01
Jul
Why housing is one of the big election issues
Housing is one of the big issues at this general election. The UK is lacking an estimated four million homes or more, and in their absence, ever more young people are living with their parents long after they enter the workforce, millions are renting unsuitable properties, and child homelessness has reached record levels, according to housing charity Shelter.
In response to the crisis, all the main political parties have plans, so how do they measure up?
The Conservatives have long had a target of building 300,000 homes per year, but even though they have never hit it, in their latest manifesto, launched last month, they have upped the pace, pledging to build 1.6 million new homes within five years. They also want to protect the greenbelt, focusing on brownfield sites.
Labour have stuck with the 300,000 homes per year figure. They also say they want to overhaul planning laws to give local authorities more say in what is built, and where, and they would give "first dibs to first-time buyers".
The party has also found a largely untapped source of building land: brownfield sites which, because of their location, are still classed as greenbelt. Labour has rebranded these sites, which include abandoned industrial developments, the “grey belt” and says they are ripe for redevelopment.
The Liberal Democrats have committed to building 380,000 homes a year, including 150,000 for social rent. They also want to build 10 new garden cities, end land-banking by housebuilders, and give local authorities new powers to control and manage second homes and holiday lets.
The Green Party also supports large-scale housebuilding, as well as rent controls and policies that allow councils to requisition vacant or poorly insulated properties.
Reform UK also want to build their way out of the crisis, as well as introducing fast-track planning and tax incentives for the development of brownfield sites. They also say that foreign nationals should “go to the back of the queue” for social housing.
In our part of North Yorkshire, housing is no less an important issue than it is anywhere else – thousands of new homes are in the pipeline across the district, but concerns have been raised by many about the lack of infrastructure to service the new estates.
Rene Dziabas, chair of Harlow and Pannal Ash Residents’ Association (Hapara), said:
There’s a common thread coming through nationally about infrastructure. West Harrogate, where 4,000 new homes are planned, is a microcosm of a national problem.
So what we have is a bit of a mess – you've agreed the number of homes, but not all the other issues, so there are delays in actually building them.
Making matters worse is the chronic lack of skills – it's really hard to find an electrician, or a plumber, or a plasterer. You can argue the rights and wrongs of Brexit, but it hasn’t really helped in that respect.
So, it’s a mix of things – a whole bucketload of factors.
According to Sarah Hart, any incoming government needs to be more imaginative in its approach to housing. She is chair of Harrogate Community Land Trust, which aims to provide sustainable, affordable housing. She said:
All the parties seem to be obsessed with home ownership, but most people just want a secure home, and there are other ways to do that.
There are various kinds of community-led housing which can ensure new properties are affordable, and remain affordable, for example through asset-locking. The government should be looking at things like co-housing projects and cooperative housing, which is tenanted by its owners.
She said that North Yorkshire Council had a particularly bad record for this kind of development, and compared it unfavourably with York. She said:
We need one- and two-bed homes for people to downsize into, and a lot more affordable homes. City of York Council is proposing to build 100% affordable housing on council land, and they’re even trying to build the homes to Passivhaus standards, which is very ambitious. So it can be done.
One way of making new houses cheaper for buyers is to offer self-build opportunities. These are often seen as desirable for the individual because they are bespoke and cost less to build than to buy, and for the community as well, because they tend to diversify the housing stock.
Russ Thornton, project director at Harrogate-based Townscape Architects Limited, thinks they could help ease the crisis. He said:
It's clear that we have a large problem with the current UK housing crisis. Many of the political parties are suggesting changes to the planning system to allow more people to build their own house.
We believe that this would be an effective solution to help create the number of new houses we need and would allow people to build and live in their dream house that is individually tailored to their needs and tastes.
This would be much better than the alternative that the market currently offers: cookie-cutter houses built by mass home-builders that are built to make a profit rather than for the people living in them.
But Sarah Hart is damning of the council’s record on self-build. She said:
North Yorkshire Council is notorious. They’ve done a very messy job on the self-build register, and they charge people to be on it, unlike City of York Council, which even has a self-build officer.
She said the sector needed less of a top-down approach to the housing crisis, and more of a bottom-up approach. She said:
The government and council need to listen to people more. They need to give agency to the community.
There are lots of solutions out there – it's just a matter of whether the council wants to do any of them. They have the power to be brave.
0