This week's housing Green Paper says a lot, and makes all kinds of promises on targets, but manages to deftly steer a path between the requirement to build more homes and the need to placate the NIMBY lobby.
The last thing a new government wants, especially months before a general election, is to arouse the fury of Home Counties marginals by proposing to concrete over southern England.
However, this is only one aspect of a complex set of challenges. There are five related housing problems. One is soaring house prices, partly caused by shortages. The next is a lack of social rented housing. The third is NIMBY-ism. The fourth, the appalling standard of British house-building design which has led to dreary, uniform boxes, and fuelled public opposition to new estates – on that note, I recommend a visit to Milton Keynes, to see some of the very attractive new housing modelled on the Prince Charles' Poundbury village. And the fifth is government inability ever to ensure new homes are matched by improved infrastructure, a constant complaint of local government and the LGA.
There is, in fact, no shortage of land in England, even though it is one of the most densely-populated countries in the world. Anyone who has been on the M40 near junction seven as it emerges from a cut in the hills to reveal the rolling fields of north Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire stretching to the horizon or been in a plane circling above Gatwick knows, at least anecdotely, that there is an abundance of open land.
And there is plenty of fallow land in urban areas. In my own outer London borough, a huge site has stood vacant for a decade, while superstores and the council battle it out over planning permission. Quite why we need more supermarkets but not housing beats me.
In the 1950s, virtually every Home Counties village acquired a small council estate, usually tacked on to the end. Most are now privately owned. It cannot be unreasonable for a repeat of this programme – a couple of fields dedicated to social housing, while in the cities, a specified amount of brownfield sites and a few less supermarkets.
The Green Paper touches on this, with incentives for councils and a tougher approach to planning. Now it needs a battle for hearts and minds, and a change of attitude by the public to new development.
Michael Burton, Editor, The MJ
