Ian Paul Politics Show South

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Building - you can please some of the people...

In November, 2004 the South East of England Regional Assembly (SEERA) threw out John Prescott's proposals for the number of new houses to be built in the South. He wanted 720,000 by 2026 - they are only prepared to accept 510,000.

What is going on?

Surely with the housing shortage here in the South we should be trying to build more houses, not fewer. Well, maybe not.

Each house is not just a house, is it? To make it a home, it needs a community - schools, shops, hospitals, traffic, water and sewage.

All of which, we either have too much of already (traffic, sewage) or not enough (schools, shops, hospitals and water).

So more house-building might help with one crisis, but it just exacerbates another, and puts yet more strain on our already creaking infrastructure.

Matter of balance

That is the argument used by people like Sir Sandy Bruce Lockhart, leader of Kent County Council and one of the prime movers behind Monday's decision.

Sir Sandy said: "There is a careful balance to be maintained between building new homes, providing the right infrastructure and protecting Kent's unique environment."

But don't be under the misapprehension that the argument is purely a technical one.

There are political considerations in there as well.

House building is not just a matter of numbers

It may be just a coincidence that the county councils which are against John Prescott's proposals are Conservative-controlled. But then again it may not.

Whatever the politics, everyone is chasing the Holy Grail of providing affordable housing for Key Workers.

But the term Key Workers only covers teachers, the police and health workers - there are still plenty of people not deemed Key who struggle to afford somewhere to live.

Could there possibly be other ways of helping them? In the Lake District, they certainly think so.

Local needs

If a developer wants to build a new house within the national park they have to prove it's needed for local people - which is something at least.

But even that seems to be a something too far for those of us living here in the South.

The New Forest has similar problems. High prices make it almost impossible for local people on low wages to find somewhere to buy locally.

So the council thought about a similar solution, introducing local occupancy conditions. But the practicalities turned out to be too great, and the scheme was dropped.

According to Tom Oliver, of the CPRE, simply cranking up house-building will not solve the problem: "You don't get a sizable number of new affordable houses by simply building lots of market housing.

"This is a fundamental fallacy," he insists. "Actually all you will get is an awful lot of new housing and still the same old story with affordable housing."

Could it be (whisper it softly) that we should go back to building council houses?

House prices, affordability, overcrowding, too much traffic - these are issues that affect all of us, whether we own a home or not.

Politics Show

Join Paul Siegert, in Oxford on Politics Show, BBC One, Sunday, 05 December, 2004 at 12.30pm.

Let us know what you think.

click here to view the Politics Show South

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