Michael Gove, one of the few ministers with a track record of getting stuff done, set out the government’s new housebuilding plans this morning. But will his policies actually help solve the housing crisis?
The British Dream is largely a suburban one, and Gove’s plan fails to address it
Gove’s plans have focused on streamlining the planning system in certain areas. The levelling up secretary is planning to create a dozen more Development Corporations, which take planning decisions away from local politicians and have speeded up building in areas such as Canary Wharf and the London Olympic games site. Gove is also opening the Office for Place, a department for making buildings beautiful, and creating a planning ‘super squad’ to plough through bottlenecks in major developments. All of this shows his zeal for delivery and his preference for government mandate over local decision-making.
The plans have been shrewdly designed. He has promised that a million more homes will be built, with a focus on developing brownfield sites at the core of urban areas. This means densification of cities, repurposing surplus commercial stock – and, smartly for the Tories, doing this in areas that usually don’t vote for them.
Densification of cities makes economic sense. It means building closest to where people want to live and where some of the cost pressures are greatest. It also makes political sense for the Tories, who don’t have to worry about losing council seats or parliamentary constituencies in the Labour strongholds where these homes will be built. The proposals largely entrench the Tory position against building in suburban areas – saving the shire by opening up the cities.
But this may prove short-sighted. ‘Brownfield first’ is already the de facto policy across much of the country, and there are multiple problems with it. Inner-city land is already expensive, and often difficult to build on. Sites need clearing and sometimes decontaminating pushes up costs. Equally, the conversion of commercial sites to apartments could lead to developers creating a slew of shoddy slums rather than rejuvenating town centres. At the same time, Gove’s Office for Place could just become another layer of bureaucracy that slows construction down.
The plan to focus on densification also ignores one of the realities of the housing crises: the types of homes people desire. Most people want, ultimately, a two-storey detached house with a private driveway. The British Dream is largely a suburban one, and Gove’s plan fails to address this. Instead he’s protecting people in the suburbs who benefitted from the sprawl of previous generations, and who now dread housing being expanded again where they live.
It also remains to be seen how much of this the government can even deliver. Part of the problem with housing is the opposition to development across the political spectrum. Nimbyism comes in different strands. It is formed of traditionalist Tories, anti-developer socialists, and even ‘embodied carbon greens’. All of these factions are likely to fight any policies which encourage development, while delay could be fatal given the government has at most 18 months until an election.
This delay has already been evident in one of the government’s flagship proposals: the mass expansion of Cambridge. The plan, to build a quarter of a million new homes as well as a huge amount of lab and commercial space in the area, has already elicited local opposition. The Tory MP for South Cambridgeshire, Andrew Browne, has attacked the plans as ‘nonsense’, while local councillors have also spoken against the scheme.
Gove’s plan at least shows the Tories are taking the housing crisis seriously, and recognising that the only way out of it is to build. It is also a smart way of allowing development while minimising the impact on Tory voters, making it politically palatable for their own side.
Campaigners will welcome this, and perfect should never be the enemy of good when it comes to much-needed housing. The question remains, however, whether it will deliver homes in a way that makes any difference.
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