Everyone knows that Clement Attlee’s 1945-1951 Labour Governments created the NHS, brought the coal mines and railways in to public ownership and gave India and Pakistan independence. But one of Attlee’s lesser celebrated achievements was building one million new homes at a time when building materials were in short supply and when the construction labour force was reduced to a third of its pre-war size.
From a slow start in 1945 -1947, new housing completions averaged around 200,000 a year for the next four years from 1948 -1951. By 1951, a total of 1,016,349 new homes were built, of which 806,857 were new Council houses. On top of that, 156,623 ‘prefabs’ were built, many of which provided decent and much-loved homes for many years to come. In addition, hundreds of thousands of existing homes were repaired and converted in the six years after the war.
Michael Foot rightly claims, “This achievement was no small one in the first years after the war when the country was also engaged in a big factory-building programme. It far surpassed anything achieved in Britain after 1918 or in most countries after 1945”.
However, despite the heroic efforts of Aneurin Bevan and his colleagues, more could have been achieved had Labour stuck to its Manifesto commitment and created a separate Ministry of Housing and Town Planning. Attlee gave Bevan the job of ‘slaying’ two of Beveridge’s ‘five giants’ – Squalor (caused by poor housing) and Disease (caused by inadequate health care provision). As Nick Thomas-Symonds argues:
“Having the same Cabinet minister responsible for both the creation of the NHS and housing the nation after the destruction of the Second World War was more than overload. It left Bevan to deal with the intricacies of both sides of his department when either half in itself would have been too much for a single minister.”
Should the housing building programme have been led by a ‘National Housing Corporation’, as Douglas Jay had recommended in the first few months of the Government, rather than by the local authorities, many of which had little experience of building new homes at scale.
Certainly, a national organisation with regional offices would have made planning, direction and control easier, but it could also have taken some time to establish. By harnessing the experience of the big city housing departments in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Glasgow, which had been building new out-of-town estates for over a decade and more, Bevan was able to combine real expertise with local knowledge.
The downside was that outside the big cities, experience was strictly limited with many local councils simply unable to move quickly. Overall, perhaps a key factor in this debate is that, six years later, Harold Macmillan was able to build 300,000 houses a year based on the same local authority ‘delivery system’ established by Bevan.
Should Labour have been more pragmatic and built more homes at lower standards, as Macmillan did during the 1950s? The average new three-bedroom Council house increased in size, from 860 square feet in the pre-war period, to 1,026 square feet in 1946, to 1,055 square feet in 1949, falling back to 1,032 square feet in 1951 and down to 947 square feet in 1952.
By 1959, the average size of a three-bedroom Council house had fallen to 897 square feet. Bevan was surely correct to increase space standards, remaking famously in Margate on 22nd May 1947, “We shall be judged for a year or two by the number of houses we build. We shall be judged in ten years’ time by the type of houses we build”.
There is little doubt that the new, larger Council houses built in the years immediately following the Second World War were some of the best ever built and have stood the test of time. In 1950, the first four blocks completed on the Churchill Gardens estate in Pimlico won Festival of Britain Architectural Awards. It wasn’t just the architectural critics who praised the flats. In 1962, tenants in the ‘posh’ private flats in Dolphin Square next door opposed a rent rise arguing, that “many of the flats are not as nice as those put up by the Council in Churchill Gardens opposite”.
Other post-war estates were similarly feted. In 1998, English Heritage listed the Spa Green estate in Finsbury as Grade II*. The Survey of London describes the Spa Green Estate as ‘heroic’. Nikolaus Pevsner called it ‘the most innovative public housing’ of its time.
Perhaps where Labour’s lofty ambitions most obviously failed was in the goal to create new communities where the ‘spirit of companionship’ would flourish and “wartime sentiments of social solidarity and shared purpose could be maintained and strengthened in the post-war world”. Aneurin Bevan harked back to the time where “the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and the farm labourer all lived in the same street”.
Similarly, Lewis Silkin’s ambition that class distinctions would fade away in the New Towns was never achieved. He hoped that “different income groups living in the new towns will not be segregated” and that after attending a town centre event, “When they leave to go home I do not want to see the better-off people to go to the right and the less well-off to go to the left. I want them to ask each other, ‘Are you going my way?’”.
There can be no denying Labour’s fundamental achievement to meet the aspiration of very many working class families to live in high quality affordable housing – which the Conservatives followed with great success over the next 13 years. The lives of so many working class families – who had been ignored by every previous Government – were transformed for the better.
As the historian Kenneth Morgan so clearly concludes:
“The rehousing of several million people in new or renovated houses, at a time of extreme social and economic dislocation, was a considerable achievement. Housing, therefore, deserves its honoured role in the saga of Labour’s welfare state.”
His book, ‘Building the New Jerusalem: How Attlee’s Government Built 1 Million New Homes’, is available in paperback and Kindle https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08N1H3PYL
All royalties will be donated to Foodbanks in Westminster.
Paul Dimoldenberg
Paul Dimoldenberg was first elected to Westminster City Council in 1982. He was Leader of the Labour Opposition Group from 1987-1990 and from 2004-2015.
He is the author of ‘The Westminster Whistleblowers’, published by Politicos in 2006, which tells the story of the Westminster ‘Homes for Votes’ scandal of the 1980s and 1990s. He also has recently published Cheer Churchill. Vote Labour.
What do bribery, conflicts of interest, opaque lobbying, weak oversight, curiously timed donations, excessive hospitality, and the revolving door all have in common? They are all corruption risks inherent within our discretionary planning system.
We should be worrying aboutthe findings made by anti-corruption organisation Transparency International, who found many local authorities lack the necessary safeguards to prevent corruption in our planning system.This begs the question – why is the left not demanding more from planning reform?
‘Permission Accomplished‘shows us why because of corruption we should be sleeping with one eye open
Discretion, as opposed to rules, is arguably at the heart of our planning system. This creates inherent risks within the framework designed to provide democratic oversight to the development of our built environment. Not one of the responses to the Planning for the Future consultation made available to date, nor the Select Committee, have focused on the need for planning reform to combat corruption.
The definition of corruption according to Transparency International is “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Corruption can come in many forms. It can be in the form of political donations to local branches of a political party around the same time as a planning application. Or it could be payments for the tuition fees of local councillors’ children.
There have been some high-profile cases in the past few years that have shed light on the flaws of our planning system. Transparency International case studied many of these in their report ‘Permission Accomplished’. By way of example, the report includes an investigation in Liverpool by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) involving multi-million-pound developments where no minutes of meetings between developer, councils, and officials had taken place.
Assessing corruption risks requires us to look closely at how it occurs in the first place
A case study covered in the report looked at how a Conservative Chair of a London planning committee had become embroiled in allegations of impropriety. He was receiving excessive gifts that had not always been declared. By March 2018, following media pressure, the local councillor had referred himself to the Monitoring Officer. His self-referral warranted formal investigation.
The Investigating Officer found the volume and frequency of hospitality and gifts declared by the individual as “extraordinary”. Important to note that no evidence proved the hospitality had influenced any planning decisions. However, the council did find the actions breached their code of conduct.
Another case study in the report highlighted findings from an investigation by The Daily Telegraph. A Liberal Democrat councillor employed by a public affairs company was said to be using a range of lobbying tactics to secure planning consents for their clients. The councillor told the Daily Telegraph that the firm employed numerous former or present councillors at any given time.
If other councillors refused to talk to lobbyists about a particular planning permission certain ‘tricks of the trade’ could be used to get around this. For example, he claimed he could use contacts to try and replace difficult councillors on local authorities’ planning committees, with more agreeable ones to help secure permissions for clients.
We cannot expect every local authority leader to be followed by the eyes of Argus
Shortly after the Independent Mayor of Tower Hamlets was removed from office for election fraud, a fixer was recorded allegedly requesting a £2m bribe for four incumbent councillors. In addition, the individual allegedly also requested a £15,000 a month retainer for high-end hospitality from a developer seeking planning permission.
Below is an excerpt from a recording produced by the Sunday Times back in December 2017, having regard to an ongoing case noted in Permission Accomplished. The recording demonstrates the inherent weakness and lack of democratic oversight systemic within highly discretionary English planning system.
“We are lobbying certain members to try and approve this development. But of course, then there is the additional bit that we will be doing behind the scenes, and this is where the premium covers that.”
“The site doesn’t have planning on it. As soon as you buy, your team will have to put the application in, and the gatekeepers will bless it. End of.”
“Well it’s the elected members. Politicians that have a show of hands. You have seven people, in this case about seven. If you take out the deputy it is six key votes, six elected members, members that have been elected by people, by the public, they make the final decision”
Sunday Times Recording, December 2017
Labour Mayor John Biggs, who ran on an anti-corruption ticket, called in accountancy firm Ernst and Young to undertake a full and independent investigation of the developer’s claims of corruption. Since becoming Mayor, Biggs says he has fought hard to clean up the borough, and to tackle the corruption and wrongdoing of the past.
The whistle blowers’ allegations of bribery in connection with a planning application was swiftly considered by a Queen’s Counsel (QC) experienced in addressing bribery and corruption cases. Following the QC’s advice, the Chief Executive reported the allegations to the Serious Fraud Office. The case has since been referred to the National Crime Agency where it remains still under investigation.
Panelisation of planning decision-making removes consenting authority of councillors in beady-eyed Australia
In some places in Australia, legislation removes councillors from exercising any consent authority functions. Instead Australia in many places constitutes mandatory local planning panels, namely under the Planning Panels Act 2018. Mandatory local panels were argued to “bring expertise, transparency, and integrity” to the process of assessing planning applications. Planning authorities across Australia had exemplified the use of local planning panels from as far back as 1997.
Local planning panels have become a more conducive structure for development and industry in Australia. In particular following the success of Joint Regional Planning Panel (JRPP) introduced in 2009. These regional panels would be responsible for developments more than $20 million capital value. In effect removing local councillors from the decision-making process. This instead favours an independent decision-making body for regionally significant development applications, significantly reducing the risk of corruption.
Research reveals local authorities lack twenty-twenty vision over corruption risks
In their report Transparency International assessed 50 of 317 local authorities across the countries that have planning responsibilities in England. It found 32 councillors across 24 authorities holding critical decision-making positions in their local planning system, while at the same time also working for or on behalf of developers. This poses the question are we electing local representatives or political lobbyists?
Transparency International assessed how each local authority prevents, protects, and pursued corruption in planning decisions by local councillors. In it they judged these authorities against best practice standards. Developed by Transport International, and using evidence from their research, they built on existing work by the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CPSL) and the Local Government Association (LGA).
Local authorities were scored between zero and 100. 100 being seen to meet good practice. By this measure, not a single local authority taken from the 15 per cent sample demonstrated either a top or second quintile performance. This suggests local authorities are leaving themselves open to serious allegations of improper conduct by democratically elected representatives.
@TransparencyUKfound many local authorities lack sufficient safeguards to prevent corruption.Labour should be demanding more from planning reform.
The corneal erosion of institutional checks and balances make the planning system fertile ground for abuse
The report found inadequate oversight to ensure probity in the planning process. It went insofar as to highlight major corruption risks relating to councillors’ involvement in planning decisions in the current system. Low levels of transparency, poor external scrutiny, networks of cronyism, reluctance or lack of resource to investigate alleged wrongdoings, and the sums of money involved provide a fertile environment for those entrusted to make planning decisions abuse it for private gain.
We have seen an erosion of institutional checks and balances on this behaviour. Independent audits of local authorities have been abolished. A universal code of conduct for councillors abandoned for local defined standard. All in combination with the capacity of our media having been watered down. Labour needs to continue picking up the mantle in tackling corruption, as has been the case lately following calls for tougher regulation of suspected money-laundering activities.
Lines between lobbyists and elected local representatives remain terribly blurred
Bob Colenutt, in his book ‘The Property Lobby: The Hidden Reality Behind the Housing Crisis’, makes a good point. He highlights to us the revolving door between local authorities, consultants, and developers is of equal importance to developers lobbying government . Many councillors have second jobs working as lobbyists and advisers to developers and housing associations. Often working in their own or adjoining areas.
Bob pointed to the case of Southwark in 2017. Here 20 per cent of the local authority’s 62 councillors were employed as lobbyists. Almost one in ten councillors in London either work for a property business or have received hospitality from them. Nearly 100 councillors have links to property companies or lobbying and ‘communications’ consultancies involved in planning.
The local councillor is a denizen of the English planning system. It is the discretion of these individuals over decisions that shape our built environment. Is it just a coincidence that our democratic planning system encourages so many councillors to work in lobbying for developers. Or does this need to change?
Local authorities can be more eagle-eyed if they reinforce recommended guidance and best practice
We need to increase transparency, tighten rules to protect the planning process from abuse for personal gain, and to strengthen oversight over councillors to deter behaviour that would bring the integrity of the planning process into question. Transparency International made the following ten recommendations:
Minute and publish all meetings with developers and their agents for major developments
Prohibit those involved in making planning decisions from accepting gifts and hospitality that risk undermining the integrity of the planning process
Increase transparency over gifts and hospitality
Stronger leadership from the industry on ethical lobbying
Improved management of financial interests, which include the repeal of Section 31 of the Localism Act
To be replaced with a new requirement removing councillors from decisions where it can be reasonably regarded that they hold a significant conflict of interest that could prejudice their judgement
Prohibit all councillors from undertaking lobbying or advisory work relating to their duties on behalf of clients
This should prohibit members from lobbying councils on behalf of paying clients
Prevent councillors from providing paid advice on how to influence councils
Manage the revolving door between elective office and private business
Prohibit those who have recently worked as lobbyists for developers from sitting on planning committees
Or receiving executive responsibilities relating to planning
Provide clear guidance and boundaries for councillors so they can better understand what is and is not acceptable behaviour
Provide a meaningful deterrent for serious breaches of the code
Increase transparency over investigations and enforcement actions
Transparency International’s report raises yet again alarm bells about risks that remain very real. Sadly, local authorities still remain ill-prepared to address them. Labour should give these anti-corruption recommendations serious consideration, put anti-corruption at the heart of its agenda, particularly when it comes to planning reform.
Christopher Worrall
Editor of Red Brick. He currently works in land acquisition for Guild Living. Chris currently sits as a Non-Executive Director of Housing for Women and is a member of the Labour Housing Group Executive Committee.
Coronavirus has upended everything. Within the space of a week in the spring, the pandemic has taken centre-stage in our social and political lives and has remained there, immovable, ever since. So interwoven into the experience of everyday life has the virus become, it sometimes feels difficult to think about much else.
In many ways it’s absolutely right that our attention should be so fully devoted to discussing covid-19 and, in particular, how to contain it. Bearing down on the spread of the virus to protect life and jobs is arguably the single biggest challenge the country and the world has faced since WW2.
But there are two additional crises that lurk not far into the horizon. In fact they are already here. These are the dual threats of the housing crisis on the one hand, and environmental collapse on the other. As scientists have evidenced, the latter creates the conditions for viruses like covid-19 and others to spread in the first place.
Left unchecked these twin crises will get worse and spin out of control.
Just consider this. It’s possible that environmental degradation could lead our planet close to becoming uninhabitable by the end of the century. The destruction of nature isn’t just about climate change — undoubtedly an existential risk and one that has received a lot of attention since last year. It’s also about extreme biodiversity loss and a rapid decrease of land and soil productivity — two issues which get too little attention and which, in the words of the UN, are “eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
On the other hand, the collapse of affordable housing has proved a disaster for many and may get worse. Home-ownership is out of reach for a generation of young people, in parts of the country average rent equates to three-quarters of median pay, and tens of thousands of families live in insecure temporary accommodation. Without access to a place people can reliably call home, the foundations of democratic norms — norms which rely on basic levels of socio-economic security for all — are at risk.
But this needn’t be our fate. We can carve out a different future, one where we provide housing security for everyone and safeguard nature at the same time. Doing this requires implementing a wide range of governmental interventions and creating market conditions which favour people and the planet above unbridled profit. But there is one policy area where we can begin to tackle both crises at once — and that’s unlocking the potential for environmentally friendly housing while making housing genuinely affordable.
So how do we do it?
Change begins with shifting how we think about housing. Much of the debate frames environmental protection and boosting housing supply through the prism of trade-offs: we sacrifice the former for the latter (or the reverse), say by building on the green belt (or choosing not to). But new-build and enhancing environmental protections can be two sides of the same coin.
Indeed, innovation and policy change is already moving us in that direction. Some developers are incorporating enhancements to ecosystems within their developments, like increasing beehives and bird boxes in urban settings. In parallel, bodies like the London Assembly champion ideas to nudge or require developers to think green — like incorporating requirements for minimal ‘green space factors’ into planning and recognising innovative ideas through award schemes.
In addition, the more we can transform the infrastructure that neighbourhoods rely on towards sustainable ends, the more we can move in this direction. For instance, we must ensure transport links are green — whether it’s by prioritising walking and cycling links above roads, and when roads are necessary ensuring they’re used by electric cars, not gas-guzzling vehicles.
A second step lies in pushing back on historic, out-dated practices in the development industry. At the forefront of this change is challenging a de facto presumption in favour of demolition. Demolition is massively wasteful — in the UK alone, the construction industry accounts for 60% all materials used. In addition, the development industry accounts for 45% of carbon emissions, and when demolition happens it releases huge amounts of “embodied carbon”. The alternative should be a presumption in favour of refurbishment with demolition there as a genuine last resort.
It is possible to refurbish whilst unlocking affordable housing. The long-term consequences of covid are likely to be empty office buildings in the centre of cities, as white-collar workers shift to working from home on a more regular basis. Local and regional leaders must therefore find ways of bringing back empty premises into use as affordable and quality housing. We’ve already seen councils take similar steps to revitalise centre city living when perceived urban decay has been a challenge in the past.
In cities like Liverpool city centre, living increased by 181% from 2002 and 2015, whilst in Birmingham it increased by 163%, and these changes were a result of proactive policy interventions. Living in these areas is now associated with a good quality of life, in effect embracing the Mayor of Paris’ 15 minute living concept where everything one would need (whether it’s access to gyms, restaurants, the supermarket, or schools) is within close walking distance.
A third move is embedding the circular economy into any new affordable housing development. From deploying renewable energy sources, like heat pumps and solar, through to releasing more subsidies for insulating homes, change is well under-way on this front. The shift needs to be coupled with sustainably disposing of waste and in particular food waste — an issue that lies behind a whopping 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
What this means is getting people to waste less food in the first place, and when waste is inevitable making sure it’s composted or ends up in anaerobic digestion plants not landfill or being incinerated. Crucially, using resources intelligently helps with the affordability of living expenses. Cutting fuel bills can lead to hundreds of pounds in household savings, whilst eating not wasting edible food can save the average household £500 per year.
These are just some changes that we can make to marry the need for genuinely affordable housing with sustainability. What’s outlined above does not negate how difficult achieving the scale of transformation we need to see will be. But the urgency with which we increasingly understand the environmental crisis, coupled with new technological opportunities, means citizens, policy-makers and developers are very clearly beginning to envision and see the opportunity to build another future.
This week Labour challenged the government to ‘Build it in Britain’ and support the creation of 400,000 jobs, including in the crucial manufacturing sector, through a green recovery from the Covid crisis. Action now would support the creation of new jobs and tackle the climate and environmental crisis, and includes expanding energy efficiency and retrofit programmes, including in social housing.
For too long we’ve negated people’s right to secure housing whilst undermining the natural world. Covid-19 is undoubtedly the biggest short challenge facing us, but we need to walk and chew gum at the same time, keeping focused on tackling the twin threats of insecure housing and environmental breakdown.
The moment for change is now.
Pancho Lewis
Pancho Lewis is a Westminster Councillor, where he is Shadow Cabinet Member for Environment, and works for the food waste start-up Too Good To Go.
Those on lowest incomes face rising costs without new provision, long-term grant funding for new homes is needed now more than ever.
The rising inequalities associated with the lack of affordable housing are becoming hard to ignore. Whether a tenant or a homeowner, housing expenses take up a large part of household’s earning each month and hence the pressure rises on political leaders to do something about it.
The latest ONS data[1] reports that “households whose income is in the bottom 10% could expect to spend more than two years of disposable income on the upfront costs of an average house in London, the South East and the East of England” and “could expect to spend more than 70% of disposable household income on mortgage repayments for an average property in England”. On the rental market, households in the bottom 25% of the income distribution could expect to pay more than 30% of their income on the cost of renting an average property.
Double or quits report highlights the need for long-term grant funding
Building housing that is affordable is not straight forward. As with other types of social infrastructure, positive externalities may be hard to capture, and this justifies government subsidies into the supply of affordable housing. Government grant is essential to incentivise the provision of affordable housing tenures.
Since the introduction of the Housing Act 1988, the Government has largely provided grant on a short-term basis, mostly aligned with the political cycle. This short-term approach to grant funding leads to high levels of uncertainty and cyclicity on the housing market. I highlight this in a recent report called Double or Quits: The influence of longer-term grant funding on affordable housing supply. It was commissioned by the Consortium of Associations in the South East (CASE)[2], The National Housing Federation[3] and Shelter.
The report finds that extending the length of capital grant, all else equal, would add certainty in the development process and reduce development cycles. This in turn may lead to more housing provision.
Grant funded affordable housing has been on a downward trend
Double or quits starts off by conducting an extensive overview of the grant arrangements and outputs over the last three decades. Up until the late 1980s, local authorities were the main provider of affordable rental accommodation, when grant for affordable housing took a downward trend[S1] . In the last three decades, housing associations, or so-called registered providers (RPs), have been the main players in the affordable housing provision. RPs use capital grant to bridge the shortfall between the total cost of construction including private borrowing costs and revenues from the, so called, cross-subsidy[4].
The Affordable Homes Programme (AHP), which has been the primary mechanism by which Government has funded new affordable homes since 2011, has provided funding on a three- to five-year basis. Table 1 shows the various capital grant schemes available since 1991. Each colour represents a grant cycle – from the beginning of the grant to its expiry. It is clear that towards the end of each grant programme, the output increases as the grant has to be spent by the cut-off date.
Figure 1: Private Registered Providers’ Homes England / GLA funded affordable completions
Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), 2020.
Development for social rent has been on a rapid decline since 2011
Affordable housing completions can be subdivided into four main tenures, as defined by the government, social rent, affordable rent, shared ownership and intermediate rent. Figure 2 shows the affordable housing completions by tenure for England between 1991 and 2019. 2010-2011 marks an important shift in the provision of affordable housing with the introduction of a new tenure – affordable rent. Completions of social rent have rapidly declined since 2011, from around 40,000 units per year to less than 10,000.
They have been replaced by a new tenure[S2] . While the average grant per dwelling has been around £50,000 between 2006 and 2011, covering about 40% of total construction costs, it has dropped by more than half between 2011 and 2018. That led to housing associations delivering from around 50,000 social rent and shared ownership units in 2011 to less than 6,000 in 2019. The latest figures by the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government report total affordable housing completions of 57,185 as of the end of 2019, half of which are affordable rent.
Figure 2: Affordable Housing Completions by Tenure for England
Source: MHCLG, 2020.
Significant rise through developer contributions obtained through Section 106 Agreements
Since around the same time as the decline in social rent completions, most of which are delivered by housing associations, in 2011, there has been a huge rise in the share of completions associated with Section 106 (S-106) planning agreements. This is evident in Figure 3 below.
Planning obligations under Section 106 were introduced in the Town and Country Planning Act of 1990. They are ‘developer contributions’, similar to highway contributions and the Community Infrastructure Levy, partially provided for affordable housing. This means that there has been a shift in the sourcing of funds for affordable housing provision. Now, only about 50% of the funds come from the grant provided by Homes England (HE) and Greater London Authority (GLA).
The reliance on private development to deliver affordable housing through S-106 contribution has been greater than ever. This has been enabled through the substitution of social rent by affordable rent and shared ownership. The striking picture depicted in Figure 3 makes clear the direct positive relationship between affordable housing supply and market housing supply. If, following a slow-down in economic growth, development activity drops by, i.e. 30%, the provision of shared ownership and affordable rent may drop by a similar proportion, since 30% less S-106 provisions may be made.
Figure 3: Share of Completions by Tenure as Part of Section 106 (S106) Agreements
Source: MHCLG, 2020. Data for England.
Lack of predictability of grant big issue say developing housing associations
Given the trends described above and the reliance on the market to supply affordable housing, the report goes on to investigate how increasing the length of the housing grant to 10 years could affect the provision of affordable housing by conducting structured interviews with 13 Chief Executives or development directors of housing associations.
The lack of predictability in grant provision may lead to a more cautious approach by housing associations when it comes to building their development pipelines and limit the number of affordable homes they deliver. The pronounced peaks and troughs in delivery associated with the short grant cycles, with completions skewed towards the end of Programmes, have knock-on consequences for development costs, build-quality and the productivity of the housebuilding industry.
The report finds that a ten-year Affordable Homes Programmes would enable housing associations to purchase more sites without planning permission and take on larger and more complex sites. This may lead to reducing overall construction costs and passing the savings on to the homeowners or tenants.
Land-led development by housing associations would become more prevalent
Housing associations will be more likely to invest in their in-house development teams and intensify relationships with private developers, house builders, land managers and local authorities, including through joint ventures. This can lead to consolidation on the market and economies of scale in the production of new affordable housing.
Furthermore, a move to long-term funding would also increase housing associations’ ability to fulfil deliver affordable housing counter-cyclically. It would do so by accelerating the trend for greater levels of land-led development, whereby housing associations act as the lead developer on sites rather than acquiring homes from private developers via S106.
This would enable housing associations to build up longer and more consistent pipelines of development sites, which would help avoid some of the pronounced peaks and troughs in delivery that have been associated with previous Affordable Homes Programmes.
Resilient funding provisions for affordable housing should be a high priority for Government
Due to the strong dependence of housing development on economic cycles, as outlined above, the risk of taking a market approach to affordable housing is that affordable housing supply may become more volatile and pro-cyclical.
As we are experiencing in the current Covid-19 economic downturn, having a safe and affordable place to live is a key necessity for every human being. It is in periods of downturn, that households are more likely to lose their job, become evicted and struggle to afford housing. Having a resilient provision of affordable housing, for those most in need during downturns, should be high on the priority list of the Government.
Dr Stanimira Milcheva
Dr Stanimira Milcheva is an associate professor in Real Estate and Infrastructure Finance at University College London. Stani’s research is broadly in the field of real estate and infrastructure finance. She also works on topics related to affordable housing.
[2] CASE is a group of 10 major housing associations providing affordable homes in the South East of England. Collectively, members own more than 400,000 homes across the country, with over 140,000 in the South East. The members of CASE are: L&Q, Metropolitan Thames Valley, Moat, Optivo, Paradigm, Radian, Sovereign Housing Association, The Guinness Partnership, The Hyde Group and West Kent Housing Association.
[4] Cross-subsidy is model in which the profits from the sale of market housing are used for the construction of affordable housing, including tenures like social rent.
Today, the country is back in lockdown. Yet this time there is no Government action to help private renters stay in their homes. 2 million private renters are now claiming state support, but the money is not sufficient to cover average rents. Thousands more are ineligible. Eviction notices have been dropping through the letterboxes of renters who have struggled to keep up with payments, through no fault of their own.
For the first national lockdown, the Government did the right thing. They paused all court proceedings, meaning no evictions could take place. They have since extended notice periods, and requested that bailiffs do not enforce in areas of local lockdown, as well as over Christmas.
For this second lockdown, mortgage holidays and credit holidays have been extended, but courts continue to evict tenants.
Rather than facing lengthy and expensive court proceedings, thousands of renters will be packing up and searching for a new home, putting themselves and others at risk at a time when we are being asked by the government to stay at home. A month-long pause on bailiff action will be of little comfort.
As the number of Covid-19 cases, and deaths from the disease, are rising fast, it is essential that renters – especially those who are vulnerable or shielding – can remain safely in their homes. To do this, the Government must pause all eviction proceedings, and ban landlords from serving section 21 no-fault eviction notices or serving notices under section 8 for rent arrears relating to coronavirus.
The Government has done the right thing before. We call on Ministers to act swiftly, to ensure that no renter loses their home due to covid-19.
Yours Sincerely,
Alicia Kennedy, Generation Rent
Michelle Simpson, The Big Issue
Bridget Young, Nationwide Foundation
Anela Anwar, Z2K
Jacky Peacock, Advice 4 Renters
Portia Msimang, Renters Rights London
Roz Spencer, Safer Renting, Cambridge House
Alicia Kennedy
A leader in strategic planning and campaign organisation, Alicia has had a 25-year career operating at the highest level of national politics.
She worked with Prime Ministers, Cabinet members, hundreds of MPs, and thousands of Councillors and volunteers to deliver successful local and national election campaigns for the Labour Party. She was made a life peer in 2012 and is non-aligned.
With an average deposit of £21,000 required, the Government’s much heralded ‘First Homes’ will remain beyond the reach of a large number of aspiring homeowners. This includes the 61% of private renters who have no savings at all, those who are unable to rely on the bank of mum and dad and a high percentage of key workers whose incomes are not high enough to enable them to save.
To truly widen access to home ownership we must address the deposit barrier. Only then will we be able to open the housing ladder to those on lower incomes. The Government has proposed that a quarter of all new affordable homes will be First Homes: homes for first-time buyers sold at a discount of at least 30% of market value. Whilst the lower price will no doubt make these homes more affordable to some, there will remain a significant portion of aspiring homeowners for whom they will still be out of reach because they simply cannot raise the amount required for a deposit.
Based on the average price paid by a first-time buyer, even after the 30% discount a buyer under ‘First Homes’ would need to have saved £14,000 for a 10% deposit. With lenders dramatically reducing the number of mortgages available to buyers with small deposits it is now more realistic for a deposit of 15% or 20% to be required. This equates to £21,000 or £28,000 respectively, plus legal fees and moving costs. Factor in that just 10% of private renters aged 16-34 have savings of between £5,000 and £15,999 and this keeps the dream of home ownership beyond the reach of all but a small minority of young renters.
It’s not just the deposit which is a barrier but also the income needed for a mortgage. Lenders will generally offer four and a half times a buyer’s salary. Based on an average First Homes house costing £140,000, if the buyer did manage to save a 10% deposit they would need a mortgage of £126,000. This would require them to have a salary of £28,000. However, a newly qualified nurse starts on a salary of less than £25,000 and it would take 6-7 years’ experience until they had reached this salary threshold. What about the key workers in the care and retail sectors who have kept the country going through the pandemic on a minimum wage?
There is a home ownership model which provides a solution to these barriers. ‘Affordable rent to buy’ helps tenants to save up to buy the home they are renting. It is different from other rent to buy schemes as the tenants benefit from an affordable rent for a much longer period of up to 20 years compared to just 5, and when they are ready to buy they receive a gifted, 10% deposit which they do not have to repay.
The model does not require buyers to provide any upfront deposit to access the scheme. Instead, they undergo a financial assessment which looks at whether they will be likely to be able to buy in up to 20 years’ time. For example, for a newly qualified nurse the provider would see that within 10 years she or he would be able to afford the mortgage so they would be eligible for the scheme, even though they couldn’t afford a mortgage or deposit now. Based on their finances, they will choose to aim to buy at year 5, 10, 15 or 20. Rather than having to remain in private rented accommodation up until this time, the nurse would live in the home they know they will one day own and pay 80% market rent helping to save more each month towards a deposit with a long-term, secure tenancy.
A number of local authorities have already adopted the model. As well as helping more people onto the housing ladder, they are experiencing the model’s wider benefits including that it houses many families from the housing waiting list. 17% of the families benefitting from the scheme come from social rented homes that they no longer require freeing these up for those in greatest need. On top of this, the model is fully funded by pension funds and institutional investment so not using up any of the grant funding local authorities access from the Affordable Homes Programme to deliver homes for social rent.
To truly help level up home ownership, the Government should ensure that models which more effectively address the barriers to home ownership are included alongside First Homes. This will encourage local authorities to consider adopting innovative models like this to address their local housing need and help make home-ownership a reality for many who otherwise can only dream of it.
Steve Collins
Chief Executive of Rentplus, the leading affordable rent to buy housing provider. Steve has over 25 years’ experience in housing and development, both in private and public-sector organisations.
This includes working for the then Homes and Communities Agency where he had responsibility for the successful delivery of over 42 Government programmes with a combined value of c.£900m pa, aimed at accelerating the delivery of housing and public sector land across the country.
Steve has significant experience in the affordable housing sector where he managed the allocations of the affordable housing grant programme.
The Return of Squalor: An anthology from the first ten years of Red Brick blog by Steve Hilditch has been released today on its tenth anniversary. Duncan Bowie reflects below.
It seems more than a decade since Steve Hilditch started the Red Brick blog – ten years since the fall of the last Labour government and the end of John Healey’s all too brief term as Minister of State for Housing and Planning. All the more to be regretted as John was the first Minister for many years from any political party who really understood what housing policy was all about. He didn’t spend time bemoaning council housing and council tenants, or go on about how everybody aspired to being a homeowner.
I suppose I have known Steve for nearly forty years – from the first days of the Labour Housing Group in the early 1980’s, when I was a young councillor in Oxford and Steve was in Westminster leading the opposition to Lady Porter’s social cleansing housing policies, which eventually led to her being surcharged. Steve was working for Shelter when I was in the housing policy team at Lambeth council, in the days of Ted Knight and Matthew Warburton, when Margaret Hodge was running Islington, David Blunkett, Sheffield and Pat Hollis, Norwich – the days of the Campaign against the Housing Cuts.
The Red Brick blog does not of course go back that far. As Steve explains in his introduction to the anthology, it was the fall of the Labour government that was the trigger. We should also remind ourselves that in 2010, progressive commentary on housing policy was fairly limited. Shelter’s influential journal ROOF had ceased publication in 2003 – a very poor decision by Shelter’s management. We had Housing Today and Inside Housing, but these journals were aimed primarily at professionals rather than campaigners. The journals of the left of centre, such as the New Statesman and Progress, rarely showed much interest in housing, and we no longer had radical journals such as the Leveller and Community Action.
So, the Red Brick blog became an important source of commentary and critique, a reassurance that we were not alone. As a web-based blog, it also had and still has the advantage of being readily accessible, as contrasted with all those dusty boxes of old magazines in our attics or basements, for those of us fortunate enough to have archival space. If only politicians, civil servants and think tankers, had ready access to knowledge of the policies which had or had not worked in the past! The past is too important to be the preserve of historians.
The archive could be called contemporary history. It is a reminder of the struggles of the last decade, and how appalling the last 10 years of housing policy have been but also, even more regrettably, of how little attention successive governments have paid to the arguments put forward in Red Brick and by other progressives, whether practitioners or academics. Having for the last decade chaired a progressive housing policy network, I am only too aware how housing has had far too little attention on the political left, including within the Labour Party.
Resolutions could be carried at successive Labour Party conferences and then the issue almost forgotten about until the next conference. We have had a series of well-informed Commissions and parliamentary select committees, all reaching roughly the same conclusions, only to be ignored by Ministers, who instead have taken up the half-baked ideological driven nonsense of so-called think tanks such as Policy Exchange.
Spending four years arguing about Brexit has been an unhelpful diversion, as has been the factionalism of the last few years, when arguing for more council housing, and keeping the housing we had, became seen as the preserve of the adherents of Jeremy Corbyn.
The Labour Housing Group has recently become more active. A few years ago, Steve instigated a London branch of LHG, which has sought to disseminate socialist policies for housing in the capital. Steve recently interviewed shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds for an LHG webinar. Housing, like education and the health service, should be a key issue for all progressives and socialists, irrespective of tendency.
Not only is decent housing central to our belief in there right of everybody to a decent quality of life, but it cannot be treated as a specialist subject, and we need to continue to argue that policies on taxation, planning and land are absolutely central to making both existing and new homes affordable by lower and middle- income households.
My best wishes to Steve in his retirement (or at least his retirement from blogging) and thanks to the comrades who have taken over responsibility for Red Brick. While Red Brick has always has had a link to the Labour Housing Group, a more formal relationship is welcome and contribute to the most welcome revival of the organisation and hopefully a reassertion of its critical role both within the Labour Party and beyond.
‘The Return of Squalor’ An anthology from the first ten years of Red Brick Blog is available to buy from Amazon from £6.99 on Kindle and £9.99 on Paperback. Any royalties will be donated to the Labour Housing Group.
Duncan Bowie
Duncan Bowie is a semi-retired academic and strategic planner who has written a number of books on housing and planning.
He is a long-term member of the Labour Housing Group.
If social care reform was a priority before Covid-19 hitting, then the pandemic has only heightened the urgent need for a new settlement. Of course, finding a funding solution is vital. The Health and Social Care Select Committee noted as much in their recommendation last week for an additional £7bn for social care, just as a “starting point” that would not address unmet care needs nor improve access to care. But funding alone will not transform our social care system in a way that meets the needs of an ageing population – no matter how much is spent.
That is because as well as deciding how social care is funded, we need to reflect on where social care is delivered. Currently, there are basically two choices in the UK: care at home or a care home. Both of these options are vital ones that will without question continue to play a key role in the provision of social care. Firstly, many people want to stay living in their own home for as long as possible for the independence that it brings, and so good-quality homecare is pivotal. And secondly, many people in the last few years of their life need a level of care that requires moving into a care home where they can receive 24/7 support.
But having these as the only care options for older people means we just cover both ends of what should be a wide and diverse spectrum. If an older person starts to consider whether the family home they have lived in for years is still right for them, and wants to move somewhere with a little more support and, if needed later down the line, care, should their only alternative really just be a care home?
Thankfully, other choices are starting to emerge in the form of “housing-with-care”. This middle option stands between care at home and care homes. It offers independence through older people renting or owning their own flat, while having 24/7 staff on site, the option of CQC-regulated social care if needed, and a wide range of communal services and facilities, from restaurants and bars through to gyms and activity rooms. It is often integrated with the wider area, attracting people of all ages to enjoy activities and events at what becomes a community hub.
The limited amount of housing-with-care in the UK has already shown itself to encourage an active, socially connected lifestyle and improve the health and wellbeing of residents – which reduces the need for GP and hospital visits and takes pressure off the NHS.
But “limited” really is the word when it comes to current housing-with-care provision. Compared to more than 450,000 care home beds, there are just 70,000 housing-with-care units. This means only 0.6% of over-65s have the opportunity to live in housing-with-care in the UK, whereas in countries like New Zealand, Australia and the US, the figure is at least 5-6%. That’s despite growing demand in the UK, and increasingly long waiting lists. Popularity is also rising among UK politicians, with 18 MPs and Peers signed up as official Parliamentary supporters for housing-with-care, and Labour’s Shadow Minister for Social Care, Liz Kendall MP, understood to be interested and supportive.
The key question for policymakers is: if funding alone is not going to transform social care in the way needed, what is? What policies will enable a greater diversity of social care settings to evolve, so that older people no longer have to choose between two extremes? Some key steps include clearly defining housing-with-care in the UK planning system (it is currently non-existent) so that it is easier to build, and introducing stronger consumer protection regulation for the sector. Work must also be done to ensure housing-with-care is affordable for all: two-thirds of current supply is affordable extra care, and this should be built upon.
But answering the policy question fully will require different Government departments to collaborate. Housing-with-care cuts across different departments: health and care integration likes with the Department of Health and Social Care, planning policy with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and consumer protection with the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. The best solution is a new Housing-with-Care Task Force that cements cross-government working to recommend the most appropriate policy changes.
None of this is to say that with an expanded sector everyone will want to live in housing-with-care. Just look at New Zealand, celebrated as a world leader in housing-with-care: still just 5.5% of over-65s live in this setting. Most older people will continue wanting to live in their own homes for as long as possible, which is why adaptations to make existing homes more age-friendly, and building more new homes fit for all ages, is vital. Care homes will always have an important place for those with high-level needs in the last years of life.
Increasing the diversity of our social care system is about complementing existing options. It is about giving older people more choice. While solving the social care funding crisis is crucial, we must also pay urgent attention to where social care is delivered. The Government can ensure a brighter future for older people if it acts now.
Sam Dalton
Sam is a policy and public affairs professional with expertise in housing, social care, social connection and loneliness. He works for the representative body for housing-with-care operators in the UK, ARCO, and previously led an inquiry on strengthening ties between young and old with the parliamentary group on social integration.
Sam has written for The Fabian Society and Left Foot Forward, as well as think tanks, social ventures and charities.
For a significant number of young and low-income people housing affordability is getting worse. Housing affordability, or the lack thereof, is a concept widely understood by those living in the United Kingdom. Or is it?
On 8th July 2020, a ground-breaking new book was published by Bristol University Press. ‘Understanding Affordability: The Economics of Housing Markets’, by Professor Geoffrey Meen (Reading University) and Professor Christine Whitehead (LSE). The book sets out to unpick the complex forces exacerbating the endemic unaffordability of UK Housing. Thankfully, it offers insight and recommendations to improve our country’s dire situation.
Using ‘price-to-earning’ ratios and ‘housing expenditure’ indicators are not the right approach
When discussing housing affordability we often use ‘price-to-earnings’ ratios. Although questions remain about whether this metric is even at all suitable. This is because affordable ‘for whom’ is a question consisting of several interrelated elements, which beyond price should include physical adequacy and overcrowding.
Some argue that using such metrics will not produce any significant improvement in affordability. This is primarily because social norms and demand-side behaviours we find play a crucial role in price determination. We must recognise demand remains a key factor in determining housing affordability.
Meen and Whitehead argue that looking at expenditure indicators alone can be highly misleading. Affordability concepts have their roots in 19th century studies of household budgets. For example, at the turn of the century the USA used the 25 per cent rule of thumb for affordability. This was based on one week’s pay for one week’s rent. Rules like this have informed both mortgage lending and housing policy alike.
More sophisticated approaches using the ‘Lorenz Curve’ tell us more about affordability
The book claims that more complex approaches recommended in academic literature have often been overlooked. This is particularly prevalent in housing policy arena and contemporary political discourse.
“We all know that this country does not have enough homes… the median house price in England is eight times higher than median gross annual earnings; in London, it is 12.3 times higher”
Minister for Housing, Christopher Pincher MP – March 2020
Source: Hansard
Price-to-earnings ratios sadly provide no information on the distribution of outcomes across household types and income levels. The authors are critical of how such flawed basic measures make it into planning policies. For this reason they say it is “worrying that it is still widely used”. Housing expenditure indicators such as rents and mortgage payments relative to incomes are also heavily criticised.
Ratios for example cannot distinguish between households with different income levels adequately. Are these metrics providing us with useful information to make meaningful policy recommendations? They suggest not. It is the distribution of incomes and wealth relative to the distribution of house prices that determines who can afford what. Not metrics that make use of averages such as the price-to-earnings ratio.
Research on affordability undertaken in the first chapter estimated affordability for First Time Buyers (FTBs). In it the authors based their research on variations of a ‘Lorenz Curve’. This approach uses a graphical distribution of the equality of affordability, which easily shows what proportion of FTBs can afford what proportion of housing stock. A quick look on Hansard results in not a single reference to such terminology in the past 10 years.
Measures of inequality still require closer attention despite painting a clearer picture
Research in the book suggests the use of a Gini coefficient to account for regional inequality. This is an index that measures inequality created by Italian statistician Corrado Gini. We can compare how distribution of income in a society compares with another if everyone earned the same amount. A Gini coefficient of zero means everybody is equal. If we measure a Gini coefficient of 1 it shows a single person earning all the income.
Despite being technically sound, using Gini coefficient’s is still criticised by some. Summer and Cobham argue that it does not adequately capture changes in the top 10% of the income distribution, nor the bottom 40%. In turn, due to the under sensitivity of the measure at the extremes, they consider the Palma ratio more suitable. For example, if the richest 10% have five times more income than that of the bottom 40% then the Palma ratio would be 5.
When undertaking a more rigorous analytical approach we find housing affordability issues persist across the country, even in the North East
The Gini coefficient in the South East is 0.70, thus displaying a high degree of inequality. In this region a household with a median income would be unable to afford to purchase a property without paying more than 30% of their income on housing costs. There are no surprises there, but it does highlight where housing affordability is most acute.
By comparison existing homeowners who wish to move, even those in the lower income ranges, could afford to move to higher value properties without paying more than 30%. Some people in this group are effectively able to make hay much easier than those without accumulated equity.
On this more complex indicator, the research shows that to afford a property in the first decile (lowest 10%) of property prices in the South East, you still would need to earn over the median income. The difference between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ is demonstrably clearer when using such methods.
Yet in the North East, where inequality is much lower considering its Gini coefficient of 0.30, there are still significant proportions of households who cannot afford to buy properties in the lowest decile. This means that after considering the full distribution of incomes, rather than just averages, affordability for FTBs is not just a problem for the South of England.
Forward thinking Local Authorities should be reflecting on these new affordability indicators to assess the distributional consequences of policy changes. A key takeaway is to recognise that housing affordability is not just a South of England phenomenon.
When determining housing policy we need to better understand demand-side factors
The book reflects international comparisons of the average annual growth in real house prices between 1970 to 2015. Over this period Germany had -0.3% growth in house prices while the UK had more than +3.5%. Yet looking at the comparison relative to wages suggests there is more than meets the eye. In this context house price growth in Germany was -1.9%, while in the UK +1.3%.
Since 1970, German housing stock growth relative to incomes has proven relatively constant, suggesting supply is less of an issue. We think this because even after factoring in incomes relative house prices were even lower. This is despite the rate of growth in housing stock remaining constant.
In the UK levels of growth in housing stock relative to incomes have fallen by around 1.5% per annum. This means wages have been outpacing growth in housing stock. From a fundamental economic standpoint, it is no wonder house price growth has been going one way. Clearly we must acknowledge that worsening affordability and rises in real prices in the UK relative to Germany are as much a result of demand-side factors, as it is a lack of supply.
The British psyche of wanting to own one’s own home may play a pivotal role in explaining why we may have had different house price growth to that found in Germany. Our willingness to spend more on housing costs as our incomes increase, perhaps to achieve social norms such as home ownership, is alluded to as an explanatory factor.
The nature of UK housing demand means prices respond quickly to growth in incomes
Low-interest rates can exacerbate housing market price volatility. But it does not explain the long-run trend of increasing price-to-earnings ratios. Historically the UK’s housing stock has grown at a slower rate than income. Professor Meen and Professor Whitehead argue that price-to-earnings ratios can only be constant over the long-run if household incomes grow at the same rate as growth in housing stock.
We must acknowledge that we have a stronger responsiveness to demand pressures in the UK, than in say Germany. Understanding this can help us deconstruct some of the price drivers behind making affordability worse. It is difficult to tackle the issue of affordability with supply alone when the demand impact from incomes is so strong. As a result the UK is prone to faster deterioration of affordability.
Understanding this is a key factors of the counterargument to Ian Mulheirn’s claim there is no housing shortage. Mulheirn’s own paper had a peer review by this book’s author, namely Professor Geoff Meen. In the peer review he explained that it is neither population nor the number of households that affects demand; rather demand needs backing by income to impact house prices.
Surprisingly, Ian’s claims still seem to be gaining traction, most recently by Stephen Bush, who has become “increasingly persuaded” by Mulheirn’s claim that supply has not contributed to the growth in price-to-earnings ratio since the 1990s.
Conventional wisdom is that rises in real house prices reflect a shortage of homes and that the current planning system plays a significant role. The book also demonstrates that increases in housing supply can improve affordability, but that changes need to be large and sustained to produce a noticeable effect. They also acknowledge that a general expansion in private supply does not necessarily filter down to those on low incomes.
The UK demand drivers see income growth translate into higher prices more readily
Fundamentally Meen and Whitehead argue that income growth (and its distribution) reflects demand, whereas housing stock reflects supply and is affected by conditions and policy in land markets. Meen and Whitehead reaffirm that in making such statements, demand must be backed up by income to influence house prices.
In the UK, the demand drivers see income growth translate into higher demand for housing services, which is more likely to translate into owner occupation. This is a sector where the quality of housing stock is generally higher than in the private rented sector.
The book does not deny the unassailable fact we need more funding for social housing. But also acknowledges the total supply of land for housing has been severely restricted. This has led to increased land values off the back of strong demand-determined increases in house price, exacerbated, of course, by easy credit. It is after all the trend which investors and developers have followed all along.
We need to re-calibrate the balance of concerns when discussing supply, demand, and characteristics of investment behaviour
Some have pointed to investor behaviour, low cost of capital, and attitudes of housing being an investment asset as causes of our problems. However, while there is no doubt these have contributed to the trends in price in recent years, research in the book demonstrates that this alone cannot account for the strong growth rate of 3.5% per annum since 1969.
We must accept that rising real house prices are not only a question of supply and investment demand but that it is also very much related to consumption demand.
To stress the point, the authors do not say that supply and investment characteristics are unimportant, rather that there has been a distortion of the balance of concerns. We cannot say it is just supply, or solely interest rates, which has led to this crisis of affordability. Thus, whenever we are framing the narrative, we must not forget to consider demand.
If we keep this in mind when looking to use more sophisticated ways of measuring affordability, while avoiding shallow rule-of-thumb metrics, we may be able to truly understand exactly who in our housing market is being failed by Government. Only then will we be able to devise policy to address it.
Chris Worrall
Editor of Red Brick. He currently works in land acquisition for Guild Living. Chris currently sits as a Non-Executive Director of Housing for Women and is a member of the Labour Housing Group Executive Committee.
Previously Investment and Finance Manager at both Quintain and Thor Equities. Chris has expertise in developing new residential investment strategies, real estate development finance, and the investment and development of affordable housing. He writes in a personal capacity.
Rochdale council, along with nine other councils that make up Greater Manchester, has embarked on an ambitious strategy to plan the future development needs of the whole city region. It is not without its problems and controversies, but Faisal says that is nothing to the devastating impact the Government’s Planning White Paper will have on all our local communities.
Rochdale is part of Greater Manchester, a conurbation of more than three million people. Civic leaders there are grappling with the hugely complicated problem of deciding how many new homes we need to build to meet future demand, and even more controversial, where to build them.
The fancy name of the Greater Manchester Spatial Strategy (GMSF) aims to set out our housing and industry needs for the next 20 years. Our local leaders have been debating and postponing the issue for what seems like an age. Looking that far ahead seems more akin to crystal ball gazing rather than detailed planning calculations and projections.
Debate has led to several “Save Our Greenbelt” campaigns: residents worried about the bulldozers tearing up their local countryside walks, green spaces, and beauty spots. I say good luck to them. There is nothing more worrying than the matter being left to planning officers and housing developers carving up Greater Manchester’s planning map.
Who else will speak up for our precious green belt but those who enjoy and value it? Tens of thousands have made their views known through public consultations – and we are to have yet another round starting this Autumn.
But there is one thing that should worry every single resident of Greater Manchester, never mind every environmental campaigner, that will have a huge impact on future planning decisions for years to come.
Government recently published a planning white paper which proposes reform of the planning system in England. The proposals will see councils lose control of important planning decisions.
The Bill says it would “streamline” the planning process, cut red tape and make it easier to get new homes for local communities built. But, in fact, it would lead to developments going ahead without any proper public scrutiny and against the wishes of local people.
The Government’s plans mean that areas would be earmarked for development and then there would be no need for planning permission to be granted by local councils. What is worse, it will be using algorithms to decide how many and where up to 300,000 new homes a year will be built. We all know how successful these computer-led diktats were in setting A-level results.
It will result in little control over developments, overriding local knowledge and circumstances, with local people having no say over developments. The Government has also stated that developments of 50 homes or less would not have to provide any affordable housing. I have been a local Councillor for a long time, and I do not ever recall ever reading a Government report which has annoyed and terrified me more than this one.
Local communities deserve the power to run its own planning system. Planning committees should not be threatened with having its powers taken away. There has been a huge amount of criticism of these draconian proposals all over the country, but the Government is not listening. They want to help their developer friends by sweeping away the local restrictions that keep them under some control.
No parcel of land will be safe from the threat of development, and with fewer affordable homes, many will be too expensive for local families. The Housing Minister Christopher Pincher publicly confirmed that he is looking to loosen restrictions in planning law, to make it easier to push through housing schemes.
And the Prime Minister meanwhile has stated he will be bringing forward the ‘most radical reforms of our planning system since the end of the Second World War. The planning system already favours the developers over communities, and any further loosening of planning laws would be a disaster for towns and cities right across the country.
At the root of all this is local democracy. Local communities and their elected councillors should have the ability to make their own decisions based on local needs. What happens in our local planning committees is extremely important and should be vigorously defended. I will be continuing to campaign for greater local control and I hope our Green Belt campaigners will be doing the same.
People must have the opportunity to make their views known loud and clear, however uncomfortable it is for politicians, whether in the town hall or Whitehall. You have the ultimate power to turn us out. You cannot do that with faceless civil servants and planning inspectors who will be running the show in the future. Not to mention their dreaded computer programmes.
Faisal Rana
Faisal Rana is a local councillor in Rochdale and sits on the planning committee.
