national policy on which the regional development strategies are based. The government's approach is 'contrary to the concept of sustainability', they state.
'It seems it [the government] is not altogether serious about sustainable development and protecting the environment because it seems to think it can just plan and then pick up the pieces. The consequences are likely to be serious degradation of the quality of the environment and quality of life of people in the region,' said Henry Oliver of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
However the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister defended its policy. 'The pressure for new homes is not caused by the government but by an ageing and growing population and more people living alone,' said a spokesman. 'Over the last 30 years we have seen a 30 per cent increase in the number of new households but a 50 per cent drop in the number of new homes being built. This is not sustainable development.'
The report will be given to the official inquiry into the east of England plans, set out in the regional spatial strategy (RSS), which opens on Tuesday. The plan, the biggest and the first to go to a full inquiry, proposes nearly half a million new homes, new industrial and business space and 67 road schemes.
Nationally the government's plans have been criticised for over-estimating the scale of building needed, concentrating too much development in the already crowded south east of England, and not insisting on tough enough environmental standards, such as low-energy design.
The Labour-dominated Environmental Audit Committee has also warned the environmental impacts 'deserve much greater consideration'.
In the latest report, the two government agencies, which are soon to merge, acknowledge 'a need to consider and accommodate development' and praise some aspects of the strategy 'which are commendable and are to be supported'. However they say there is an 'absence of evidence' that the plans will not damage 'core environmental assets' and that the independent sustainability appraisal warned of 'significant harm' to landscape, habitats, and water.
'Coming to a 'balance' implies trade-offs between competing objectives where it may be accepted that loss of one component will be necessary in order to achieve success within another,' says the report. Later it adds: 'Under proposed growth targets the ultimate effect of the RSS may not [authors' italics] be to ensure a more sustainable future for the region. Such an outcome would be contrary to the statutory purpose of the planning system ... Furthermore the agencies consider that some of the underpinning foundations of the plan do not afford sufficient regard or status to environmental and quality of life matters, and subsequently set an inappropriate context on which the strategy builds.'
The report instead calls for regions to assess how much growth their environment can cope with, then plan measures to mitigate 'justified' damage.
'We're not saying we don't want development,' said Graham Smith, an area manager for English Nature. 'We may need to adjust the rate at which we seek to do things in order that we don't sacrifice one objective at the altar of another.'
The panel of independent planning inspectors, appointed by the government, will report to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is expected to publish any changes next year, with a final report due in 2007."
[1] Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions, Third Report, January 2005.
July 2005
Stephen Wynn
E-mail: centre@boltblue.com
Website: The Partnership Approach.