Is looking two generations ahead unrealistic? It is necessary. Most communities simply do not want new homes near them. Local opposition and local anger grows each year from all corners of the political spectrum except the young. But we are short of 4+ million new homes and due to the impact of an ageing population and immigration we need 300,000 more each year. Economic growth and affordability both depend on a solution with popular appeal in host areas.
The primary objective of this blog site and its 75+ blogs is to look for solutions to England’s housing crisis. Ones which can happen, and ones which can go ahead with local support. Criticisms that 2084 is so far away no one will relate, are persuasive. Indeed they look compelling. But even so, such criticisms are also wrong. To grasp this conviction, is to see that in the housing land supply market looking one or two decades ahead is short term and two generations is about right. Land value capture also works in the long term, but not in the short term, another dividend.
The essence of the English planning system of today was put in place over seventy years ago. And the essence remains the same.. Within twenty years, by the sixties and seventies, ( I started trying to buy housing sites in 1967) most of the obvious house building sites, the low hanging fruit if you like, were already in the hands of builders. For the past fifty years their task is squeezing out additional sites provided the effort and professional resources exerts enough force. As a system intended to provide land for building homes it can no longer deliver. Local opposition and with it local anger, grows every year. Opposition comes from all corners of the political landscape, as I have said elsewhere on this site.
Enough of history. We need to look ahead. But how far? Say three years until the next local election? Or five years until the next general election. Perhaps fifteen years until the next local plan? Or one or two generations ahead, thirty or sixty years.. So how far ahead? I do not know. Take as an example Milton Keynes, with a population of 288,000 (2021). It is still growing. Construction started more than a generation ago. Masterplanning started well before that. Land negotiations are the first foundations of major projects. At Green Park, a business park south of Reading these were initiated in 1983. Masterplanning and the first construction started several years later. Building work continues at Green Park.. Green Park Station opened earlier this year, one and half generations later?
I wonder when they started planning Poundbury down in Dorset? And first started building the roads and services? The King will remember. The Crown Estate are pioneers. You may or may not like the designs at Poundbury or Milton Keynes. To repeat a warning, that is not the point. What is the point is to. Hold beautiful places, where we all might want to go to live, to shop, to work or to spend time. But urban beauty cannot happen in the short term. In the short term what happens is usually unexpected, unpopular and seen locally as a an imposition. What I hope the next generation, given sufficient time, will build will be man-made additions to the natural environment that are widely seen locally as a blessing for their community and a home of pride for their occupiers.
Like any prudent business investment, subject to the vagaries of the market, deciding how far ahead to look starts with informed guesses about future demand. What is driving the demand for new homes, today and in thirty years time? Is it simply inward immigration, and if so, will stopping immigration stop the demand for new homes? A lot of people who want their areas to stay the same, believe that if immigration into England is stopped the demand for new homes will stop too. They overlook the impact on housing demand of an ageing population. Have a look at this link
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections
It comes from Office for National Statistics and examines changes in household numbers. For statistical purposes, it is households which need to be housed, not individuals. Typically about 2.4 individuals make up an average household. . The ONS points out that the increase in the number of households in England is expected to increase by 1.6 million (7.1%) over the ten year period 2018-2028. This increase has something to do with immigration but immigration is not the primary cause of growing numbers of households. The ONS says 64%, which is nearly two thirds, of household growth, is accounted for by households where one occupier is 75 years or older. And they add, 95% of the household growth is in households without without dependent children. The remaining household growth is caused by other factors, Immigration is one, changing social factors are important too. Furthermore there is an economic driver on top, Many people want to buy better, and therefore bigger homes when they can afford the extra cost. The ONS figures ignore this demand.
It follows that this increase in the number of households over a ten year period generates demand for 160,000 new homes each year. In fact net immigration numbers (after deducting emigration) jumps around. Between 2011 and 2015, before the Brexit vote, average net immigration was 250,000 each year., Assuming an average household size of 2.4 this rate of net immigration will produce demand for another 104,000 new homes each year, or.total of 264,000 (160,000+104,000) new homes every year. Part of this 104,000 notional additional household growth will be included in the 36% number above. How much is not clear.
Besides myths about the housing benefits of stopping immigration there is a second problem. Due to our failure to build the new homes needed, compared to the average European country, according to the think tank Centre for Cities Britain is short of 4.3 million homes. They reckon it will take at least half a century to build out the backlog. This works out at 86,000 new homes each year., or a grand total of 350,000 160,000+104,000+86,000) new homes needed each year. Add these numbers together, you can quickly see why the official housing target is 300,000 per year.
Just to put these numbers, and the time scales into perspective look again at the the example of Milton Keynes. 120,,000 (288,000|2.4) homes so far, after about one generation of building work. Delivery takes time, a lot of it.
Our housing supply problem in England is a spatial one. It seems most communities simply do not want the new houses. They do not believe they will be an asset to their community. They do not believe beautiful new places can be built. I do not not agree with this pessimistic view. But to prove it I believe we must first spatially plan one and two generations ahead. Until this reality is accepted, ( strategic planning to the experts) and there is a credible mechanism to find and deliver the land needed to plan that far ahead whatever other housing policies are put in place, by whichever political party they will be too little, too late, will have little local support and in consequent house prices and rents will remain at their current, unaffordable levels. For todays young, this is a doomsday outlook. For this country it is a tragedy, as economic growth in the decades will carry a large and unnecessary burden.
Ian Campbell
9 June 2023
