There was an excellent article on The One Show last night (6th October) on BBC1 which was a report on the planning reforms. Only this time it was viewed through the eyes of young first time buyers. It’s a report that those who campaign against the reforms should watch because I believe that they have severely overestimated public support especially among the under 30′s.
A young first time couple with a deposit in place and a budget of £140,000 took a look at three different sites – a greenfield site, a brownfield site and a derelict house. The result was that their preferred option was a home on the greenfield site. As they said in the report it’s a shame to lose the environment but they are not in a position to so anything else.
Environmental and green pressure groups should take a note of this if they want to stay relevant with the younger generation. It’s easy for them to recruit support among the over 45′s because this group of people have already made their money from stripping the land and the environment bare. They’ve got their homes and pension – they’ve had their free education and strong employment protection – now all this group want to do is protect their assets. It’s an easy market for the likes of Campaign for the Protection of Rural England or National Trust etc.
But if theses groups think that the answer to meeting the younger generation home owning aspirations is to pack them into rabbit hutches that are 4 or 5 stories tall in the inner city then I’m afraid they are in for a rude awakening. And if the green groups don’t meet the needs of home aspirations of young people then their organisations will be irrelevant to an entire generation of people.
This young couple wanted an affordable home to live in and bring their family up in. They wanted to live in the area that they themselves had been brought up in and have family and friends connections in. Why should they be forced to move away just so that someone has a field to walk their dog in.
The simple fact is that if all housebuilding is restricted to brownfield sites then all suitable sites will be used up within 5 years. It’s that simple, there is not enough brownfield sites available to meet long term demand. The response of the couple in the report to the housing development on the brownfield site – an old landfill – was it’s very nice but it’s a car drive to just buy some milk.
The derelict property that the couple was shown really was a waste of a potential valuable home but as the report showed there’s only 7,000 empty and derelict properties in Sefton, not enough to meet the demand from young buyers and homeseekers.
There’s no doubt that there’s been some noise about the new planning reforms but it’s been nothing like the cry from the proposals to sell off the forests. The objections to the new planning reforms is not widely supported and is mainly driven by vested interests and NIMBYs. The general public know that we have a housing crisis and that house prices are way too high for the wages of most young people and first time buyers.
People know that the National Trust, CPRE and Wildlife Trusts are just hyping the situation out of all proportions. We are not going to have the countryside concreted over – no sensible person believes the green groups when they make that claim. As it was pointed out in the report only 1.1% of England is developed with houses while 87% of England is undeveloped.
There is plenty of room in England for well designed and developed housing estates to meet the aspirations for young couples like the one featured in the report. They don’t need to pack their bags and move away from family and friends to live in a shoebox in the cities and towns. There’s plenty of room for local communities to expand and meet the needs for their young people which will keep communities vibrant and with a good mix of ages.
The green groups need to wake up to the needs of the young or they’ll alienate an entire generation.
External sites:
BBC One Show (report starts at 8:35).
