The problem with house building...

Housing development is conditioned by concerns that have nothing to do with creating attractive or sustainable places to live. Clive Aslet explains this scandalous situation and suggests what we might be able to do about it

- Clive Aslet

WHY is most new housing in Britain so awful? To some people, this will seem a highly prejudiced question, implying that development is necessarily a bad thing. They may even claim that it ignores the manifest unfairness of a society in which the older generation owns large houses and youngsters can’t afford anything. Yet to ignore the low aesthetic quality of most house building simply exacerbates the problem. A recent survey showed that two-thirds of the population would never buy a new home. That’s surely a devastating judgement, given the effort to get more new homes built. Public animosity is one factor in Britain’s woefully slow rate of delivering them. When local people fear that development will spoil their surroundings, they oppose it. The tortuous nature of planning creates delay and reduces supply. Government attempts to speed up the process cause it to lose by-elections in the SouthEast. Clearly, the system would work more smoothly if new housing estates were liked. What are the factors at work?

Short-termism

LET’S start with the most fundamental: the Government, volume house builders and even local people operate on a timescale that is far too short to produce good results. A change in the planning guidance given to local authorities two years ago has increased the period for which they plan from five to 15 years, but some have yet to catch up— and even 15 years is inadequate. Only large schemes can deliver the infrastructure— shops, schools, GPs’ surgeries—that make a suburb self-sustaining.