Change is a generation away. Out of date attitudes will delay the changes needed. Local councils do not wish to face the future. There is an unresolved conflict.
Changing entrenched mind-sets is not easy. Sincerely held, deeply rooted beliefs can be at the core of an individual’s convictions. Change, even when the evidence is overwhelming requires a level of maturity that is rare. The trigger is facing brutal insights into the unattractive consequences of past errors. It requires humility to accept the need for change. To show humility is humbling at personal level. At society level, often the errors are denied by the generation in power, but will be accepted by their successors. It is easier for their successors to face facts. They were not the perpetrators of the errors. Will this gloomy outlook apply to the replacement of England’s past housing policy failures with new housing supply policies? Is the U-turn in attitudes needed to supply housing in England on this dramatic scale? There is a broad consensus current housing supply policies, based on shrivelled local plans have badly failed. New housing supply policies being proposed by the new Labour government are intended to deliver, affordable, popular homes in attractive new urban settings which are climate change compliant.
The threat is that delivering the needed ew policy redesign with maturity by those currently in power locally is a generation away as mind-sets held by local councillors. They and their activist supporters are not going to change for half a generation. . Sorry kids! This diagnosis sounds gloomy. But it may even be the complaint of an elderly man. Or is it the truth? Not an appealing outlook either way, is it, given the rapid hopes for lasting policy change a new government with the best intentions has put in place over recent weeks?
What nonsense, many others will say! Perhaps with good reason. Only time will tell. They can certainly say so. Who does this author represent? One individual, writing a blog for two years representing no-one but himself. With no electoral endorsement. All true. Let’s be blunt they will think: exactly who is this man who seems to think he knows best? Well, I will tell you why I hold these opinions and then give you the facts so you can decide.to listen, or walk away, or take action.
When approaching mid-eighties you no longer have much time to wait! If you have something to say you want to say it…..promptly, plainly and with utmost candour. There is no longer time to flaff around. The internet provides the platform. If anyone looks at it! Commercial imperatives are long gone. This age dimension provides space for impartiality. Which is is far rarer than you may think. Will I, the author of this blog see the results of my pleas for change? There are always of course one or two, or more points of view. But history and frequent failure to learn its lessons is, in my opinion the lesson of history. Why? Often the view you hear is biased: articulated by those with an axe to grind. At least I am not guilty in this regard! History lessons can be invaluable but also depressing. Or others might repeat; merely the embittered perspective of an outdated old man? My answer? Decades of professional experience, a lifetime of relationships, familial, social, deep friendships or passing acquaintances, and business friendships all feed the insights and the intuitions and wisdom of old age. With old age you may not have seen it all before, but you have seen a lot of it before. You know how people will react. You know how groups of people react. You know how bias distorts the truth, often revealing half the truth. . These dispassionate insights are helpful to understand the workings of an industry whose natural supply cycle is not days, weeks or months, but years and decades..
It is timely to mention again some relevant technical experience. In the sixties I became a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and later a Fellow. Also in sixties I completed my degree into the study of estate management principles. And in the sixties I began my career in the property industry buying land for building houses in the Home Counties west of London. In 1968 I researched and wrote a report on the housing growth areas in the south for my employer, Wates Ltd. As they continue to successfully trade sixty years later I hope my advice all those years ago was accurate. I acted on it too, setting up a successful consultancy west of London in 1978, which also continues to thrive. The report was the first of many examining similar issues and the opportunities short sighted spatial policy presented to investors and traders. The last was ten years ago, contained in an entry for the Wolfson Prize 2014, inviting candidates to offer solutions to the supply of new towns. Mine, for major urban extension of Reading was not shortlisted. Land owners making nuclear bombs south of the M4 at Burghfield was a difficult barrier!
Why do I relay these old facts? I am convinced these experiences, which have shaped my thinking and spatial advice over many decades vindicate my concerns about the delivery blockages the new government’s housing supply policies will encounter in the next two decades.These predictions I have expressed in many of the earlier blogs contained in makehousesaffordablein2084.com My opinion is they will be proved right. If so, a core part of the new government’s domestic programme for change and growth will be severely delayed. A whole new generation will be penalised.
Look at some current examples of the sort of upside down thinking prevalent today amongst councils in the south of England. Several of these councils are facing dramatic reversals of attitudes towards new housing target numbers.Their reactions are revealing, and only a start. According to a report by Samantha Eckford, in Planning dated 21 August 2024, they face a sharp increase in their homes requirement if Labour’s proposed revisions to local need calculations are introduced. In response Winchester City Council, facing a 63% housing increase are moving to the next stage of producing a new local plan sooner than expected. South Oxfordshire District council and Vale of White Horse District council, facing +100% and +50% increases are revealing similar symptoms.
The common denominator is a wish not to face the future. It is not a desire to build the homes their current and future residents need at affordable prices and rents, in locations to designs their residents will endorse or facilitate the infrastructure and growth England need, but to put a numbers cap, and a slow—down drag mechanism in place to build as little as possible as slowly as possible. This is my interpretation. Do not expect their councils to say the same!
Are councils whose priorities are dominated by local electors fears capable of delivering government growth priorities? So far, there is little reason for hope. Local mind-sets will not be replaced with national needs, despite the outcome of the general election on 4 July 2024. There is a fundamental governance conflict. It continues to be ignored. Its obvious consequences are ignored. My answer is continued in Housing Manifesto 2024 published on this blog on 29 April 2024.
Ian Campbell
23 August 2024
