Beware the housing targets
ONE and a half million new homes —that’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s target. Country people should beware. Her key advisers, Sir Michael Lyons and Dame Kate Barker, are essentially urban figures and this issue must not be left to those whose priorities and experience have little to do with the countryside. In turn, countrymen need to provide an informed response to the challenge and that begins with a recognition of the problem.
For years, housing demand has outpaced provision. Property ownership is out of the reach of an increasing number of young people who don’t have access to the bank of mum and dad—few have a chance to buy. With rents reaching record levels,
forcend homelessness is on the rise and many are to live in damp and crowded accommodation because they are priced out of any alternative.
The 2021 census shows the UK population grew by 3.5 million since 2011 and not only because of two million immigrants—there were 1.5 million more births than deaths. We are living longer and staying in our homes longer. At the other end of the scale, nearly half of young people go to university, as opposed to 20% 30 years ago. Many of them leave home and expect to live in separate accommodation, which means there are 620,000 students living in flats or commercially funded student hostels —a 33% increase in the past five years— often taking up places that otherwise would be available for wider rental. Once students leave home, they continue to live separately from their families, the result being empty nests all over the country. Few home owners, however, let rooms on a permanent basis— Airbnb has taken over. Add to that 1.4 million vacant properties and a 170,000 increase in second homes and we begin to see the size of the problem the Government faces.
However, none of this means the issue should be solved by building badly designed boxes all over the countryside. We also have the factors of food security, environmental protection, biodiversity loss and climate change with which to contend. We must insist on a holistic and imaginative response. First, Ms Rayner must put ‘beauty’ back into her vocabulary. She purposely excised the word from the original version of her announcement on the 1.5 million homes. These houses must enhance their environment and be fit for the future—warm in winter and cool in summer, using little energy and water—and affordable to run, as well as to buy or rent.
The Government must impose these standards and country people, in their turn, will have to accept the need for well-designed new towns and not automatically oppose every suggested site. Parish councils should be encouraged to produce their own plans to show how they can accommodate a proper number of well-placed, well-designed new homes in a way that doesn’t overburden their community. This will give housing authorities a chance to promote suitable development instead of imposing housing inappropriately because locals say no to everything.
The Government must act more widely. It must provide the remediation necessary to ensure that brownfield sites in urban areas are developed first. It should make income from the letting of rooms in private homes on a permanent basis tax free and pay for it by heavily taxing permanently empty homes and by closing tax loopholes on holiday lets. It must encourage both the building of retirement accommodation, so people can easily downsize, and student hostels to release flats for family lets. It must tackle the underoccupation of social housing, Britain’s failure to encourage private investment in housing rental and the scandal of London homes that are empty bolt-holes for the rich resident abroad. Merely imposing housing targets is damaging and won’t work.
Ms Rayner must d put “beauty” back into her vocabulary. We must insist on a holistic response