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More land petition needed Now that ‘Two-Jags’ Prescott has been parked and the ODPM has moved into the fast lane as DCLG (Department for Communities & Local Government), self-builders must seize the opportunity to petition for more land. With Central Government well off the road, sinking deeper in the merging mires of affordable housing, sustainable development, and the need to virtually double house building, the time is ripe for combined action. ‘Cosy’ arrangements for planning permissions For far too long the way the planning system allocates land and divvies up permissions has been a cosy arrangement between the big house-builder lobby and the grey people in both Westminster and the Regions. Today, even small and medium sized house-building firms face being squeezed out of business because they can’t get hold of developable land. And Government concentration on brownfield redevelopment makes it difficult, if not impossible, for them and Self-Builders to get a look in on anything that does become available. Size, Cost & Complexity of Brown Field Clean-Up Much of this, of course, is because of the size, complexity and length of time involved in industrial ‘clean up’ operations. Not that this is a bad thing - it’s just the way it is. But when demands for ‘affordable housing’ allocations are taken into the equation it generally means that only the big boys can take part in the game. And even their ‘pips are squeaking’ as they fight one another to do the government’s bidding. Unhealthy Housing Sector The result is we’ve got a very unhealthy housing industry. Yes, it is generally considered to be one of the most efficient and cost effective in Europe. But then this is because they churn out cookie-cutter look-alike designs, specifications, and ‘optimised’ estate layouts anywhere and everywhere between Land’s End and John O’Groats. The result, in the words of the song, is ‘Little Boxes, Little Boxes, and they’re all made out of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same’. Low Cost Housing – but at what cost? Sure, successive Governments have used the planning system to secure one of the lowest cost house-building industries in Europe, but at what cost? Unfortunately, it has also given us some of the smallest homes, with least storage space and, in many cases, lowest life expectancy. Here the strange notion of a minimum ‘sixty year life’ also seems to have become a norm, transformed from a post war municipal financing requirement into a lowest common denominator design criteria. Even worse, these are now being delivered at some of the highest new home prices in Europe. No wonder they are considered not to be ‘affordable’. But even here the reality is masked, because it is not the building cost that has caused the distortion, but the price of land. Linking land costs and easy finance as joint culprits Yes. There we have it. As I recently told a Polish audience, it is not the cost of building that is at fault. That is more or less the same, like for like, wherever you go in Britain. But with land costing the same - or more - than the building itself, the total ‘packaged product’ becomes ‘unaffordable’. Two things can be thanked for this. First the easy availability of mortgage finance. Second the worsening, acute shortage of land with planning permission. This is not to forget the way in which the purchase of second homes has exacerbated this in some regions, although arguably this in itself is partially an effect of the first two reasons given. A brief examination of these shows that until the mid 1970’s building societies had limited the amount of money available for housing to roughly 2 ½ times the head of household’s income – plus any savings used for deposit, of course. There were good historical reasons for this. The law was then changed to allow banks and other ‘finance houses’ to compete for mortgage business. As they did so, this multiple was progressively increased and expanded to take in ‘household’, or second earner’s income. When the 1989 /90 property bubble burst, this had reached around 4 times joint (household) income. Today it stands at around 5 to 5 ½ times, with some financiers offering 6 times if supported by (parental) guarantees. It’s fairly easy to see that, if someone has an income of £20,000 then at 2 ½ times, they can only borrow £50,000. But at 4 times this gives them £80,000 to spend, and at 5 ½ times they have £110,000, plus their deposit, to go hunting for a house. But just because you’ve got lots of money in your wallet doesn’t mean you have to spend it. Unless, that is, prices have gone up. And this is where the good old economic law of ‘supply and demand’ comes into play – goods in surplus, prices fall: goods in shortage, prices rise. 1.2 million home shortfall According to Dr Gavin Cameron, from the Department of Economics, University of Oxford, in 1988 some 202,000 permanent dwellings were completed in England (social sector 27,000, private sector 175,000). In 2002 only 139,000 permanent dwellings were built (14,000 social, 125,000.private). In round figures that’s a drop of over 60,000 houses a year for, say, 20 years, or a 1.2 million home shortfall. At the same time household structures have changed, the population has increased, foreign immigration has been high, ‘unfit’ homes have been demolished, and so on – and, nationally, we’ve been making less and less land available for new homes. No wonder the Government’s own consultant, former Bank of England monetary committee member, Dr Kate Barker concluded in her 2004 report that an extra 120,000 houses a year were needed. Against this background the Government’s revised call for the industry to increase production to 200,000 p.a. is not going to go very far to redressing the balance. It is also unlikely that the price of land will be reduced. Indeed, there are good reasons why Government needs to be cautious about doing this too rapidly – even if they could. House Price Rises are No Surprise So, should anyone be surprised that house prices have gone up to unaffordable levels? Fuelled by ‘surplus equity’ added to their ‘deposit’ - gained, for example, by people in the South East selling their high priced houses and ‘retiring’ to the South West, Wales or other picturesque, less congested, or otherwise ‘desirable’ parts of the UK, is it any wonder that in some areas the price of houses now averages 10 times a persons income? And is it any wonder that those new home builders ‘fortunate’ enough to win the bid for the land now have to squeeze the size, specification and plot down as much as possible in order to make any money out of the exercise? More and More Self-Builders Not surprising then that more and more people want to build their own home. Fed up with the standard designs, small rooms, pocket handkerchief gardens and standardised appearance of estate look alike offerings, many people now want to be able to express their individuality, devise their own solutions, and put their concerns for good, durable, long lasting environmentally sustainable housing into practice. Rather than 60 years there is no reason why 250 – 300 years shouldn’t be the norm. After all we’ve got plenty of examples of houses over 500 years old still being lived in today. In fact most of them are highly sought after. Self-Builders as Sustainability Pathfinders So there you have it – or rather the government does. As previously pointed out elsewhere, many self builders are in fact the ‘path finders’ for sustainable development, “… prepared to invest their own time, effort and money in using all of the ‘green’ materials, methods and ideas increasingly widely available, to build their own – ‘truly ideal’ - homes”. They are more than capable of delivering ‘demonstration’ schemes that will secure massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment. Increasing self-build activity would be one of the best possible ways to create exemplar projects for sustainable development throughout the country. On the continent many more people build their own homes than in Britain, with, for example, local authorities in parts of Germany being required to allocate up to 40% of all building land for private, one-off houses. Self-Builders can help Housing Affordability Granting more planning permissions for self-builders would also enable the nation to make great strides toward solving Britain’s affordable housing crisis. We need a substantial increase in the grant of planning permissions for self-builders. Everything points to the fact that if the building plots were made available we could see a doubling or tripling of the present 20,000 or so ‘self builder’ projects undertaken in the UK every year. It is self evident that such an increase in self-build activity would make a huge dent in our need for affordable, as well as sustainable, housing.” To achieve this the ‘self-builder’ – actually the UK’s largest provider of homes – must secure a place at the conference table alongside the major house-builders, registered social landlords, planners and government departments. There is no reason why all housing providers should not secure a fair and reasonable supply of housing land, for example by the simple adoption of the German requirement that 40% of all permissions be tied to ‘self-build’ operations. Perhaps one of the self-build magazines could take on the initiative of organising a petition to the DCLG. Given their readerships this could possibly generate 100,000 or so signatures demanding that Self-Build representatives be invited to consult with the ‘great and the good’ when Government determines its policies. Town Planners Not To Blame However, in doing so it should be remembered that not all town planners and their professional colleagues are primarily to blame for mounting environmental and housing problems. Local Authority planners are subject to the ‘whims and wishes’ of the elected members – the councillors and committee members – who are their bosses and who tell them what to do. Given the urgency and importance of the problems faced, Central Government should be prepared to initiate a serious and meaningful programme to educate elected members in the issues and what is necessary to address them, possibly making this a statutory requirement for all planning committee members. About The Author Dr. Benfield is visiting Professor of Civil & Construction Engineering Research with the University of Wales Newport and is a leading UK authority on timber frame construction. The Benfield ATT Group, which he heads, design, manufacture and build leading edge bespoke timber frame structures for both home and export markets.
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