Robin Staines, chair of the Housing Supply Task Force, says innovative thinking can deliver more new homes in Wales
‘I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn’
Thomas Hood’s evocative poem conjures up all sorts of pictures and memories. We may not remember the names of all the neighbours or teachers, what we had for birthdays, or the second single we ever bought (sorry, track downloaded) but the chances are we will remember the house we grew up in. the strange noises and familiar smells.
It may not be a question of the houses we build, but how the house built us. The environment of our formative years, of which the house/home is an essential and integral part, influences our journey. We shouldn’t forget how the lack of an appropriate home, or one that doesn’t meet our aspirations or needs, can help determine our view of the world. To get real traction in the cause of increasing housing supply the challenge is to translate the stuff and numbers of the ‘housing system’ to understanding the impact on those without an adequate, affordable and safe home. We have to make it human and make it interesting.
Importance of the home
The taskforce recognised the importance of the home rather than starting with the scale of the housing shortage. We didn’t spend much time on collecting and debating the numbers. Not only is this widely available and understood, but talking in tens is irrelevant when the answer lies in the thousands.
We found some tremendous work across Wales being undertaken by energetic, talented, and committed people – across all sectors and professions. The common purpose, while unwritten, is explicit that good housing leads to good economic and social wellbeing. Trouble is, we have made it difficult for ourselves delivering on this purpose. Some of the thinking and principles underpinning our vision have gone awry.
Our job was to find potential solutions to meet needs, demands and aspirations. As sure as death and income tax we found, unsurprisingly, there is no silver bullet masquerading as a magic wand enabling the removal of a white rabbit from a top hat. The issues are well rehearsed, the answers are neither obscure or unachievable, but they are not always necessarily easy either.
Election winner
General elections were once fought on the number of new homes delivered. The housing minister was a revered cabinet post. Supply, speed and numbers were the essence of housing policy. Of course, this didn’t always work out and some short-term solutions caused long term headaches for which we are still paying. But the general principle is that housing was an election winning issue and there was political will to deliver. Resources followed and post-war recovery secured.
Interestingly we are beginning to talk about housing again in terms of numbers, but as jobs and skills as well as bricks and mortar. We can use this hook to our advantage as we continually argue to local and national leaders the obvious and proven benefits of a focus on new house building or returning wasted, empty homes to use.
We found some brilliant examples of the talent and innovation in Wales to deliver more homes. The system and complexity of housing development stretches these talents to the limit. This has to be our starting point as the money that drove post-war recovery is either not available, or being directed at other priorities. Our thinking about house building needs to change to drive better systems, better behaviours and better performance. Development ‘control’ could re-focus to development enabling.
The Planning Bill will go some way to foster this new attitude and culture. The system needs to support and enable building.
We found we also need to think very carefully about how we harness and utilise resources. Our duty is to ensure the best use of all our resources, including land, money and people.
Our commitment was to think about how we drive every new additional home of the resources available. This necessitates difficult conversations with several vested interests. However, a clear and agreed common purpose will bind us together in what matters to the public rather than to our individual professions and organisations. Housing providers have more in common than we sometimes recognise.
There was a suggestion we would call our report ‘the penny and the bun’. We rightly want the high housing space and specification standards, but at what costs in terms of rent, purchase price or the number of new homes? We want great public services across all, often competing, service areas. But where are the real priorities between health, education, transport, social care and housing (although investment in the latter reduces the burden on the former). We want to conserve and celebrate our heritage and environment, but where do we draw the line at new development? There are choices for professionals and politicians alike in this balancing act. But with the will, the talent and the focus, we can
deliver more with what we have. That’s not to say more money would always be welcome. Interestingly we were told that non- public sector resources are readily available, but we have to be flexible and innovative to ensure they stack up for the investors. Accepting the public purse’s strings are pulled tightly, we have to continually prove housing is the cheapest and best option to relieve the burden on other areas of public policy and deliver jobs and better health. Our report makes a range of recommendations to help us with this journey. You may not agree with some or any of them, but we do need to act on those where consensus exists and reconcile our differences – that is what the public expects of us.
How to deliver more new homes
The Task Force report published in January argued that wales has performed worse than any other part of the Uk on housing supply over the last 30 years. Between 1981 and 2012 the number of households increased by 327,000 but only 267,680 new homes were built.
Key recommendations for changing this included:
• The minister should appoint a new homes delivery group to oversee the programme and make the case for housing
• Every local authority should appoint a new homes champion with a Cabinet position to promote the case
• Welsh Government should build on its existing work with public land holders and bring forward more land for housing
• A variable and competitive grant system to deliver more new homes for both social and intermediate rent. The grant regime should be based on a ratio of social to a third intermediate
• The minister should consider opening up social housing grant to a range of providers including private developers
• New money for a challenge fund for local authority building and/or enabling, with grant to develop within the HRA and for a Welsh version of the Scottish National Housing Trust
• Consideration of the impact on social landlords’ capacity to develop of any changes to rent policy
• A review of Houses into Homes to ensure it makes the greatest possible impact
• Planning reforms to speed up delivery and ensure a balance between planning gain and scheme viability
• Better modeling of housing need and delivery of target levels of development based on identified need
• Research and development of cost-effective technical solutions for sprinklers
• An impact assessment costing the recommendations of the Development Quality Requirements review and its impact on supply plus a review of national and local standards
• Review of construction training to deliver skills and community benefits
• An expectation of a 20 per cent increase in private sector completions by 2015/16
• An increase of 44 to 51 per cent in the target for affordable homes during the term of this administration.
Go to wales.gov.uk/topics/housing-and-regeneration/publications/report-of-the-housing-supply-task-forcefor a copy of the report