Transcript Planning – The Next Great Challenge:

HOUSEBUILDING:
A LOST ENGLISH ART?
Professor Sir Peter Hall
Happold Memorial Lecture
London
27 November 2007
The Barker Challenge:
Build More Homes
Source: Kate Barker Review 2004
• Need for massive
increase: 200k/yr >
240k/yr > ?400k/yr?
• Will need brownfield +
greenfield
• “Political” attack by
shires – “unholy
alliance” with cities
• The architects’
crusade: “Barcelonise”
our cities
240,000 homes a year: not enough?
• UK population: sharp
increase: 60.6m (2006) >
71.1m (2031): +10.5m
(+19.1%)
• Huge increase on last
projection (+6.1m, +10.2%)
• 5.6m (53.3% total) natural
increase
• 4.9m (46.7% total) net
migration
• England: +19.1%
Good and Bad Arguments
• Bad: we must save farmland
• Good: we should give people choice of access to
public transport, shops, schools
• By public transport as well as car
• So: concentrate growth around transport
interchanges
• And: raise densities there (“pyramids of density”)
UK: A barely developed countryside…
• UK: 14.3%
developed;
England: 19.1%
• These are
overestimates:
• England: 10.6%
1991
• 1996-8: ca 8,000
hectares/year
developed
(=Runnymede)
Land Lying Idle…
• EU Set-Aside: June 2004, 476,000 hectares,
almost 5.0% of England
• Greater SE: 100,270 hectares, 8.6%
• Essex 10.7%
• Hampshire 9.1%
• Oxfordshire 11.4%
• Bedfordshire 11.6%
• Far in excess of most generous estimates of land
needed for housing!
A Continuing Issue? Brownfield,
Greenfield and the Sequential Test
Housing Completions: 1999, 2004
1999 %
000s
2004 %
000s
1999-2004
% change
Total
Brownfield
Greenfield
100
56
44
140.0
78.4
61.6
100
68
32
152.9
104.0
48.9
+9.2
+32.7
-20.6
A Continuing Issue? Brownfield,
Greenfield and the Sequential Test
1999-2004
Completions
% change
Brownfield
% change
Greenfield
% change
-8.3
+37.9
-39.5
0.0
+27.5
-43.1
Yorks Humber
+5.9
+52.9
-41.2
East Midlands
-6.8
+31.7
-28.4
West Midlands
-9.3
+18.3
-42.0
Eastern England
+5.4
+8.4
+1.3
London
+92.8
+104.5
0.0
South East
+10.0
+25.9
-16.1
South West
+1.9
+50.0
-28.6
England
+9.2
+32.7
-20.6
Region
North
North West
Housebuilding: Houses v Flats
1999, 2004
Dwellings: % of total
1999
Houses
2004
Flats
Houses
Flats
North East
88
12
83
17
North West
85
15
73
27
Yorks Humber
93
7
71
29
East Midlands
93
7
86
14
West Midlands
*88
*13
71
29
East of England
*91
*10
78
22
London
41
59
20
80
South East
83
17
62
38
South West
90
10
74
26
England
84
16
66
34
Empty Land, Empty Homes
• Land banks: Are volume builders hoarding?
• Buy-to-leave: 670,000 empty homes, 300,000
long-term
• Joey Gardiner (R&R, 31 August): Central Leeds:
20% empty
• Similar stories: Manchester, Salford, Birmingham,
Hull, London
• Manchester: up to 40% (Ron Hack, Ecotec)
• London: 70% bought off-plan
Future of the typical English town?
House prices/earnings 1999, 2006
What do people want?
Earlier survey evidence
• Home Alone (Hooper et al 1998): only 10% want
a flat; 33% won’t consider a flat
• CPRE (Champion et al 1998): people want to
live in/near country
• Hedges and Clemens (q. Breheny 1997): city
dwellers least satisfied
• Conclusion: we hate cities!
What do people want?
MORI for CABE, 2005
• Over half the population want to live in a detached
house
• 22% prefer a bungalow
• 14% a semi-detached house
• 7% a terraced house
• Detached house most popular choice, regardless
of social status or ethnicity
• Period properties (Edwardian, Victorian,
Georgian) most desirable overall: 37%
New Households, New Homes
• 80% one-person
• But only about one-third “single never married”
• Will demand more space per household:
Separate kitchens/bathrooms/loos, Spare
rooms, Work spaces
• Land saving reduces as densities increase:
• 30 dw/ha yields 60% of all potential gains, 40
dw/ha 70 per cent
• So biggest gains from minimising development
below 20 dw/h, not increasing 40 dw/ha+
• So: go for 30-40 dw/ha with variations: higher
close to transport services (Stockholm 1952!)
• But won’t achieve same person densities as
before!
Densification: Effects
Density
Dws./ha.
Net
Land Saved
%
Total
Saving
Land needed to accommodate 400 dwellings
Area required, ha.
Gross
(with local facilities)
%
Cumulative
Land Saved
%
Total
Saving
%
Cumulative
10
40.0
46.3
20
20.0
20.0
50.0
50.0
25.3
21.0
45.4
45.4
30
13.3
6.7
16.7
66.7
17.9
7.4
15.9
61.3
40
10.0
3.3
8.3
75.0
14.3
3.6
7.8
69.1
50
8.0
2.0
5.0
80.0
12.1
2.2
4.8
73.9
60
6.6
1.4
3.5
83.5
10.6
1.5
3.2
77.1
Density Gradient (Rudlin+Falk)
Lessons from Land Use
• Public Transport needs
minimum density:
• Bus: 25 dw/ha
• LRT: 60 dw/ha
• Exceed recent densities
• Big gain from 30-35 dw/ha
• Plus “pyramids” up to 60
dw/ha round rail stations
• Urban Task Force
• Traditional – Stockholm,
1952!
• Or Edwardian suburbs!
Planning in Britain:
A Verdict (1)
• Andrew Gilg: Planning
in Britain:
Understanding and
Evaluating the PostWar System (London:
Sage 2005)
Where Are We Now?
Gilg’s Verdict
• Middle-class bias
• Not always democratic
• Balances economic growth, conservation: a
dilemma
• Increasingly market-driven
• No obvious alternative
Where Are We Now?
Gilg’s Verdict
• Big Achievement: urban containment;
preservation of countryside
• Big Failure: development not sustainable: work,
homes separate
• Another Failure: transport not integrated; transport
system overloaded
• Need: integrated development; New Towns
• Compare: Containment of Urban England (1973)!
Making it happen:
The 2004/2008 Acts
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•
•
•
•
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Radical change – biggest for 35 years
Working through at regional strategic level
Planning Gain Supplement > Tariffs
Can it solve the “infrastructure deficit”?
The major issue in solving the housing crisis!
But also: the NIMBY factor – will get worse?
2008: RSSs to RDAs
Where Are We Now?
A 3-Pronged National Spatial Strategy
• 3 key needs:
• “Grow SEE”: Better connections on
Sustainable Community Growth Corridors
• “Shrinking the N-S Gap”: Bring North,
Midland Core Cities/City Regions closer to
London
• “Grow City Regions” around Core Cities
South East England:
Global Mega-City-Region
Urban Clusters (Hall+Ward 1998)
Sustainable Communities Corridors:
Growing the SE into the Midlands…
Green Belt – or Green Blanket?
The Infrastructure Gap:
Roger Tym Report
Planning Gain Supplement v. Tariffs
• Planning Gain Supplement: a national development land
tax) on development gains
• Tariffs: similar, but levied by LPAs/vary LPA/LPA
• Related to infrastructure costs of Local Development
Plan
• “Section 106” retained: MK, Bedford…
• Local versus regional investment: ‘local gain’ for ‘local
pain’
• But problem of regional infrastructure: New rail
connections; national motorway junctions (Article 14: A2,
£92 million)
The North: Managed Decline?
• The great Pathfinder row
• How much to keep? How
much to demolish?
• Are incentives perverse?
• YES: SAVE Britain’s
Heritage
• NO: ODPM
• Family-Friendly Housing in
Cities
• How much Greenfield?
• Issues: VAT, Infrastructure
(Manchester, Leeds,
Liverpool)
The Challenge
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•
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Deliver the houses
Defend a “balanced portfolio”: Brown/Greenfield
Build sustainable suburbs
But: can be “New Towns” too (seldom just that)
Sustainable urban places – linked along transport
corridors
Fund the infrastructure/ Coordinate development,
transport
Countryside – for people!
A big challenge: equal to 1950s, 1960s
They did it – so can we!