Where there is a will there is a way

I am finishing this blog at the start because as I dot the i’s and cross the t’s on something that I have been cogitating over for the last week or so the Prime Minister has today empathised that building 1.5 million homes before the end of the parliament is a key part of the Government’s ‘plan for change’.

To that end, building 1.5 million homes I mean, I have read a few bits and pieces recently that lead one to wonder whether the obstacles to doing so are systemic, and so can be legislated or mandated away, or are perhaps more deep-seated than that.

Many in the housing sector are hard-wired to oppose new owner-occupier housing or housebuilders themselves. The reasons are endless – design quality, landbanking, ecology, sprawl, profit, water, nutrients, heritage, traffic, doctor’s capacity, sufficient permissions already, etc, etc.

So wrote Philip Barnes in a recent blog, within which Mr Barnes seeks to draw a line between Trapped, Daniel Hewitt’s podcast on the housing emergency for ITV, and data from SEC Newgate’s National Planning Barometer suggesting that only 22% of local councillors believe that there is a need to build market housing in their area.

Mr Barnes’ point about a bias against new owner-occupier housing or housebuilders themselves is something that, as I say, has occurred to me three times over the past few weeks.

The first manifestation of this was in relation to the stance adopted by Government agencies in relation to nutrient neutrality. As noted in this Guardian article, intensive poultry farming has been blamed for devastating the River Wye, a site of special scientific interest, to the extent that it’s ecological status was downgraded by Natural England last year from “unfavourable – recovering” to “unfavourable – declining”. Despite this, the Environment Agency has reportedly never refused a permit for an Industrial Poultry Unit in the Shropshire. 

Whilst all that is going on in one part of Shropshire, in another, and prior to the recent suspension of examination hearings, Natural England and the Environment Agency objected earlier in the year to Shropshire Council’s proposed allocations in the River Clun catchment because the River Clun Special Area of Conservation is 'so far above its water quality targets that adding houses in the area could make the problem worse'. Natural England requested that a 'restoration plan' be in place for the river before housing development can take place.

The latent sentiment appears to be that for as long as farmers (and water companies for that matter) can act with what looks like near impunity then we should not be building any houses.

The second manifestation of this was in reporting, by the RTPI itself, of it’s ‘Location of Development 4’ report, which states that ‘new housing fails to move away from car dependency’. ‘New housing developments remain car-dependent, with minimal improvement in access to essential services by walking, cycling, or public transport.’

The Guardian reported that, “on average, across all the developments studied, it was twice as fast to reach the nearest hospital by car than public transport." This inconsistency surely though applies everywhere? To old homes and new?

The Guardian further reported that, “while major housing developments are supposed to be designed around transport infrastructure, this has not happened.” What if though, in accordance with the NPPF, non-car transport is being prioritised, but transport infrastructure is not being designed around major housing development?

The latent sentiment appears to be that for as long as people do not have to travel by car (even though they might want and need to) we should not be building any houses.

The third manifestation of this was Nicholas Boys Smith’s tale of the creation and the closure of the Office for Place. Within it is the assertion that “two-thirds of people would never consider buying a newly built home.” I have asked The Critic, which has published the piece, and Mr Boys Smith himself, for the evidence of that, but have not received a reply from either party at the time of writing.

Two-thirds of people would never consider buying a newly built home? Really? Your flat has been on the market for over a year, you have a baby on the way, you have finally had an offer, and the only house on the market within both your travel-to-work area and your budget is a new build one that you would not even consider buying? Who, apart from people employing the services of Kirsty and Phil, actually get a choice as to where to live? A lucky few, it might be contended.

Mr Boys Smith also states that “pricing data consistently says that most of us will pay a premium to live in old homes and neighbourhoods rather than new ones.” “We are so inured to the obvious fact that most old places are better and less ugly than most new ones that we have ceased to find it surprising.”

A premium is, of course, a price paid above and beyond something’s basic or intrinsic value. A lucky, privileged few indeed.

The use of the word “better” was also striking because at around the same time that I came across Mr Boys Smith’s piece I also came across an article by David Aaronovitch about the 'mythologised communities of London's past’.

“We’re living through a moment of almost crippling intellectual pessimism. On both the right and the left, everywhere is better than here, and any time is better than now”, is Aaronovitch’s opening salvo.

The article is about Family and Kinship in East London, which is a study of the effects of slum clearance on the people of a small area of the East London neighbourhood of Bethnal Green in the mid 1950s and was based on interviews with both those left behind and those who had moved to a new housing estate in Debden, Essex.

Aaronovitch contrasts the pathologised conclusion arrived at the time, which is that while it might seem superficially attractive to move out to live in a new home these material gains come at the expense of close and intimate community, with the conclusion arrived at upon later inspection, which is that close communities come with their own costs that many people are reluctant to pay.

The key point though is that “the urge to move to a better place is as “natural” as the desire to remain close to your roots – but one is mythologised these days, and the other is denigrated.”

I may be wrong (it has been known…), and this is by no means an accusation that I am levelling at Mr Boys Smith himself, but the lofty assertion that ‘people would never consider buying a newly built home’ speaks to kind of snobbery against those that do (and remember that despite what @PlanningShit may post 90% of them would ‘recommend their builder to a friend’) by those lucky, privileged few that might never need to.

The latent sentiment appears to be that for as long as we are not building houses like we did in the good ol’ days we should not be building any houses.

Is there a proverbial golden thread that runs through of all of that lot? I would contend that there might just be. The below, which is instructive, is from a YouGov poll taken todat after the Prime Minister's speech.

On one hand there is only a single reason to build houses, which, as my friend Paul Smith says, is that they are a social good in their own right.

On the other hand, there are lots of reasons to not build houses. 

Ultimately though, where there is a will there is a way and if there is not a will then we really do need to ask ourselves why.