[A-List] We're not facing up to the real housing crisis

[Bill Totten <shimogamo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

by Mark Lynas

New Statesman (July 02 2007)


If we don't limit the growth in population in this country, then we
cannot hope to limit the impact of urban overcrowding and rural
overdevelopment

Gordon Brown's announcement that the housing minister will now sit in
the cabinet demonstrates that he sees addressing the severe shortage of
homes as central to future government policy. This is seen as such an
unambiguously good thing that anyone who expresses doubts about
unrestricted house-building is obviously a nimby.

This was particularly illustrated by housing minister Yvette Cooper's
cheap shots against "Tory reactionaries" in last week's New Statesman,
and her demand that everyone "join the consensus for more homes".

But should we? Thanks to the latest "Strategic Housing Land Availability
Assessment", for example, Oxford stands to lose 177 acres of green space
in the coming fifteen years. Golf courses, playing fields, allotments
(my own included), green belt and the wonderful Warneford Meadow are all
to be sacrificed on the altar of housebuilding.

Oxford is not alone - the accelerated destruction of green space for
housing is a process that is underway right across the British Isles.
Worst-affected is the overheated south-east of England, but Scotland,
too, will suffer. The new SNP government in Edinburgh is to set up a
task force to review planning laws in order to allow tens of thousands
of extra homes to be built over the next decade. Green-belt land is
being reviewed.

The impetus for this avalanche of bricks and mortar is coming not from
anonymous market trends but by government diktat. In England,
Westminster is demanding that regional assemblies deliver "spatial
strategies", including vast quantitites of new housing, plans that are
in turn imposed on local councils by these unelected and largely unknown
bodies.

The government argues that vast numbers of new houses are needed in
order to rein in house prices and make homes affordable for first-time
buyers. But the truth is that construction of new social housing has
collapsed in recent years - the vast majority of new building is at the
high-price end of the market. Council planners reserve social housing as
a political bargaining chip for controversial proposals - a stick to
wield against "nimbies" who object to particularly destructive
development on meadows and rare marshlands.

Moreover, strong evidence suggests that simply increasing the supply of
housing will have little effect on overall house prices. As the Council
for the Protection of Rural England points out, the United States,
Australia and the Republic of Ireland have all seen strong house-price
inflation, despite looser planning systems and higher rates of building.

Factors such as rising economic growth, relatively low interest rates
and the surge in the buy-to-let and second-homes markets are also
important in affecting demand, along with long- term trends such as
decreasing household size, increased longevity and rising population.

Government policy on housing follows the predict-and-provide model that
has failed for roads and airports, where increasing supply only
stimulates yet more insatiable demand in a worsening cycle. England is
already the fourth-most densely populated country in the world and the
most built-up country in Europe. The south-east in particular is so
overdeveloped that further economic growth can only destroy quality of
life for those unlucky enough to live there. It is insane for councils
to be forced to give up scarce allotment land to make way for executive
housing at a time when we are being urged to grow more food locally.
Commitments to biodiversity protection and recreational green space are
worthless for as long as the Home Builders Federation continues to
dictate government policy.

More controversial issues need to be put back on the agenda. By almost
any measure, the UK - and England in particular - is seriously
overpopulated. According to the Optimum Population Trust, our numbers
are growing by more than 320,000 a year. Addressing this doesn't mean
forced sterilisations or a Chinese-style, one-child policy, but it does
mean giving incentives for people to have smaller families and
addressing rising levels of immigration.

This last issue is understandably one which mainstream political parties
- and environmentalists - are shy of addressing.

However, the logic is inescapable - if we don't limit the growth in
population in this country, then we cannot hope to limit the impact of
urban overcrowding and rural overdevelopment. As the old equation
states: consumption multiplied by population equals impact. This is
difficult political territory, but we need to enter it.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200707020019


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