A desperate need for affordable rental housing

When I grew up most lived in rented homes and the wish for many was to have a secure tenancy in a modern council house. Like most, my parents began married life sharing with their parents before moving to rented accommodation, in my parents’ case above the grocer’s shop where my mother worked.

Council housing has never been easy to come by but it seems worse now than ever. In my view this was without doubt down to the selling of council homes started during the Thatcher years and has ever since been part of, if not the major cause of, the problem.

Now I can fully appreciate why people were and still are keen to buy good quality homes at good prices - it makes perfect sense if they can afford it. However, the trouble is that those homes are then no longer available for renting. So, over time availability has decreased. In some respects, this is beginning to be offset by new building programmes and conversions, but there is a lot of damage to undo.

Now a private landlord is not expected to sell to a tenant at bargain prices, and I don’t see that it was the best way forward to maintain adequate council house stocks. I also believe that if back in the eighties the government wanted to assist those that wanted to buy their own properties, then the way forward might have been to encourage new builds while helping people buy good quality homes new or old at reasonable prices, with mortgages at interest rates most folk could afford to pay back.

I also believe that the policy back then created a dreadful undeserved stigma aimed at those renting.

Yes, I know there are now savings plans for first time buyers but I am not convinced that is the answer. The increased demand has meant that house prices increase which is fine for sellers, but tough for first time buyers on an average income. I could not have done it at today’s prices. We desperately need good quality homes to rent.

The problem is that many homes that are built are not for rent. Government should do more to encourage quality build of basic homes for rent, and some for sale at basic prices. Here there is collaboration through Medesham homes and that is no bad thing, but should it be left to cash-strapped councils across the country to fund these initiatives? I don’t think as an entire package ecological cost effective housebuilding is something that can be left to private developers to do on their own. Something for our MPs to keep to the fore.

Housebuilding programmes large or small should be more than finding a plot of land. Many things need to be considered to ensure the development works within a locality and the city as a whole. One of the faults with planning is that it can only look at a highly localised impact.

Even though it is just one aspect of growth, good public transport has a big role to play in the city’s future. Are designers looking hard enough at transport planning and assessing needs for the coming years? I think they should! The development corporation left us with an excellent outer road system. It is still better today than in many towns and cities of a similar size.

Even with increased traffic and roadworks and light controlled junctions popping up everywhere getting around by car is still a pretty simple affair, and indeed some journeys can be quite a problem by public transport - making car or taxi a much-preferred option.