More and more pressure for housing – student or other kinds – grows and grows. More of our green spaces are going to feed the frenzy. But are these homes or housing assets? The planning rules have been relaxed but the 'homes' being built are as I have seen up and down the country, are unaffordable to all but well heeled and or investors. Since the Great Banker's Depression of 2008, finance for social housing has dried up. The double hit of no money and forced to sell the existing social housing stock has produced the predictable situation of unmet demand. Housing lists grow – you've more chance of winning the lottery, any lottery – as fast as the green fringes go under bricks and paving.
I saw plans recently for 5000 homes to swallow up farmland. Much of the landscape where I spent my teenage years has vanished under huge new build schemes in a few years, all detached and few semis, none for starters on the housing ladder not those unable to stump up the necessary thousands for a deposit. Ballooning estates depending on the same infrastructure that coped well with one tractor a day now faces hundreds of cars daily merely for access. The public will have to stump up the deficit in education, health and transport created by private entrepreneurs.
But here is better news. A slight correction to public finances has produced a sort of flag waver for public housing, housing moreover in urban environments; re-development of 'failed estates' or public controlled land. The Guardian has the details here.
Those of us who seek to protect urban green space neglect the housing crisis at our peril. Too few environmental groups proactively promote sustainable urban housing. Not only does it make sense, it promotes social justice.
