In some parts of the country house prices continue to rocket. Homeowners pinch themselves in disbelief as their nest egg continues to grow and grow. To most, it looks very much like good news.
But the flipside is more depressing.
First-time buyers are priced out of the market. People can't afford to live near their families or near their jobs. Communities are facing a recruitment crisis as nurses, teachers and police officers are forced to restrict their choices to what's affordable.
It's not the first time housing has been top of the political agenda.
Victorians like George Peabody were so moved by the plight of the urban poor they set up trusts to provide decent housing.
After both World Wars, housing was the focus not just for the rebuilding of bomb-damaged areas of towns and cities, but for the rebuilding of the nation itself.
From the development boom of the 1960s and 1970s to the right-to-buy sell-off of the 1980s, housing has proved to be at the sharp end of populist politics.
But as always with populist politics, the emphasis has been on the expedient while the long term has been left to look after itself.
The consequences of that short-termism are all around us.
From the 1960s and 1970s the legacy is all too physical. Ugly, hurriedly built tower blocks are a powerful reminder of a policy that was well-intentioned but poorly executed.
From the 1980s, the legacy has been social: a dripping-away of the supply of good-quality social housing, leaving more and more people chasing fewer and fewer homes as councils were prevented from replacing what they lost.
Regeneration has been too narrow in its focus; we have failed to recognise the complex nature of urban deprivation
Councils were also prevented from investing properly in their remaining stock. What stayed on their books was left to decline gradually over nearly two decades until, now, large parts of our towns and cities are unlettable.
The knock-on effects of poor housing are all too clear in school results, health league tables and crime statistics; it is both cause and effect. The knock-on effect of the lack of affordable homes is the lack of teachers, nurses and police officers.
The Urban Summit is not just one group of experts talking to another. It's a unique opportunity. Communities from across the country, from all ethnic groups and all religious persuasions will be represented. Too often, in the past, regeneration was something that happened to communities. That's one of the reasons why it hasn't always succeeded.
Another reason is that it has always been too narrow in its focus – and that's where housing comes in.
Housing is an important thing. But it's not the only important thing. There's no point having a decent home if there's nowhere to take the kids when they are sick. There's no point having a decent home if you can't leave your car parked outside without it getting vandalised, or go away on holiday without getting burgled. There's no point having a decent home if you can't get a job.
By concentrating solely on housing, or building community centres, or any of the other important single issues, we have failed to recognise the importance of the complex, overlapping, multi-sided nature of urban decay and deprivation.
That's why our fight in the war on urban decay is on all fronts at the same time, and it's why the Urban Summit will look at housing, transport, prosperity, cultural diversity, local leadership and creating safer, cleaner and more attractive urban centres.
The Urban Summit should not be seen as the high point of the government's commitment to regeneration. Rather, it is a continuation of the process started two years ago with the urban and rural white papers.
In the deputy prime minister's statement to the House of Commons in July, he set out plans to accelerate progress on our policies for sustainable communities and promised to follow this up with a long-term programme of action. He said that he would:
- tackle the housing shortage, especially in London and the wider South-east, working with local authorities
- ensure that in providing additional housing we protect the countryside
- increase funding for affordable housing, particularly to meet the needs of key workers
- take forward nine pathfinder projects to tackle the worst cases of housing market failure and abandonment
- continue progress towards the target of bringing all social housing up to a decent standard by 2010
- increase efforts to improve the living conditions of vulnerable people in private sector housing
- provide additional resources to modernise and resource up the planning system
- establish a single housing inspectorate and arrangements to bring together housing investment with regional economic, planning and infrastructure strategies.
As a government we could do all of this and still fail to revitalise our towns and cities. We would fail if we didn't engage the communities themselves, for they are the key to successful regeneration.
The real outcome of this process – and of the summit itself – will not be felt in the short term but in the coming years, when we all have places we can call home and that we can be proud of. When people say their home is in a location not out of want, but because they want to live there. The success of the Urban Summit will be judged when we are able to say no one is seriously disadvantaged by where they live.
Source
Housing Today
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