Housing crisis !

There are 25 million homes in the UK housing a population of 65,255,164 (at time of writing) with an average age of 40. As the population continues to grow the government aims to build 1 million more homes before 2020, which equates to a growth of 4%

So first thing, do we need more homes ? according to the ONS the answer is yes and the main reason for population growth is the birth rate being higher than the death rate.

Births and deaths by year

Lets not ignore the current situation with housing prices in both the rented and owner occupier markets. To me these high prices are simply a case of supply and demand, there's high demand and short supply so competition drives prices up.

I think there are 2 different parts to this discussion, one is about who, where and how, the other is about the type, style and build of housing.

Not a year goes by in Tamworth without the question being asked, does Tamworth need more homes? and the supplementary question where else can more houses go we have built nearly everywhere now and brownfield is running out.

 The government has pushed house building for local authorities and has incentivised local councils to be pro house building. This has been a 2 pronged attack and may well have been necessary for many places but I have repeatedly said I feel Tamworth has provided above its share of new housing over the last 50 years. So what is the incentive to continue to approve housing? New Homes Bonus. This bonus is as ever not entirely simple but the council will get 6 years worth (reducing to 4 years)  of council tax for each new property completed from the government as well as the council tax collected via the normal means. OK its a bit more involved than this but I'm keeping it simple. And at the same time the austerity measures we see mean that all councils no matter of geography or population will have to be self sustaining and no longer rely on an annual government grant. I personally think this is a good scheme particularly in prompting local authorities to start allowing new build, Its a fact that for the last 40 years not enough housing has been allowed and now we are in this situation of too few houses. Tamworth however has never stopped building houses and has made its contribution.

 So the pressure is on to squeeze more housing in.

 Late last year we saw on Sky news, and read in news papers that the government sees 100,000 pre- fabricated houses could provide some of the answers as they are cheap and can be put up in a day. I think there might be something in this as long as these prefabs are done correctly and are either given a appropriate life span to be replaced or are built in a way that does not store up the same problem for a near future time.

   Pre-fabricated housing is nothing new and looking at today's media you could very easily think that the only time we have used them is during the post war 1940's and 1950's. but this is not the case, it was not many years ago that John Prescott visited Castle Bromwich to watch prefabricated timber frames for housing being put together. the company in question was Space 4 and the visit was featured on  BBC west midlands . for those that aren't aware at the time Space4 were supplying timber houses to Westbury homes who built a brick wall layer around the timber house, this reduced the price and increased the speed of building and happened a lot in the early 2000's though I'm not sure if it still does.

  I have often taken my family away on holiday and whilst its only been for short periods I have always noticed or even admired the efficient use of space that static caravans have. there are many people in the UK who live in static caravans and in mobile homes. if the efficiency of this type of housing could be used when building in the future we may be able to provide cheaper quality housing with more space around them in the same tight land availability. My grandmother lived in sunset close in her later years and whilst it was a great bungalow the space was certainly not efficiently used, with thick walls, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and lounge all connected through a hallway/corridor without any interconnecting rooms. This to me screams out to be learnt from when building smaller dwellings. I've stayed in caravans less that 12ft x 40ft with 2 en suites a kitchen diner, lounge and 3 bedrooms

   So maybe small units with high spacial efficiency of a high quality prefab type may well be part of the answer.........but please lets not build stacks of rabbit hutches.

 I have argued that if each village in the midlands were to expand in a sympathetic way, maybe 100 homes on each, they could maintain the village renaissance and address some of the housing crisis. The side benefit would be supporting local shops post offices and pubs assuming the village had not already lost theirs. This is a sensitive point and would need to be done right to maintain character.
Instead the councils of Lichfield and North Warwickshire are that afraid of development in their back gardens they are fully intent of building on our borders!!! Robeys lane to the M42 and the north of Tamworth along Lichfield's borders will become extensions of Tamworth with green space between them and the town or city they pay their council tax to. Tamworth residents are being ignored by our neighbours and so we get development times 3. .

God forbid that this point is linked to the below on as I do not what a Judge Dredd style megalopolis of the mega cities

   One solution has already been tried and tested with various levels of success and that is building upwards, the success of this type of housing very much depends on where you are in the world and the assumed usages these have in many parts of the UK. In Tamworth do we have flats and maisonettes or do we offer Luxury condos with a river view. Lets face it we have flats and apartments which are often used to support the affordable housing need of a development to gain the planning permission and stay compliant.

Tamworth has it's fair share of apartment type accommodation but the demand for 2 bed properties is huge and whilst I believe an individual must be able to sit outside in the fresh air not everyone wants to have a garden.

 I remember one of the early Tamworth Listens where a member of the public suggested we build along the river with luxury apartments and the ground floor ones having moorings etc. Another suggestion I heard many years prior to councils being given the right to charge market rents for housing (should they wish) and this was to one by one empty the H block in Stonydelph as people left so not re let, Then once empty redevelop these as luxury apartments with panoramic views of Tamworth, generating an income for the housing department and raising the building out of some of the problems it had at the time.


I'm not sure what the ultimate answer is but I do know we need to look at all the options available and be creative with our solutions.

So becoming a bit nimby myself, Tamworth has done its bit and its now in the situation of going over and above whilst others haven't pulled their weight.


NOW THE BIG QUESTION..
house building is one thing but infrastructure MUST be in place to serve new development.. This is a topic for a whole new entry but expansion does not offer the same opportunities as new towns.

....MORE ON INFRASTRUCTURE TO FOLLOW

Please follow this link to see some of my thoughts on Tamworth Town Centre

Jeremy Corbyn's Leadership fight

The Last couple of years for the Labour party in the UK has been somewhat of a roller coaster and I am not going to get all party political in this blog, but I am going to raise something that I think many politicians can learn from.

  So lets wind the clock back.... but not too far.... not as far back as siblings Milliband were going head to head but to the point just after the awkward photo of  Milliband Clegg and Cameron the morning after the general election. Ed Miliband took the decision to step down following the election result triggering a leadership contest in which the Jeremy Corbyn was nominated, possibly to stir it up a little, and very quickly it became apparent that within the Labour party he was becoming very popular and it is at this point that I think the lesson of the last 15 months for all parties starts:-

   As soon as his popularity became apparent a number of senior politicians expressed the view that if he were elected the party would be un-electable. So the MP's were advising the grass routes membership that they did not want Corbyn as leader and at that point it was fair for them to air that opinion. Jeremy Corbyn then went on to win with 59% of the membership vote, Just pause for a second, the membership of the party voted by nearly two thirds in a four way battle to elect the leader they wanted knowing that this was not the MP's popular choice. This is the democratic right of the membership and so the leadership was settled, the new leader was elected and it was time for MP's to get on with the job.

   Earlier this year we had the EU referendum and I agree that Jeremy Corbyn was slow out of the blocks and probably enjoyed the blue on blue a little too much, he didn't come out fighting as he was expected to do. So the MP's who didn't want him there in the first place in my opinion used this as an opportunity to fight the democratic decision of the grass routes membership.  The MP's were saying "we don't like the leader you have chosen and so we will vote we have no confidence in your choice and want a different one". The vote of confidence happened and Jeremy lost so the leadership battle commenced.

 3 months on and we have seen a summer of rule changes, court battles, trolling, a bruising campaign and the grass routes membership have voted for their leader who is Jeremy Corbyn, with a bigger share of the vote than before. All of that emotion, political damage and money spent to get the result the membership wanted in the first place.
 
 This does raise the question when is it a good time to have a vote of no confidence if you don't like the result.

The lesson must be that whilst MP's are elected to make decisions they must listen to their constituents and party members on the ground especially if they can make the decision, Remember its grass routes members that select and elect MP's.