SMF: Brown's 3m Houses Plan Will Need Greenfield Land
A prominent think tank organisation has suggested that the construction of two million houses will need to take place on greenfield land, if Gordon Brown's housing shortage pledge is to be fulfilled. The vision held by the Prime Minister is that three million new houses will be constructed by 2020 - predominantly on brownfield sites, on which development has previously taken place. According, however, to the Social Market Foundation - which has just issued a report on the subject - about two-thirds of these will, out of necessity, end up being situated on previously undeveloped land and protected 'green belt' areas. In response, the government reaffirmed that it intends to preserve green belts as are.
Since becoming Prime Minister at the end of June, Gordon Brown has prominently focused on the issue of housing, and recently detailed measures by which the pace of new house construction would rapidly accelerate. Speaking to the House of Commons in July, he highlighted how: "Putting affordable housing within the reach not just of the few but the many is vital both to meeting individual aspirations and to securing a better future for the country." Simultaneously, the Prime Minister pledged to "continue to protect robustly the land designated as green belt".
In line with current government proposals, at least 60 per cent of the projected new accommodation would be constructed on brownfield land. However, and crucially, according to the SMF's research, even with the new houses being constructed in a density/proximity equal to many areas of London, a maximum of 2.1 million could use the brownfield land available in Britain. Consequently, to maintain the three million projection, use of green areas - parks, gardens and others - would be unavoidable. More viably, a density level where more space could be allowed between the houses, would see the situation for greenfield land worsen significantly, with "almost two million homes would need to be built on non-previously developed land".
Ultimately, said the SMF: "It will not be possible, even if those living in towns and cities accept the loss of their gardens and parks, to meet the UK's housing needs through previously-developed land alone."
A further issued highlighted in the think tank's report was that even the construction of three new million homes could still be insufficient, given the rocky nature of the housing sector. Describing the 3m figure as "likely to be the minimum needed", the SMF described in the study the imbalanced supply/demand already prevalent in UK housing.
The SMF additionally detailed how the green belt, conceived to limit urban development, was "...not as green as people believe", given that part of it includes scrubland and former industrial sites. It proposes that there could be a strong case under which the present green belt is reconfigured, as it frequently offers protection to "neither wildlife nor areas of outstanding beauty".
The director of the organisation, Ann Rossiter, stated that the UK had "tough choices" ahead, in terms of attaining housing needs, and that it needed to take on the mentality of "not in my backyard". In conversation with BBC Radio Five Live, she further detailed: "We have to face the fact that if we want our kids and our friends' kids to have somewhere to live that's of a decent standard, those homes are going to have to go somewhere. And maybe they have to go in the field next to our house, and maybe they have to go near the view that we've always loved - but that's the reality of the situation."
The situation received comment from Richard Bate, of the planning consultancy firm Green Balance. Highlighting how the green belt had multiple uses, including demarcating the boundary between urban and country, stopping certain areas of cities and towns from becoming run-down, and preventing cities and towns blurring into one, he added: "Simply letting the market rip in areas where it would like to go - very often in green belt areas - won't necessarily put development in the places that will do the most good for everybody in town and country alike."
According to Baroness Andrews, the Housing and Planning Minister, the government remained adamant that the housing needs of generations to come could still be reached, while environmental boundaries remained unaltered. "Our clear priority for development will remain brownfield land - already 74% of new housing is being built on brownfield land, up from 57% in 1997", she affirmed.
Source - Construction International's Sub Editor
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