“One key part of the plan is making sure affordable homes in the valley go to local people, particularly the area’s young people. Affordable homes will only be allocated to people who have a connection to the Sid Valley.” [Sid Valley Neighbourhood Plan]
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There’s a lot to consider when looking at ‘the housing issue’ in the Sid Valley.
AGE OF BUILDINGS: How old is Sidmouth’s housing stock? It seems that the UK’s housing stock is the oldest in Europe – which impacts both the quality and quantity of housing in the UK’s towns and cities.
The Sid Valley has more listed buildings than anywhere in Devon apart from Exeter – itself an impressive array of historic buildings, but also indicative of the number of ‘old building’s there are. And whilst Sidmouth or even East Devon doesn’t have the figures, according to The Housing Baseline from Torbay Council, only 13.7% of the housing stock is post-1993 (to 2019).
COUNCIL HOUSING NUMBERS: Should the Sidmouth/East Devon councils be building more social housing? On the one hand, UK councils demand extra cash and the end of Right to Buy to boost social housing and on the other, MPs themselves are saying the government must invest in building new social homes to tackle chronic housing shortages.
Then there is the impressive legacy of 100 years of social housing in Sidmouth. And the architect behind this housing was none other than the renowned Sidmouth architect R W Sampson, more famous for his imposing villas. But it was housing minister Chamberlain himself who said on his visit in 1927 that “…this (Arcot Park) was the best Council development he had ever seen”. The talk last week by Nigel Hyman ‘Sampson and Sidmouth – From Council Houses to a Major Hotel’ looked at this legacy and there’s more on Sidmouth’s first council houses from the Sampson Society.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF CURRENT HOUSING: How good are homes in Sidmouth at keeping the heat in and how easy would it be to make them more energy efficient? After all, “the greenest building is the one that already exists” – which means we need to be looking at a UK whole house retrofit programme “involving multiple, integrated building fabric measures, new heating systems and controls, and the widespread adoption of rooftop solar.”
The CAPS or Climate Awareness Partnership Sidmouth has several initiatives looking at exactly these issues, but locally – including its thermal imaging surveys, offering advice & grants, looking at what actions to take and the recent launch of the Eco Hub Sidmouth where lots of practical help will be at hand. And in parallel Sidmouth is looking at creative ideas, such as “how to make a power station on your street” and adapting buildings to climate change.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF NEW HOUSING: How many homes are being built in the Sid Valley that are energy efficient? It is possible to produce good quality council housing – which also ticks all the green boxes, with the energy-saving, social housing, revolutionary Passivhaus winning an architecture prize [and that was five years ago].
There are such projects happening now in Devon – with the promise of ‘zero energy bill’ housing for Exeter being realised earlier this year. Or as Devon Live would have it in their piece on the incredible facts about Exeter’s ‘Zero Bills’ homes: “The world’s most sustainable homes used to appear in exotic magazines – now they appear in Exeter.”
And is is possible in these parts too. As the Sidmouth-based firm Swell Architecture says about their eco-conscious approach to design: “Integrating sustainable practices into our process not only benefits the environment but also reduces long-term operating costs and enhances your living experience.”
AVAILABILITY OF HOUSING: How easy is it to find somewhere to live in the Sid Valley? Apparently, England has the lowest number of houses available in the developed world, and the highest rate of inadequate housing in Europe at 15%.
This is the biggest issue perhaps for the Sid Valley. We are struggling to provide the right sort of local housing, with an immediate example being a new planning application for housing for Sidbury already failing to fulfil Policy 11 of the adopted Neighbourhood Plan, which states that on schemes of 10 units or more, a minimum of 50% of homes must be affordable.
As the 2019 Sid Valley Neighbourhood Plan made clear, any new housing will be for local people and any new affordable housing will be for local people: One key part of the plan is making sure affordable homes in the valley go to local people, particularly the area’s young people. Affordable homes will only be allocated to people who have a connection to the Sid Valley.
NEW HOUSING TARGETS: Finally, how many new homes are to be built in the Sid Valley? The new housing targets for English councils means an increase of 28% for East Devon. But in a backlash from councils, many are saying these are “unrealistic” and “impossible to achieve”.
Certainly when it comes to these parts, the Sidmouth housing allocations will have inadequate infrastructure and this week it was announced that Budleigh Salterton has been spared extra homes because the proposed housing would have been built on the National Landscape [or former AONB].
NEW HOUSING NEEDED: At the beginning of the year, journalist and pundit Jonty Bloom suggested that we need to build more, build better. And at the end of the year, in answer to the pressing question of how to fix Britain’s house price nightmare, he is suggesting pretty much the same, but more urgently. Here are a couple of extracts which highlight the points above:
We have the oldest housing stock in Europe, with 78% of it built before 1980. The European average is 61%. As a result, we also have the highest proportion of substandard homes in Europe, with 15% failing to meet the government’s Decent Homes Standard. Such homes are more expensive to heat and maintain, one reason why our energy bills are among the largest in Europe.
We also have far fewer new homes than elsewhere as we have consistently failed to build enough. Only 7% of all UK properties have been built since the turn of the millennium; in France the figure is over 10%, in Spain over 18% and even in Greece it is 15%. It therefore comes as no surprise that we have one of the smallest number of dwellings per head of population in Europe. There are just 434 dwellings for every 1,000 people in England. In France there are 590, in Italy 587 and in Belgium 483. This makes it far more difficult for people to find property and means that the rental market is a mess too.
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For a start, we must do what they do and build. Last year, the UK began the construction of just 2.19 new homes for every 1,000 citizens, Ireland started 6.2, France 4.2 and Germany 3. So, a doubling or trebling of home construction each year, every year is the bare minimum that is needed. The new Labour government is committed to building 1.5 million homes during this parliament but not many people think it can hit that target. The Centre for Cities think tank believes that radical reform of the planning system is needed or Labour will fail… It is calling for a radical new “zoning” policy, as is found in many other European countries, where areas of potential house building are identified with a presumption that planning permission will be automatically granted. There will also have to be more building on green belt sites.
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Council house building needs to soar to the levels seen in the 1950s, when local authorities built 125,000 a year on average. Harold Macmillan made his name by building 350,000 in one year alone, but last year councils built just 3,000. Even that was the best year in decades – in 2008 they built just 180. Revitalising council house building should in theory be quite easy. Councils own lots of land and can grant themselves planning permission. All they need is an incentive, which the new government has helped with by limiting the discounts for those buying their own homes and the money to get started, hopefully from right-to-buy sales.
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Finally, we need to learn from best practice on the continent and reform the rental sector. Labour is making a start by abolishing “no-fault” evictions, tightening standards for maintenance and repairs and discrimination against those on benefits or with children will be banned. What is really needed is a German-style system, where longer tenancies and strict government limits on rent increases give much more power and security to tenants.
Yet the key factor that means lower house prices, lower rents, more choice, more security, better housing, warmer homes, lower bills, and more money left over at the end of the month, is much more house building. Build, baby, build.
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