Wanted, subsidised housing
From Shaun Spiers
Sir: Simon Nixon has got it wrong. Scrapping the Green Belt and covering it in new homes won’t solve the nation’s housing problems (‘No bubble, no slump’, 31 December). All that a great splurge of sprawl would do is contribute to further urban decay, sucking jobs and money out of cities, while doing further environmental damage as traffic soars. The housing market is dominated by sales of existing, ‘second-hand’ homes; any conceivable increase in new housing can only make a minimal difference to house prices.
Both housebuilding and planning permis sions granted for new homes have been rising briskly in recent years. If Nixon is right in forecasting house prices rising in line with inflation for the medium term, then housing will gradually become more affordable. As for comparisons between British and European housing, you’ll find more Britons living in family homes with gardens than in most of our apartment-dwelling neighbours. At the same time, we have usually done a better job of protecting our countryside from unplanned sprawl.
What is really needed is not new homes for sale on the Green Belt but a big increase in the building of subsidised housing for those families who have long been priced out of the market — and will continue to be even if there is a ‘step change’ in the provision of market housing.
Shaun Spiers Chief executive,
Campaign to Protect Rural England, London SE1
Previous page
