Show and tell

Spring 2005 has generated the familiar crop of contradictory claims about the housing market. Shelter and the CBI came together in mid-May to castigate the government for not doing enough to increase housing output and implement Kate Barker’s recommendations. A month earlier the Institute for Public Policy Research poured a bucket of cold water over the Barker findings and questioned the value of increased housebuilding targets. Then the general election campaign brought forth a bumper crop of horror stories implying that the whole of south-east England was about to disappear under concrete.

So who is one to believe in all this? Making allowances for the inevitable spin and exaggeration created by the presence of vested interests, is it possible to chart a credible course through the morass of conflicting evidence?

Barker had, of course, gone further than most in seeking to establish some intellectually firm ground on which to base policy recommendations. But, as the IPPR response has shown, it is fiendishly difficult to achieve. Two of the key issues she examined – the planning system and the balance of supply and demand – illustrate the problem.

Disproportionate house price inflation in post-war Britain compared with most other European countries has unquestionably been created by continuing shortages of supply. But the relationship is neither simple nor clear-cut. House price fluctuations over the past 20 years have shown little correlation with patterns of supply, nationally or regionally. In the short term, even relatively substantial increases in output are unlikely to have a noticeable impact on prices. Indeed the increase in housebuilding necessary – according to Barker – to make an impact on prices in the South-east provides easy ammunition to those groups eager to highlight the threat of “concreting over the Countryside”.

That takes us to the planning system. Yes, there is scope to speed up the process and to raise the calibre of local authority planning departments. To its credit, the government has been pressing forward on these issues. Yet in a democratic society where people do have genuine and deeply held views about their environment there will inevitably be tensions and conflicts which cannot simply be wished away. We should never forget that when local authority officers or councillors put what may appear to be unreasonable obstacles in the path of a housing scheme, they may well be doing exactly what their local electors want them to do.

These are real problems which help to explain why it is so hard to reach a consensus on housebuilding needs, but they should not lead us inexorably to despair. There are, I believe, a number of encouraging straws in the wind. The experience of my constituency, Greenwich and Woolwich, is instructive.

The election campaign brought forth a crop of horror stories implying that the whole of south-east England was about to disappear under concrete

While we have not been immune to planning disputes (in 2003 I received more letters of protest about a local housing scheme than about the Iraq war), we also have a huge housebuilding and regeneration programme under way. The Greenwich Peninsula, the Woolwich Arsenal and the Ferrier Estate in Kidbrooke are all sites where major schemes are going to transform the area for the better.

These are all overwhelmingly brownfield sites, and will involve significantly higher densities than before so helping to maximise the use of land. Affordable housing, providing opportunities for rent and shared ownership, is well integrated into each development. Design and environmental standards are high and stretching.

This is not to say that these developments have been problem-free (readers of Building will be familiar with noise transmission issues relating to one part of the Millennium Village). However they do point to a way in which it is possible to raise standards and win public support for new development. Nor are they unique. Most parts of the country have their exemplars of high quality developments full well designed homes.

The lesson that I draw from this is that we need to be more active in celebrating our successes, and demonstrating that new housing is not just necessary but can be a real enhancement to the environment. This is how to win the argument. Simply returning to the sterile trench warfare of the past is not the way to go.