Government housing policy will damage the economy, says research

The £1.5m ‘SOLUTIONS’ study by five universities shows that high density urban housing developments could be incubators for a raft of social and economic problems. In the South East, it calculates that the policy could increase production and housing costs by £30 billion a year by 2031.

The researchers, lead by Professor Marcial Echenique in the Department of Architecture, instead propose a policy of ‘sustainable suburbs’ which, although they would inevitably encroach on green belt land, would reduce living costs and provide housing in which people wanted to live.

With England’s population forecast to grow by 10 million by 2031 and with increasing numbers of people working in clerical and professional jobs, resulting in greater demand for owner-occupied, suburban houses, England’s towns and cities need to expand.

The research team spent five years looking at recent urban development in the South East, Cambridge and Tyne and Wear and projected forwards from that. They looked at three main models for housing development – the ‘compact city’ model favoured by the Government, market led dispersal – low and medium density housing oriented towards travel by car; and planned expansion which creates new medium-density suburbs around good public transport links in areas with a good economic infrastructure.

The research suggests that the Government’s policy of containing housing development within existing towns and cities leads to overcrowding and pushes up housing prices, with a knock-on effect on wages and the local economy. Moreover, say the researchers, it has little impact on reducing carbon emissions. This is partly because residents living in flats in dense developments make substantial use of cars, despite the presence of public transport – and so add to urban traffic congestion. It is also partly because housing developments on brownfield sites are in places with few nearby employment prospects – so people living there drive to get to jobs.

Planned expansion would mean that houses, jobs and services would be located near one another, usually on the edges of existing towns and cities, and in places with good rail and bus links. In the South East, this could include new ‘sustainable’ suburbs around the edges of London and along railway corridors and new, remote, ecologically planned settlements in areas of economic growth and with good transport connections.

Professor Echenique said: “Letting cities expand is essential if middle and low income families are to achieve their dreams of houses with gardens and firms are not to be burdened by unnecessary wage costs. But this is not a plea for sprawl. It is an argument for planned expansion and for new 21st century suburbs that are well located and well designed.”

The five universities involved in the SOLUTIONS research are the Universities of Cambridge, Newcastle, Leeds, West of England and University College London. The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.