Letters extra
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Planning for cheaper homes I agree with Oliver Marc Hartwich (Slippery Slope) that soaring house prices do more harm than good. But I disagree with his solution, which was to build lots more houses, and finance the affordable ones through the planning system. The government says it wants to increase the number of homes built each year from 150,000 to 200,000 by 2016, but doesn’t specify the type of tenure. The people on housing waiting lists and in overcrowded or temporary accommodation will never be able to benefit from the vast majority of those homes. They need old-fashioned subsidised (whisper it, even council) housing. And yet, in London and the south east in particular, because of inflated land prices the majority of “affordable” housing is provided by section 106 agreements through the planning system, a sort of cat-and-mouse game, where local authorities set thresholds and targets and developers try to circumvent them. So when Oliver Marc Hartwich wants to loosen planning controls because young people cannot get on the housing ladder, the result will not be an upsurge of subsidised family housing or even low-cost private starter homes. Two alternatives may happen: a plethora of inadequately sized and densely packed apartments, that will be sold as buy-to-let, doing very little for those in need and nothing for the community; or nine executive homes for every affordable one. That is not worth sacrificing green belt for. ยท As a 64-year-old lifelong Guardian reader I was driven to protest for the first time about the astoundingly arrogant article by Oliver Marc Hartwich. Margaret Thatcher would be thrilled to see her policies recommended in the Society section of the Guardian with no editorial warning or retraction. As one of his disdained rural middle class “profiteers” of house price escalation, I am forced to live in an overpriced house, over-taxed and under-served by local authorities. If the house was sold I would have to live somewhere. My children will pay inheritance tax and there would be a net loss. Meanwhile, despite “restrictive planners”, new towns are being forced upon us in flood plains in an area of outstanding natural beauty with no public consultation, no available jobs or facilities. Has the writer ever looked beyond his city pad to see the reality of country life? Has he heard of the environmental sprawl into what is left of our agricultural land? I am horrified that the Guardian has given space to such drivel. I hope an equivalent two-thirds page will be dedicated to a contradiction of every wild bit of dogma. Dr WP Jones-Key, Sidmouth, Devon More : guardian.co.uk |