England's Housing Shortage
Despite the Governments pledge to build an extra three million homes by 2002, England is heading for a housing crisis according to the latest reports.
It is estimated that more than 270,000 new homes are needed each year, but even if the target was met, most potential buyers would still be unable to purchase affordable houses.
Average house prices in England are seven times more than the average salaries according to the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit.
Housing shortages and the difficulty first time buyers have getting onto the property ladder are well known, and even though we realise that more homes must be build to meet the demand for the ever growing population, we still do not want them built in ‘our own backyard’.
The report has been published on the same day as Housing Minister Yvette Cooper unveiled funding plans to encourage local councils to help create new homes, but councils are still creating difficulty on building new properties.
Ms Cooper went on to say “Some of them say they don’t want more homes in their area, and the problem with that argument is that it’s just not fair – every area needs to do its bit”.
Kate Gordon who is the senior planner for the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England stated “This could have horrendous consequences in terms of environment, landscape and also quality of life - traffic congestion, pollution and the like.
"There are also issues like access to water supply for these homes and the likelihood of them being built in flood-risk areas, and development should not be foisted on the country's most pressured regions, calling instead for a planned approach which made better use of existing buildings and derelict land”.
Help for Local Councils
To help give them the push needed, councils would be given £1,100 per new home which may increase to £5,000 by 2010/11.
Councilor Paul Bettison from the Local Government Association is not fully convinced with the build of new houses in certain areas and believes simply building more homes was not the answer. He stated "For too long we've been pushing the simple figure of more and more houses, without thinking about the infrastructure.” "It's no good building houses if there are no roads to get to them."
England alone has an estimated figure of 670.000 properties standing empty. 300,000 of those are listed as long-term vacant and included in the funding plan is a budget of £510m set aside to help bring the empty homes back into use to ease the housing shortage.
Councils who aggressively target empty properties, including through compulsory purchase orders, will share in the fund to help pay for the projects.
Back in the 1930s when Britain’s population was considerably smaller than today’s figures, houses were being built on a much larger scale.
Houses are needed for families – new homes need to be built somewhere!!!
