Matthew Pennycook, housing minister says early in the new year the government will publish new plan regulations. This announcement gives a glimmer of hope, that the government will grasp the housing nettle. Let’s just repeat the basic problem. You cannot build lots of new homes without local support. So the question which must be asked and answered is this: how do you convert reluctant hosts into welcoming hosts?
Take a hypothetical example, because it is easier. The Thames Valley, which I have known in spatial terms, in market appeal terms, in politically reactionary and in progressive terms like the back of my hand for nearly sixty years. I can tell you where housing and and employment should go from an economic maximisation point of view. Despite the fact that I ‘retired’ more than a decade ago. These fundamentals do not change, and neither governments nor local councils have any power over them, except the power to say no.
In the Thames valley, say roughly London’s western boundary to Guildford, Basingstoke, Newbury/Hungerford, and Oxford, there is an acute housing shortage. And has been for plus four decades. Due to few restrictions on jobs growth (everyone loves these) and higher and higher barriers to housing growth ( existing residents and new immigrants filling the new jobs) all object to more homes near them. As a result some towns, which were once appealing centres are a mess, as new homes have been imposed on them with nil long term vision. Ask the residents of Wokingham what they think of their town growth since the seventies. As an academic example of spatial failure, based on political myopia and misplaced political ideology you could not find a finer example of planning failure. Yet forty or fifty years ago, when the growth options were plain the council and its political leaders opened their doors to jobs growth, and resisted the housing which goes with it. So the housing came along, spasmodically, haphazardly and without any local welcome. Surprise, surprise much of it was built to the lowest common denominator. Little boxes,, not not Belgravia’s mansions or apartments, swamped with cars without much investment in public transport, all built to a uniform, low density basic model. No surprises to learn that local residents of this generation are not welcoming hosts.
Wokingham’s failure a generation ago, the possibly the Minster’s failure today will be not to make local councils plan at scale spatial change one or two generations ahead, but with no spatial policy change until well into the 2030’s. By then today’s present values of hope value are minimal or nil, because of location and timing unknowns, which means councils with some wits about them can buy up the controlling areas now at existing use value so their community pockets all the land value capture.
Back to the Thames Valley example. Back to my spatial growth report in the 1960’s. Knowing where we cannot build is not difficult. Completing this exercise leaves lots of white land. Taking Reading, Wokingham and Basingstoke as an option. Is it ruled out by the no build zone around Burghfield and Aldermarston? In the long term will we still have a credible’ independent’ nuclear deterrent? And there is a lot of land outside it too, especially if you look at Hook and the Blackwater Valley too. Is this all too difficult? Will it inflame too many vested interests? Remember we are looking 10-15+ years ahead. Because if this government announced it was backing a new city, with few or no cars in it, in Readingstoke/Blackwater valley with several hundred thousand new homes, starting design now, and construction after 2035 to 2065+ and if other political parties did not oppose the idea, the market would slowly transform. Frightened residents will be able to sell immediately. Clever master planners will tell councils which land to buy up without delay. Existing land owners hoping to build before then will, despite worries about reduced viability will suddenly start building out. Supply will surge in the short term ,as buldsrs realise they will have new, state of the art competition a decade ahead. Good news for growth, now.
The formality will be registering on a new Ministry register the full extent of the location. This process will act a means of banging heads together. If local leadership fails to lead, because it is paralysed by fear, development corporations with government guidance will take over the role.
It needs tough leadership, but just at the start. Commonsense will then come forward as local communities see the financial and premium creating advantages.This is the way to turn reluctant hosts into welcoming hosts.
Ian Campbell
1 December 2025
