The numbers of houses we build are important. Because the population is increasing and households are on average getting smaller there is a genuine need for new housing. The Government claims we need 3 million homes nationally by 2020 but we believe their assessment, which is based on uncertain premises, could well be too high. The growth in the number of households depends on a wide range of economic, social and demographic factors which cannot be accurately predicted over a fifteen to twenty year period. We believe it is sensible to plan for new dwellings we know we will need rather than ones we might need.
The danger of allocating too much housing through the planning process is that local authorities are forced to release green field land for housing or allow building on other environmentally undesirable sites, such as urban open space or back gardens. Once such housing is allocated the market will tend to favour those sites over urban regeneration projects.
This not only damages the environment, it increases commuting and congestion and undermines urban regeneration, leading to an increase in social polarisation, with rising deprivation in urban areas and loss of countryside in rural areas.
There is little evidence that building more dwellings makes housing more affordable given the strength of demand-side factors, such as the buy-to-let market and the major banks’ lending policies. Our report ‘Planning for Housing Affordability’ explains this in more details.
The Regional Spatial Strategy review is examining housing. The Regional Assembly proposed providing 365,600 extra dwellings in the next twenty years. West Midlands CPRE believes a figure of about 285,000 would strike an appropriate balance between meeting genuine need and other important objectives such as urban regeneration and environmental protection.
The Government commissioned its own consultancy work (by Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners) to recommend ways of distributing even higher housing numbers across the region. They identified three scenarios, ranging from 417,100 to 445,600 extra dwellings. They recommended huge increases in house building in particular areas, including many Shire Towns already earmarked for high housing growth.
We have expressed very strong criticisms of the Nathaniel Lichfield Report.
The Panel examining the Regional Spatial Strategy have now recommended a figure of 397,900 new homes in their report and we await the Government’s response.
We are concerned that such a level of development would be disastrous for the West Midlands especially without strong policies to ensure housing is built where it is most needed, on derelict and other vacant sites inside our major towns and cities.
It would lead to large-scale extensions to places like Coventry and Worcester. Many other towns would grow outwards into the surrounding countryside. This would decimate the Green Belt which is supposed to protect those areas.
The current housing crisis and economic downturn only exacerbates the problem. While it makes it unlikely that housing on the scale envisaged could be built by 2026 it also gives house builders greater incentives to build houses where it is cheapest and where the chances of selling are highest. This biases house building even further towards the Shire Counties and away from the major urban areas with the highest needs.
27.11.09
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