Several days ago the government announced measures to strengthen (I think they mean ‘their’) ) commitment to building enough of the right homes in the right places with the right infrastructure. Good and welcome words. Whether this rallying cry will be heard and also acted on by those who control delivery-local councils, local land owners, local residents, local conservationists, local lobby’ists is another matter. As they have different agenda’s, perhaps not.
Another government proposal is penalties on developers for failing to build already approved homes. Once again I am tempted to laugh aloud. Avoiding an unprofitably delivery timetable will be easy. There will be dozens and more reasons why delay is achieved. Don’t apply for apply for consent to start. Just make sure you have the land under lock and key. And wait. This policy too, because it will fail, will change.
Futile announcements, though with the best of intentions, remain futile. No evidence here of learning from past failures.
But there is a glimmer of glacial progress. Gove says, and rightly, new development must have the support of local communities. Because they live with the results, their support is an absolute. But how is this achieved? Saying it (the development we can assume) will be beautiful, have the right infrastructure, be democratically approved, will enhance the environment and create proper neighbourhoods will not convince local suspicions based on years of local eyesores the wrong buildings will arrive in the wrong places without enough infrastructure.
Pious exhortations and easily bypassed policies are just not good enough. Four or five decades of failed housing policy makes it plain words in policies do not do the job, despite making a fortune for the consultants. Look outside at how development is delivered (good and bad buildings; profitable and loss-making projects) and the answer is so obvious it is overlooked. It is control. Put legally: it is ownership of the land.
If the local community and the national interest is best advanced by local change, the local community must take the lead. Simply put, it must take strategic ownerships.
Labour seem to be getting there, with Gordon Brown’s new report advocating regional plans and proposing a mechanism for saying where the balance between the national interest and the local interest must fall. Unfortunately they too do not see that if you want to steer the car in a particular direction your hands must hold the steering wheel. Leaving it to several back seat drivers, whatever their political priorities will not work. Spatial planning; creating places people want to see and in which to live; and doing so profitably is an old skill that needs to be re-learnt. My suggestion is some seminars for all parties called Learning from the landed estates, how place stewardship principles work.
Ian Campbell
11 December 2022
