Would the provision of low cost housing help win Labour a fourth term?

Mike Ion Wed May 09, 2007 at 10:14:29 AM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

According to Labour members polled by You.Gov on behalf of Jon Cruddas, affordable housing should be at the top of the party's new agenda.



An overwhelming 82% believe "funding should be available to local councils to build low-cost council housing on the same basis as housing associations". The Treasury has opposed this on the basis that it will breach government borrowing rules, since arm's length bodies need not count against government borrowing. Will we see some movement on this in the first few months of a Brown led government? I certainly hope so.

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Would the provision of low cost housing help win Labour a fourth term? | 25 comments (25 topical)

Low cost housing (#1)

by Mark Wadsworth on Wed May 09, 2007 at 01:14:58 PM GMT

Oh come on, whose fault is it that housing is so ridiculously expensive - remembering always that it's not the bricks and mortar - it is LAND that has quadrupled in cost/value - the cost/value of LAND makes up probably more than half the cost/value of most houses?

It's the government's fault ...

a) For being so restrictive with planning permission - less than 200,000 homes a year are being built, if the economy grows at 3% a year, why shouldn't we increase housing stock by 3% a year? (= over half a million new homes a year, like in the 1960s). Granting more planning permission does not cost the State a penny, and the construction industry would be building more and hence paying more tax (so that's a win-win),

b) For not having "land value tax" (in place of the regressive council tax) to encourage more efficient use of existing housing (for example buy-to-letters who leave flats empty in hope of realising a quick capital gain) and to encourage owners of brownfield sites to develop their land - instead they want to have "Planning gains supplement" that will inhibit development (the same goes for all these key worker schemes).

c) mass immigration may also have something to do with it, I do not know what will happen if we allow all the Romanians and Bulgarians to come in as well.

If Labour had listened to what e.g. the Labour Land Campaign was saying when they came in in 1997 they could have fixed all this at a stroke.

And people would much rather own their own home than be stuck in some shared-ownership tied-worker nonsense. That's where the votes are!


Re: Low cost housing (#2)

by petercoe on Wed May 09, 2007 at 02:02:18 PM GMT

Bit of deja vu there, Mark?!

The answer to Mike's question is that Labour should be building affordable housing not because it might win them a fourth term but because it's the right thing to do, and a massive problem.

In fact, the electoral "gain" from such policies is moot - just as record funding of the public services  hasn't brought the public worshipping to the Altar of Gordon Brown, no more will building more affordable homes (and when you look at a lot of the results of the massive sprawling, soulless estates built in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, it's perhaps not surprising that there isn't a great deal of thanks).  

But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.  Here's the thing: let's stop talking about it and for once actually do it.


[ Parent ]

Re: Low cost housing (#3)

by Mark Wadsworth on Wed May 09, 2007 at 02:32:55 PM GMT

Yup, I just cut and pasted it!

There is nothing wrong with having council housing sufficient to house the poorest twenty percent of the population - but we've already got that. The problem is that it is so badly allocated that another five percent of the population are in private rented accommodation and claiming Housing Benefit which is collosally expensive. A friend of mine came up with a cunning plan to fix this which I have honed as follows...

http://www.citizensincome.org/filelibrary/doc/Housing%20Benefit%20Discussion%20paper.doc

And what about all the young people have proper jobs and would like to buy but just can't afford to? When I think how easy it was for me and the Mrs barely ten years ago, it makes me weep for them.


[ Parent ]

Re: Low cost housing (#4)

by Mike Ion on Wed May 09, 2007 at 03:36:36 PM GMT

Mark and Peter

The stark reality is that this really is a case where 'something must be done' and where the ends are far more important than the means!

Peter - point taken about the this area being important regardless of any political advantage.


[ Parent ]

Re: Would the provision of low cost housing help (#5)

by Simon Morley on Wed May 09, 2007 at 08:10:26 PM GMT

Housing is clearly a significant issue. But my understanding is that it is primarily here in the South East. So while there should undoubtedly be more accomodation available (roll on the Thames Gateway) it also seems to me there is a poor distribution of economic activity in the UK, and that key to this is transport.

There is a serious project to be done it seems to me on whether fast rail links across the UK, almost certainly subsidised, but quite possibly through public sector property asset sales, would help. I know purely in terms of transport the case is marginal, but in broader terms there must be a strong case, particularly combined with broadband, which will never substitute completely for face to face meetings, but taken as a package make immediate geographical proximity less essential.


Re: Would the provision of low cost housing help (#6)

by petercoe on Wed May 09, 2007 at 08:28:43 PM GMT

Well, it's never going to make much sense in terms of personal wellbeing, use of time or much else for that matter to live, say, in York and commute to London every day, is it?  

I suspect you were talking more about towns somewhat closer to London, but given that tens of thousands who live in closer towns already commute on existing networks, presumably the main benefit of faster services would be to enable people to live even further out (hence the York example).

But commuting is not a productive exercise; for the economy, the environment or for the individual, so the answer must be for people to be able to live closer to their work.

And London's never going to stop being the capital; nor the major city closest to Europe, so the potential for diversifying a workforce outside London will always be limited.

Hence the problem of demand, cost and pressure on the greenbelt will remain, not least because most of the substantial brownfield sites have been developed, or are planned for development.

Hence the only solutions are to look at the taxation of land as Mark suggests - but that's still toxic electorally; and/or to revisit density standards because ongoing development of the green belt is also unacceptable, politically and just generally.  

The Bovis home, Brookside-esque cul-de-sacs of the 1980s that exploded all over the south east did - alongside out-of-town supermarkets - catastrophic damage to the south east's housing capacity because, aside from being tacky and twee, they're such low density as to waste vast quantities of space.  And of course their occupants are no doubt the first to object when new housing is planned anywhere near them, precisely because their own homes absorbed so much valuable space that otherwise might have been spared!


[ Parent ]

Re: Would the provision of low cost housing help (#7)

by Simon Morley on Wed May 09, 2007 at 09:20:19 PM GMT

Except its not necessarily about a daily commute, maybe a twice weekly meeting. Interaction is central, local working is possible, but you still need to meet your customers/partners/clients. Historically it seems to be business clusters that are important, not just jobs as such. But having said that, personally I would much prefer a euro-style low-ish rise townhouse/appartment than a bovis-type home, but that could be different if I had a family. Plus public transport which, in the UK outside central London and Glasgow, has always in my experience been of limited use.


[ Parent ]

All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#8)

by Mark Wadsworth on Wed May 09, 2007 at 11:52:02 PM GMT

The Greenbelt is not some hallowed stretch of land that separates towns from other towns. It's just farmland that separates towns from farmland, look on a map!

Developed land in the UK is maybe 6 million acres out of 60 million acres in total - even the South East is only 12% developed per Barker Review (Greater London is the only real exception - it's about 60% developed).

So if we went mad and expanded built up areas by 10% so what? There'd be 1% less agricultural land, the economic impact of this would be negligible if even measurable.

BTW, the Thames Gateway is the last place you should build houses - it's on a flood plain, look at what happened in 1953!


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#9)

by Simon Morley on Thu May 10, 2007 at 12:08:48 AM GMT

I guess it depends how you define the Thames Gateway. My understanding is Canvey Island is the lowest lying, closest to the estury, but I'm happy to be corrected about where development is actually planned. And your point about farmland is very true. I lived in the Boston metro area in the US for a couple of years, it is looks like there is a lot of natural woodland around there, but actually much of it was farmland until 50 or so years ago, when mechanisation made it uneconomic to farm, and with urban growth and the motor car it was sold off into plots that had houses built on it. Having said that though housing density over there is far lower than here. The problem is probably getting the right balance between coordinated planning and sensitivity to local situations.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#10)

by petercoe on Thu May 10, 2007 at 12:56:24 PM GMT

Well, I'll tell you why not, Mark: First, because the UK is already far more densely populated than countries of comparable or larger population size like France and Germany; there are serious quality of life issues about losing even more land for urban sprawl. Second, because there are real practical issues about developing further in the south east: water supply is going to become an increasingly significant one; but given the changing climate there are also real agricultural issues about just saying "so what" to the loss of 10% of our farmland; we should be becoming more self-sustaining in our food production - and warmer weather offers great opportunities as well as some problems for our agricultural sector - especially in the areas of cereals and wine. Third, because we don't need to do it - the issue, again, is density and using space sensibly (and stylishly). In respect of your issues about the Thames Gateway, well there are people who choose to live on the slopes of volcanoes (which is extraordinarily fertile farmland), there are several million who choose to live on the San Andreas Fault; several million more who choose to live in areas routinely affected by tornadoes and hurricanes - it's a risk/gain analysis isn't it - i.e. does the risk of a once-in-a-half-century flood negate the gain of housing tens of thousands of people in decent homes AND the advances in flood defence that we have made since 1953? I'd say it does, but it's a free choice anyone can make for themselves, isn't it?


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#11)

by Mark Wadsworth on Thu May 10, 2007 at 02:40:48 PM GMT

You've tied yourself in knots now. 1) If UK is too densely populated then does is this an argument against mass immigration? Secondly, just because we are more densely populated than many other countries doesn't detract from the fact that we are less densely populated than other richer countries (Netherlands springs to mind). 2) Re water supply, there is plenty of water, but until we introduce metering there is no financial incentive for water companies in SE to fix their pipes - they lose about one-third of what goes in. 3) I didn't say "so what" to using 10% of farmland, I said "so what" to losing 1% of farmland. 4) Density - there is a trade off between American towns where everybody has a huge garden and drives miles to work or to the shops and the British model with rows of terraced houses. I prefer the latter model, but we don't even have enough terraced houses - hence ridiculously high prices. 5) Thames Gateway - why are you so relaxed about flood risk but worried about lack of drinking water? One or the other please! And no it is not a free choice - if the only place that they build new houses is the Thames Gateway, then that's hardly a choice is it?


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#12)

by petercoe on Thu May 10, 2007 at 05:42:37 PM GMT

Hang on - who are you replying to? I've never made any comment about mass immigration, so not sure how I can tie myself in knots... So we're not more densely populated than some countries - we're not more densely populated than Hong Kong or Japan either but it's not a race and I'd rather not even compete on those terms thanks. Yes our Water Companies need to do more to repair broken pipes - and while I'm no fan of Thames Water, it's fair to point out that pipes buried under urban areas driven over by many-tonne vehicles are more likely to burst than in, say, rural Cumbria. But even if every single water pipe in the South East was fine, there'd still be a water problem because the region's becoming drier and there are natural limits to the capacity on the water table which we have reached. Hence we need to look at either desalination (very expensive), or a national water network. Why am I "relaxed" about flood risk on the Thames Estuary? Well, I wouldn't use that term myself, but the reason is the one you gave: the last time the area suffered major flooding was over 50 years ago and since then our flood management capacity has improved immeasurably. How do I know that? Well go to the Thames Gateway itself and look at one of the shining examples (itself over 20 years old now): the Thames Barrier. Finally, of course it's a free choice: there's a housing *market* - there will be despite your suggestions for bucking or skewing it, Mark so people can choose to live in Canvey Island (and believe it or not, there are some strange individuals who live there who wouldn't live anywhere else) or Newcastle-Upon-Tyne or Hounslow or Exeter. But of course your premise is wrong anyway: housing isn't *just* being built in the Thames Gateway - it's just the largest example.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#13)

by Mark Wadsworth on Thu May 10, 2007 at 06:46:01 PM GMT

I was replying to Peter. 1) If you say that the UK is too densely populated, that suggests to me you think there are too many people here. And if you think that, then you should surely be against mass immigration? Me I'm not too fussed either way, I was just flagging it up as a contradiction. 2) Here's a map of the so caled Thames Gateway. The Thames Barrier (as cool as it is) is right on the left hand edge, not much protection for the rest, is it? http://www.lda.gov.uk/server/show/conMediaFile.2268 check out www.floodlondon.com for more info.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#15)

by petercoe on Thu May 10, 2007 at 07:53:23 PM GMT

Well yes, I do think there's an issue with population density and we do need controlled immigration - but who precisely has been arguing we should have uncontrolled immigration? Missed that particular thread, Mark. To be fair, I think the government is beginning to get to grips with immigration - certainly compared to three or so years ago - and I seem to recall the most recent stats have shown the lowest immigration numbers for a long time. Issues of immigration are as much about who comes and who goes, and of those who come, how long they stay. Obviously the Thames Barrier doesn't protect those downstream of it - I never claimed it did. Equally, you must concede that had we had the technology in the 1950s the damage of that swell would have afflicted many fewer people. My point is that in the 1950s we had very little means to protect from such freak weather; in the 1980s we had the technology to protect the vast majority of Londoners from floods and now we have the technology - if perhaps not the will - to protect the entire estuary. But you talk as though this is a vast, inhabited area. My point is that you need to be a little bit careful: there are tens of thousands of people who live in Thurrock, Grays, Canvey Island, Southend, Rochford etc (before we even get to the Kent Riparian communities) bright enough to work out that living near a major river they run the risk of flooding but who wouldn't live anywhere else. They've made the choice that their preferred place to live outweighs those risks. It'll be precisely the same for the future communities planned there, and rather patronising and Orwellian to argue that they'll be their under duress.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#14)

by Mark Wadsworth on Thu May 10, 2007 at 06:48:28 PM GMT

... and you still haven't explained why you worry about lack of drinking water (which militates against building in Thames Gateway or anywhere else in South East) but are not too worried about flooding (which also is a reason not to). I mean, either you think it is a good idea or you think it is a bad idea. I think it is a bad idea, we should build to north, west and south of London for sure, but not to the east.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#16)

by petercoe on Thu May 10, 2007 at 08:06:46 PM GMT

Why are the two worries mutually exclusive? Government is about thinking about and resolving "worries". Your whole contribution has been as though we start from a blank page; if Britain was an unpopulated land we could start from scratch with designing then we could come up with a markedly different construct for the country. But we need to address this problem from where we are now. There are many other concerns about the over-dependence of Britain's economy on the South East beyond flood-risk and water; the amount London subsidises the rest of the nation probably ranks higher given that the communities with the most deprivation anywhere in the UK live in London. Quality of life is the underpinning issue with the planning issues. And the density within which the public will accept people coexisting is the critical factor within that. To directly answer your question I think unconstrained building beyond London is a bad idea, but given that about half of the Thames Gateway plan is actually in London, and the remnant is in already much-developed brownfield sites to our east this is a preferred option to building on the green belt. Because you can bet your life that once we had, the successor to Mark Wadsworth will come along sometime down the road and say something like: "Heck, the green belt's just some arbitrary scraps of land - what harm would taking another 1% (or 10%) of it possibly do?" And before you know it Milton Keynes and Cambridge have become suburbs of the capital rather than towns and cities some distance away.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#17)

by petercoe on Thu May 10, 2007 at 08:08:13 PM GMT

And can someone please sort out the fact that this new look site is removing paragraphs - it makes some of my replies look even more impenetrable than they actually are!


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#18)

by Jag Singh on Thu May 10, 2007 at 08:53:16 PM GMT

We're on it, Peter. E-mail us at support[at]labourhome.org if you encounter any bugs.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#19)

by Mark Wadsworth on Thu May 10, 2007 at 11:18:59 PM GMT

Peter, I think we are making progress here, I thank you for your persistence, I in turn will chip away one point at a time until I win the argument or we fall out. "before you know it Milton Keynes and Cambridge have become suburbs of the capital rather than towns and cities some distance away" In economic terms places like this are already suburbs - people get on the train in Southampton, Southend, Milton Keynes, Oxford etc every morning and commute to London. So why not just build more homes or newtowns at the edge of London - that'll save them the commute, which means for a shorter working day and more time with your family and less pollution and so on?


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#22)

by petercoe on Fri May 11, 2007 at 01:16:43 PM GMT

This is an easy one Mark - surprised you can't see the answer yourself!

There is actually virtue in green open space; aside from the economic requirements to have a sustainable agriculture sector it also helps deal with the CO2 emitted by cities and here's the clincher: people actually like and want open space: it's beautiful; it defines our country every bit as much as The Tower of London, Parliament, Buckingham Palace and the like (before the northerners yell out, lets add The Liver Building, The Angel of the North, Edinburgh Castle and...err, Aberdeen's oilrigs!).

I can't seriously believe you support concreting over the south east until you can get to Milton Keynes and Cambridge without passing a single field (perhaps on the Metropolitan and Piccadilly Underground lines?).

I genuinely cannot see a single argument in support of such an idea; and other than you I doubt you'd find a single supporter for it!


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#23)

by Mark Wadsworth on Fri May 11, 2007 at 01:52:41 PM GMT

And where exactly did I suggest "concreting over the South East"? I have never suggested any such thing. The land value tax on brownfield sites and undeveloped sites with planning permission (that are being hoarded) will encourage owners thereof to develop, so that's not using up countryside is it? That's encouraging more sensible use of sites in and around existing towns and cities. I was pointing out the maths of the situation - that even if we increased developed area by TEN per cent (which I have not suggested or recommended - this obviously goes way beyond what is necessary) that this would reduce the amount of agricultural and undeveloped land by about ONE percent. Using up ONE per cent of available agricultural and undeveloped land does not sound like "concreting over the South East" to me. On the Milton Keynes point, you are again accusing me of saying the opposite of what I actually said. Let's say you are a planner and have a choicef, should I build more houses at the edge of London, so that people have shorter commute journeys into London, or should I build more houses in Milton Keynes, knowing full well that people will commute from there to London, what do you think is better? I say it must be better to build houses on the edge of London for the reasons stated in my earlier post - assuming people work in London anyway, there are shorter commute journeys hence quicker and less environmental impact.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#24)

by petercoe on Fri May 11, 2007 at 03:35:28 PM GMT

If you don't believe it, you shouldn't imply it - a la "In economic terms places like [Milton Keynes and Cambridge] are already suburbs" That may or may not be true; of course there are large numbers of commuters to London there; there are also quite a few London to Cambridge commuters to. I'm not sure what we're arguing about, actually: your points above re. brownfield sites support building of the Thames Gateway; even though you oppose this particular development this is where most of the substantial remaining brownfield sites are and also an area of high deprivation.

My point is that it's not an either/or choice between expanding fairly nearby towns or expanding the perimeter of London yet (that said, there are plenty of merits in towns expanding in a planned way - witness the efforts of Corby in Northants to attract Londoners): we still have capacity in London but we need to use it far more wisely.

That's my number one preference, followed by ensuring that local economies are as sustainable as they can be to enable people who live in smaller towns and cities to work there too and then - and only then - considering greenfield development anywhere.

Incidentally, just to go back to one earlier point, the principal strain on housing isn't immigration but the huge rise in single-person households; a trend much harder to address than immigration (legal or otherwise) is.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#25)

by Mark Wadsworth on Fri May 11, 2007 at 04:36:35 PM GMT

Yes, apart from the flood risk I am all in favour of Thames Gateway, I hope you checked out the map I linked to that clearly shows that these areas are all downriver of the Thames Barrier (you seemed to be assuming that they were upriver thereof). It just strikes me as weird that Ken Liv can talk about the necessity to beef up the Thames Barrier to protect London (to my mind rightly) but then he and/or other politicians decide that it's OK to build loads and loads of houses further downriver that are clearly at much higher risk than London itself. So until somebody has a plan to build a MASSIVE Thames Barrier about ten or twenty miles further downstream, and also a plan to do something about improving water supplies (like Los Angeles) I personally think they should slow down a bit with the Thames Gateway stuff. And as to deprivation, a LVT on unimproved sites will sort that out.


[ Parent ]

Re: All hail the Hallowed Greenbelt! (#20)

by foobar on Fri May 11, 2007 at 12:16:55 AM GMT

Anyone who doesn't understand why land prices in the UK are so high any why politicians don't do anything about it really needs to read this book: http://tinyurl.com/ln2kw


[ Parent ]

Labour Land Campaign (#21)

by Mark Wadsworth on Fri May 11, 2007 at 10:18:26 AM GMT

yes, I also recommend the LLC's website for lots of interesting stuff on land prices and so on. www.labourland.org


[ Parent ]

Would the provision of low cost housing help win Labour a fourth term? | 25 comments (25 topical)