Dover’s dark side

Terraced houses sprawl up the valley as far as the eye can see; they have paint peeling off their outside walls and jagged structural cracks. The front gardens aren’t much prettier: where they should have flowers, there are binbags full of debris, rotting tyres and even a kitchen sink.

And yet this isn’t a designated housing market renewal area in the Midlands or the North; these houses are in Dover, in the most affluent region in England, the place where average incomes are highest and there are more people in full-time jobs than anywhere else in the country: the South-east. Hidden within this region of growth areas and large-scale investment there are pockets of social and economic deprivation and in towns such as Folkestone, Margate and Hastings nearly half the wards are among the 10% most deprived in the country.

There are grumblings locally that the ODPM’s growth areas – for example, Ashford in Kent – have swallowed up all the investment in the region, and that other towns are left floundering in their wake with no hope of funding for regneration.

But the plight of towns such as Dover is finally getting some attention. The South-east of England Development Agency and architect HTA recently proposed that housing associations could buy up and renovate run-down properties in seaside towns, and sell some on the open market to cover the cost of using the remainder as social housing (HT 8 October, page 7). Pam Alexander, SEEDA’s chief executive, explained: “In the South-east we have pockets of deep deprivation in the middle of pockets of high land values and we need to capture the land values to create sustainable communities.”

The coastal towns in the South-east suffer from an acute shortage of affordable housing – Dover council’s housing register currently has in excess of 3000 registered applicants – so the council is reliant on Dover’s burgeoning private rented sector to house its most vulnerable citizens. Nearly half of the households who rent in the private sector have an average annual income of less than £10,000. Of the total housing stock in Dover 13% is privately rented, compared with the regional average of 8% and the national average of 8.9%. These homes are often owned by small investors attracted by Dover’s comparatively low house prices, who may have little interest in maintaining them as long as the rent continues to pour in.

Dover council estimates that a third of its private rented homes are unfit for habitation, forcing a huge number of residents to live in sub-standard conditions, often the most vulnerable members of society.

Standing in front of a house where roof tiles are falling off and paint is peeling from the outside door frame, Brendan Ryan, head of housing for Dover council, says: “This is typical of the state of the housing in this area. To be honest, I find it quite depressing.”

In an area where unemployment runs at just 2.1%, compared with the national average of 2.8%, and house prices are way below the average for the region, it might be expected that home ownership would not be out of reach for local people. But Ryan says the decline of the ferry industry has left its population reliant on insecure, seasonal work – in 2003, the average weekly full-time wage in Dover was £418, compared with £537 for the region.

“Until the residents of Dover earn a higher wage and are able to find secure employment,” he says, “the make-up of the housing sector is not going to change. All the indices of deprivation, all the factors that lead to the poor-quality housing, especially in the private rented sector, will still be there.”

Dover and towns like it need wholesale regeneration to address the economic problems in the region – improving the housing stock in isolation will not work, says Ryan.

“We are trying to influence the market and intervene where it is failing, but the only way to do this centres around bigger regeneration issues. You can’t improve housing and ignore wider regeneration – they’ve got to support each other.”

Brian Horten, head of housing and property services at neighbouring Thanet council, is a fervent believer in the power of regeneration. Thanet, on Dover’s eastern border, has an even higher percentage of its housing – 16.2% – in the private rented sector, and 91.4% of those dwellings had faults according to Thanet council’s 2002 stock condition survey. Add to this a plethora of run-down hostels and seafront dwellings that crowd in more than one household under each roof – so-called houses in multiple occupation – and ex-bed and breakfasts now used as a “dumping ground” for homeless households from as far away as Glasgow, and you end up with what Horten calls “a cancer on local aspiration and pride”.

But Thanet provides an example of how Dover’s problems might be solved. Horten hopes the council’s efforts to secure regeneration funding will close the gap between Thanet and the rest of the South-east. The once grand town of Margate, one of Thanet’s most deprived areas, has been designated a neighbourhood renewal area and a new arts centre, the Turner Contemporary, should draw investment into the town.

Thanet is also making the most of its geographical position as the gateway to Europe, offering discount flights from its local airport and a new ferry service.

Landlords feel no need to bring properties up to a decent standard because there is a ready pool of desperate tenants 

Susan Pledger, Dover Council

Back in Dover, Ryan has been lobbying for the district to be put on the Regional Assembly’s housing strategy to flag it up as a priority for action. So far, he says, the area’s registered social landlords have not been keen to get involved: “It’s very hard to get the RSLs to invest in purchasing and doing up properties. They tell me they can construct six new builds for the price of one renovation.”

Mark Miles-Lea, development director at Amicus, one of Dover council’s preferred RSL partners, confirms: “We don’t have any purchase and repair in Dover and we don’t have any plans to do any. We follow the corporation policy, which focuses on new-build, and not purchase and repair.” For SEEDA’s idea to work, the corporation would have to change tack to allow them to take on private refurbishment work, which may not sit well with its government-given mission to build more houses fast.

But the Housing Corporation indicates that there is some flexibility. A spokeswomen says: “We generally encourage housing associations to get involved in the provision of new build as part of the government’s agenda to build new homes. However, we do get involved in repair and refurbishment of local authority homes. We welcome the opportunity to work with local authorities on their local strategies for housing and are prepared to talk to them about how we may be able to assist.”

In the meantime, Dover council is focusing its energies on battling rogue landlords who neglect their properties. “Landlords feel no need to invest in their properties and bring them up to a decent standard because they know there is a ready pool of desperate tenants out there,” says Susan Pledger, team leader for Dover’s private sector housing team. “There are currently no incentives out there to force them into line.”

There is a voluntary scheme where Pledger and her team take landlords through a list of the repairs and renovations they must carry out to bring their properties up to standard. She says the project enjoys some success. Some landlords don’t realise how run down their properties have become, and on occasion houses have been renovated and sold on as a result of the team’s efforts. But the council prefers not to use its enforcement policy, only resorting to implementing a notice of entry as a last resort. “If you try to work with people rather than against them, you’re more likely to be successful,” Pledger says.

The Housing Bill, currently going through Parliament, will give the council further powers to crack down on irresponsible landlords.

In 2005, licensing will become obligatory for areas of low demand, areas of antisocial behaviour and houses in multiple occupation, of which the towns on the south east coastline have more than their fair share.

The ODPM is reassuring that things are going to change for the coastal towns: “In 2004/5, the South East Regional Housing Board invested an additional £2.5m for private sector renewal, targeted at coastal areas. In 2004/5 the board allocated a 20% increase in housing investment to the east Kent coastal areas of Dover, Margate and Folkestone. In addition one of the most deprived areas of Folkestone was awarded £2.5m for a neighbourhood regeneration programme.”

For Dover, there is another spark of hope of regeneration, from outside the ODPM, in the form of the Channel Tunnel rail extension. If Dover’s links to London and the rest of the region could be improved, then perhaps some of the resulting prosperity would remain in the town and bring isolated Dover’s housing market more in line with the rest of the South.

But it’s far from certain that this project will even go ahead: there are doubts over its structural feasibility as well as whether funding will be available to take the line as far as Dover. “It’s looking more and more like a pipe dream,” says Ryan.

But something has to change. The ODPM’s drive to build more housing in the South may go some way to relieving the affordability crisis, but that’s not going to solve everything. Failing local economies need an extra helping hand from government, whether on a grand scale with bold regeneration or infrastructure projects, or by incremental measures to bring tracts of decaying stock under more caring and responsible ownership.

On their own, Dover’s problems won’t go away, they will only get worse – and become much much harder to hide.