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Green Belt and the Housing Challenge
By Andy | August 15, 2007
I suppose that - at least - the recent social Market Foundation report into house building and the green belt is a reflection of a growing debate about housing, but this was a contribution that in truth offers very little.
The report claims that the government will not meet its housing targets without having to re-define the notion of the greenbelt. It has been quickly rounded on by others who’ve pointed out that the SMF has completely ignored the reality of brownfield. Brownfield sites are not ’set’. New brownfield sites are being released all of the time.
The central idea being peddled by the Foundation is one that private sector developers, and economic developers in local government, have talked a lot about for a while now. They argue that in many ways the green belt is arbitrary, that it includes a lot of poor land that should be used for development. There should be the flexibility to develop such sites while also providing better quality green space elsewhere. They may have a point but in my experience the secondary green/leisure development is rarely successful and is in no way comparable to what has been lost.
There is a real worry about those concerned with housing, that the government’s policies are all about development rather than housing need. Developers, of course, want access to clean sites that are easy to develop and attractive to potential customers. It seems to me, though, that the issues raised by the Foundation - and the focus on the developer world - simply make the case for more government intervention.
Here are some things to think about.
Firstly, we are not building anywhere near enough family housing. In our cities the private sector are quite happy chucking up development after development of city centre 1 and 2 bedroom studios. But an analysis of real social need should focus our minds on family housing, needed on a large scale by some of our poorer communities. Here the social sector - and government - simply have to provide a lead.
Secondly, it seems to me that the flight out of the city continues. As I look around the Midlands I see the development of more and more edge-of town estates. Personal choice still seems to suggest that all of us want to own cars and to live further from the city centre. This is unsustainable and it is surely time for a proper package of measures that provide real incentives for people to look at city sites - and I mean measures aimed at the middle classes and not simply those who live already in the inner city.
Thirdly, in many of our big cities we have a massive problem of decaying private sector property. Much of this is the kind of family housing that I was thinking about. In the 70’s and 80’s urban renewal programmes were very successful in improving the quality of this stock. Thatcher killed off these programmes and - overall - Labour has not restored them.
Fourthly, our northern cities are still de-populating. Encouraging people to stay means greater economic opportunity and probably greater social amenity.
Much of the current thinking on housing supply - and housing policy - is based on the needs of the South East. London continues to grow. Middle class families look to move out of the core of the city and it is this ‘market’ that developers are so keen to cash in on (and why the green belt is such a nuisance). But as the SE economy soars away London (as ever) needs to develop social housing to the East in order to support key workers of the migrants that keep the economic infrastructure afloat.
The argument of the pro development group seems to be that we have to cater for London’s growth because it’s momentum makes it un-stoppable.
All of this is completely un-sustainable in the medium and longer term. What kind of place is the South East to become?
This autumn will be fascinating for the Climate Change Bill will make its way through Parliament. Environmental pressure groups will concentrate all of their activities on ensuring that the Bill is as strong as possible and not as week as the developer world would like. Local and backbench MPs are likely to come under real pressure not to buckle under the demands of big business and the financial economy.
Housing needs to be a real priority. But addressing housing needs cannot be done in isolation from the real economy. The challenge for the government, and for left of centre politicians, is that the markets alone will not address sustainability, indeed they will work against it.
I’m glad I’m not a housing minister or someone responsible for region al development. But we need all our instruments of government to make our cities more attractive as places to live. Yes this means better cultural and leisure facilities, and all of that. But it also means real fiscal and taxation policies that provide a real financial incentive to live sustainably - and this means living in the city.
For many of us it should simply not be an option to consider moving to green field-ish sites.
Technorati Tags: Andy Howell, Housing, political futures
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August 19th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Wise, wise words - and interesting coming from someone with an orientation towards the big city environment.
It is not only ‘living in the city’ that needs to be emphasised but creating sustainable small towns around the big cities instead of ever-extending suburbias in the American way. The green lands between them are not only necessary lungs but the strategic offer of enough basic farmland so survive a serious disruption to national supply lines in a major economic crisis. When 4 billion people demand our standards of nutrition and don’t need our ‘global’ services, watch us fight like rats for the scraps.
A town like Tunbridge Wells (say) is collapsing at its heart in terms of sustainable infrastructure as developers concentrate on commuter flats (many for investment rather than use) and new retail developments that ’slash and burn’ existing retail centres. The family homes are pushed out into the green fields where they are beyond the economic reach of all except the commuters. Social housing is not merely neglected but replaced by the private sector buy-to-let phenomenon.
‘Buy-to-let’ represents the most egregious failure of policy yet as a classic case of free market ideology that fails to deliver quality but only a spurious quantity. The conversion of inner city family homes into tiny flatlets works for the cheaper wage migrant workers necessary to keep otherwise small retailers and national chains churning over until the internet wipes them out, but the actual housing quality is poor (often one step up from Rachmanist), the ‘buy-to-let’ sharks free ride off a strained infrastructure and not only migrants arrive but City boroughs and suburbs export their anti-social problems into the new accomodation.
The collapse of English mid-sized towns is almost inevitable under such circumstances. The hinterland is middle class and wants low rates. The population growth can double, treble or more the use of infrastructure (such as when three of four households demand parking and refuse collection in areas structured for one), the commercial service sector that provides the business rate places a sinister block on any improvement to locality that threatens the flow of transient traffic, the middle class moves out, the ‘under class’ moves in, crime and disorder increase (not helped by lax drinking and other laws designed to benefit the business sector) and the result is the American-style slum - only the Americans are sorting things out as we go down the tubes.
There were benefits to the Thatcher Revolution - only a fool or an ideologue would not see that British society had got sclerotic - but now sclerosis has been replaced by anarchy. Your point is that development is being replaced by planning. Developers and retail are in cahoots with cash-strapped democratically unaccountable and (indeed) sclerotic local Councils in a conspiracy against the community which has been allowed to happen because of a highly spurious theory of economic development that has concentrated resources in cash mountains looking for quick returns. There are no quick returns on infrastructural development or social cohesion and we wonder why our energy expenditures continue to rise and crime and disorder has got to the point where killings within the community over anti-social behaviour are emerging as the rule rather than the exception and extending (as in Manchester) out of traditionally violent zones.
The next stage? The next stage is the politicisation of dissent as organised gangsterdom fills the gap left by Government with local predators claiming to supply basic requirements (though not infrastructual requirements) and demanding loyalty in return. Anti-social noise, for example, is abandoned as a major issue in inner towns (unlike inner cities) for reasons of convenience and cost. The police do not even turn out for a theft. Eventually people will turn to those who can help for a fee …
… but I am used to predicting and being ignored. Goes with the territory of NOT having power