Since time immemorial, new homes have been built in Worcestershire. Villages, towns and the City of Worcester have grown in an organic and attractive fashion, with only a few post war planning blunders.
Large Victorian homes in Malvern have been adapted into flats. Barns and other farm buildings have been converted into houses and by and large the market has evolved.
Some new estates have been built on green fields and orchards, but historically about half of all new building has happened on what planners like to call “windfall” sites – old garages, disused rail yards and so on. With a housing waiting list of about 1,500 in Malvern Hills District, there is also a steady development of affordable homes on small rural exception sites in villages.
This centuries-old process changed when Prime Minister Gordon Brown decreed in 2007 that 3,000,000 homes in Britain should be built by 2020. Does he know how many bathplugs will be needed too, do you think? The Regional Spatial Strategy then decided in its bureaucratic wisdom that Worcester shall be a “new growth point”. No democratic vote was ever taken on this decision. Despite inadequate infrastructure and the natural barrier of the River Severn, of this total, 25,500 must apparently be accommodated among the villages, towns and flood plains of South Worcestershire. The local council planners are required to work on this at great length.
There is no question that the open spaces are there to be built on. There is no shortage of farmland that farmers are willing to option off to developers. What is lacking is local demand for the homes, local infrastructure and local democratic control over the scale of development.
Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps MP has kindly visited us several times to explain to local people that there is an alternative approach – an approach that abolishes the top-down imposition of 25,500 homes across South Worcestershire, hands control over development back to locally accountable councillors and allows organic, windfall-type development as well as community-led affordable housing to develop once again in the local area in response to demand.
Let’s hope a General Election comes soon and allows local people their vote on housing, before the Regional Spatial Strategy is set in concrete.
( 8 comments ) Tags: malvern, worcester
Comment by Jack on November 13, 2009 at 11:37 am
Why don’t we have a free market in housing & land development – I am fed up with these lazy bureaucrats whether they sit in Regional Offices or Local Councils dictating to private developers what they should do. And why should local communities decide? That sounds like just more bureaucracy to me – a chance for the petty people in parish councils to dictate what they want.
If I want to extend my property or build flats on land that I own – I should be allowed to! Let’s have a free market!!
Let is have the right to build!
Pingback by Housing Targets Should Not Be Imposed On Communities at Cllr Iain Lindley’s Diary on November 15, 2009 at 8:28 pm
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Comment by Paul Mateo on November 16, 2009 at 1:01 am
Let the Local Government in charge and decides where to choose not the Uk Government because we don’t want a government run Britain.
Comment by Chris D on November 16, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Jack…you might be the landowner, but it’s the local communities that have to live with what you build. Especially if you live somewhere else, out of the way. Why should they put up with your developments without being allowed an opinion? That is very typical of the way today’s Government acts; i.e the people don’t matter. You say “I should be allowed to build what I want”…..therefore, to balance the equation, local communities should be allowed to have their say as well.
Comment by yvonne calleja on November 30, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I think there should be a person who you can appeal to when turned down by private landlords because you are unable to get council housing and they do not accept benefits even when you are trying to get a job and have enough money for a deposit
Comment by Charles on January 17, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Another great policy Housing policy by the Conservatives to ensure that the current generation priced out of getting a place to live remain priced out. [1] Ensure nothing ever gets built by letting local “NIMBYS” dicatate everything. [2] Ensure that the Taxpayer continues to artificaially inflate house prices with unstustainable low interest rates and QE and finally [3] if all else fails use Man Made Global Warming and ECO hysteria to say how living in poverty is good for the planet.
Comment by TONY on June 23, 2010 at 11:00 pm
I come from a village in hertfordshire and over the years the only people that have had things built in my area where the local Parish councilours or district councilors.Everyone else who put planning in has been refused its only now that a few have been past with affordable housing built with them whats affordable ?its a joke and when 4 bungalows and 20 houses where built the bungalows wich was ment to be affordable where built 3 parish councilors buy them first I wonder how many other areas in the UNITED KINGDOM have falllen for this LEVEL OF OF CORRUPTION,hopefully if this gets handed down to the local communities this can never happen again and the parish councilors and council have no say end off.If I had a say in this any thing that gets built in your area the local builder devolper should have to give something back to the commumity a percentage of money from there profits to go towards youth clubs etc.
AFTER ALL WE ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS.
Comment by Emma on July 30, 2010 at 10:18 am
Ive moved to a small village to one side a run down town and to other fields. I love being semi-rural, the community spirit is still there. Im concerned that I have spent the last year renivating our home from a shell without any utillities to a really nice first home. On low income we have had to live on a building site paying for everything a week at a time. However my local village have had talks about building a large new estate (including social housing). So I have the fear of compeating against a brand new build, with warrinty and brand new kitchens when I come to sell, let alone losing all the green fields that make our community a Village. Do we really need afordable houing? With the small 2 bed houses being left to ruin? Should we not be concentrating on helping people get a job and to be able to buy there own home which is already built? Im 21 and can achieve this by working on agency, why should I compeate against someone looking to make a few million from a field?