John Marriott: It really is time to tackle the housing crisis
Having a secure roof over your head, along things such as having good health and a means of earning your living, has got to be one of the essentials we should all hope to enjoy. It was certainly something that my family was hoping for at the end of World War Two, which left us…
Private landlords could face £30,000 if they break the law. . Photo Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Having a secure roof over your head, along things such as having good health and a means of earning your living, has got to be one of the essentials we should all hope to enjoy.
It was certainly something that my family was hoping for at the end of World War Two, which left us living with relatives in the kind of austere world that makes today’s look like a walk in the park.
My home town of Leicester was typical of places up and down a country that, despite a national debt of well over 200% of GDP (compared with around 75% at the height of the 2008 financial crisis) managed to house and rehouse people and families by leading a massive house building programme nationwide.
In 1950 my own parents became the proud occupants of a brand new council house. Over 300,000 homes were built every year during that decade and beyond of which around 250,000 in each of those years were local authority controlled.
Not all admittedly were of superb quality (I’m thinking particularly of some of those infamous concrete tower blocks, erected mainly in the 1960s, that are thankfully no longer around); but most are still providing people with a home to this day.
Currently around 64% of Britons ‘own’ their own home, down slightly from the figure at the turn of the century; but around 20% higher than in Germany, for example.
At the end of World War Two that figure was around 26%.
With council/social housing to rent now unfairly considered by some to be a stigmatised last resort, there appears still to be the desire on the part of successive governments to encourage more people on to the property owning ladder by their insistence that planning authorities stipulate that each large to medium size development includes a proportion of so called ‘affordable housing’.
The problem is how you define ‘affordable’ and how you can get onto that ladder today if you are of modest means.
They reckon the average age of a first time buyer in London is now around 43 and I wonder how many first time buyers there and elsewhere have actually been helped by the ‘bank of mum and dad’ to get that deposit.
Let’s be honest. Not everybody is capable, for a variety of reasons, of handling a mortgage.
Others just prefer the flexibility of renting. Why should we assume that everyone aspires to own their own home?
One of the arguments of the advocates of the ‘right to buy’ scheme was that many long term tenants had probably bought their properties many times over and that ownership would engender more pride than just a tenancy. There may be a point in this.
Unfortunately, the government’s insistence back in the 1980s that local councils had to use the receipts from the sale of their properties to sitting tenants primarily to service debt meant that, with many of their more desirable properties sold off, their housing stock was reduced and many were forced occasionally to rely on expensive and often unsuitable short term alternatives such as hotels and B&Bs to accommodate potentially homeless people, whom they had a statutory duty to house.
Add to that the fact that many local types of council have now effectively washed their hands of their housing stock by transferring it to Housing Associations and you can see that the ability of local government to react to local need is severely limited. (You could argue the same when it comes to education.)
Before Lady Thatcher’s ‘Right to Buy’ was launched in the 1980s 42% of Britons lived in council controlled homes. Today I believe that figure is around 8%.
In 2016 the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee reported that we needed to build around 300,000 new homes per year for the foreseeable future in this country in order to solve the housing crisis.
Now, I’m no expert on housing but I do know from my recent experience as a member of the Central Lincs Strategic Planning Committee that many people still question the need for us locally to have to build many more houses.
After all, there are currently well over 600,000 empty properties nationwide which also includes those that are classed as second homes.
Whether we build loads more new homes or not, price has got to be the key factor.
What I do know is that it was cheaper to buy a house when I started out 50 years ago than it is today, and easier to rent one too.
When I first considered buying a house back in the late 1960s three months of my teacher’s salary would have been enough for a deposit on a brand new home. That is certainly not the case today, unless you happen to be earning well above the average income.
Incidentally, my only regret about going to work abroad between 1970 and 1974 was not buying a house before I left and renting it out in my absence as prices quadrupled in the four years I was away!
When people of my generation did get a foot on the property ladder and if they were prepared to move regularly, what they had was a massive opportunity to make money, at least in terms of the property.
Many people who started out with, say, a modest terrace valued in 1970 at around £6,000 might today be living in a detached property worth anything from £200,000 to £500,000.
If food prices had increased by the same amount as housing over that period, a carton of milk would now cost around £10!
As supply failed massively to keep up with demand over the next few decades, despite a short period of negative equity in the late 1980s, house prices have generally continued to skyrocket.
Indeed many economists still judge the buoyancy of the economy by how much these prices increase year by year. Many people have learned to rely on this particular nest egg for their economic wellbeing.
It’s also an important part of the equation when it comes to their social care.
How often have I heard as a councillor the argument from opponents of this or that scheme that it will have a detrimental effect on the value of their property?
So any attempt to curb or even reduce the price of homes will undoubtedly cause howls of protest from those already safely installed on the property ladder; but surely that may possibly be a consequence of increasing supply to meet demand.
It is more important to give the maximum number of people a secure roof over their heads whether they want to rent or to buy and the answer, in my opinion, is to return responsibility for a much larger amount of housing provision to local councils and allow them to borrow if necessary to finance further construction.
Whilst still the crucial player in the housing market, the private sector should not have it all its own way, particularly those developers currently sitting on large parcels of land on which planning permission has already been granted, just waiting for the prices to rise before making a start. Perhaps the prospect of compulsory purchase might concentrate their minds.
Schemes involving shared equity are fine as long as they don’t allow ‘stair-casing’ and thus prevent a property being bought outright. Offering housing at an ‘affordable’ price aimed at first time buyers without any conditions attached might end up with much of it being bought up by more affluent homeowners with a bit of capital in order to gain extra income from renting it out.
Then there’s the problem of trying to get planning permission in places like Oxford, Cambridge and London, where cheaper houses are desperately needed; but where nimbyism rules.
Nearer to home, three years ago City of Lincoln Council announced a £15 million scheme to build 150 homes by the end of the decade.
This was a step in the right direction that needs to be replicated, if it hasn’t been already, in many other local authorities.
Now that we at last have a Local Plan in Central Lincolnshire Lincoln, West Lindsey and North Kesteven will have the ammunition they need to fight speculative developers who have been trying to sneak plans under the radar for far too long.
Innovative building methods such as prefabrication should be considered as should, for example, the installation of solar panels, where appropriate, as standard.
Many of the ‘prefabs’ erected as temporary accommodation after the last war are amazingly, thanks to refurbishment, still providing excellent accommodation to this day.
Similarly, PRC (pre-reinforced concrete) homes have been the subject of renovation schemes up and down the country, notably in the North Kesteven area in the early 1990s.
It didn’t come cheap but take a look, for example, at North Hykeham’s Shuttleworth estate to see what can be achieved.
I know that not all building innovations have stood the test of time but hopefully lessons have been learned, including from the most recent cladding scandal. Whether they are building a town house or an executive mansion, developers, builders and councils must not be allowed to cut corners.
The post war Labour government had the courage to tackle what was a far worse housing crisis, despite massive financial constraints, so what about our Tory government today? As they say; “Where there’s a will….” The days of leaving such matters exclusively to the private sector are surely over.
John was a councillor for thirty years, finally retiring in 2017. A schoolteacher by profession, he served on the North Hykeham Town Council (1987-2011), the North Kesteven District Council (1987-1999, 2001-2007) and the Lincolnshire County Council (2001-2017). He was also a County Council member of the former Lincolnshire Police Authority for eight years until standing down in 2009. In 1997 he was the Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate for Sleaford and North Hykeham. He is currently not a member of any political party.
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The Lincolnite welcomes your views. All comments are reactively-moderated and must obey the house rules. Please stay on topic and be respectful of other readers.
There have been 1,005 new coronavirus cases in Greater Lincolnshire and 26 COVID-related deaths so far this week — compared to 867 cases and 40 deaths this time last week.
The government’s COVID-19 dashboard on Friday recorded 113 new cases in Lincolnshire, 20 in North Lincolnshire and 18 in North East Lincolnshire.
On Friday, four deaths were registered in Lincolnshire, two in North East Lincolnshire and -1 in North Lincolnshire. Fluctuations in data are usually due to some deaths in those areas being reallocated to other regions across the UK or a miscount. These figures include deaths both in and out of hospitals, as well as residents in hospitals outside the county.
NHS England reported two new local hospital deaths at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust and one at Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, bringing the total so far this week to 11, a drop from 20 last week.
On Friday, national cases increased by 8,523 to 4,163,085, deaths rose by 345 to 122,415 while COVID first jab numbers hit over 19 million.
This week has seen Greater Lincolnshire overtake the England average infection rate by seven cases per 100,000.
Six of the nine districts have seen an increase in their infection rates since Wednesday but health bosses expect to see numbers going up and down, so it isn’t too concerning.
The England average has continued to fall over the past week.
Here’s Greater Lincolnshire’s infection rates over the last week up to February 26:
Greater Lincolnshire’s infection rates from Feb 19 to Feb 26. | Data: Gov UK / Table: James Mayer for The Lincolnite
Local health bosses said there are no COVID mutations of concern in Lincolnshire currently, but they have a plan if new variants enter the county.
The plan is called ‘Operation Eagle’ and would include surge testing and contact tracing to find where the variant first appeared in Lincolnshire.
The Kent mutation is present in the majority of cases in Lincolnshire and is known to be around 70% more transmissible, but not more dangerous.
Variants of concern include the South African mutation which can spread more rapidly and vaccines might not work quite as well against it.
However, there is no evidence it causes more serious illness for the majority of those who come into contact with it either.
In national news, the UK’s coronavirus reproduction number – or R number – remains between 0.6 and 0.9 from last week, meaning for every 10 people infected, they will pass COVID on to between six and nine others.
Vaccinating people in order of age is the fastest way to cut COVID-19 deaths in the next phase of the roll-out, say experts advising the UK government.
People in their 40s will be next, once the current phase is completed, not key workers. Here’s when you could get your coronavirus vaccine.
Some of the first people to check into quarantine hotels have had their first taste of freedom upon their release today after self-isolating for 11 nights.
From last Monday, UK and Irish nationals returning to England from a “red list” country deemed at high risk for COVID-19 have had to check into quarantine hotels.
The 15 areas of England to have vaccinated the lowest proportion of adults against COVID-19 are all in London.
In some boroughs, including Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham, just one in five adults have received a single dose of a vaccine, according to NHS England data up to 25 February.
Coronavirus data for Greater Lincolnshire on Friday, February 26
Greater Lincolnshire includes Lincolnshire and the unitary authorities of North and North East (Northern) Lincolnshire.
53,205 cases (up 151)
37,581 in Lincolnshire (up 113)
7,989 in North Lincolnshire (up 20)
7,635 in North East Lincolnshire (up 18)
2,065 deaths (up six)
1,517 from Lincolnshire (up four)
299 from North Lincolnshire (down one)
249 from North East Lincolnshire (up two)
of which 1,216 hospital deaths (up three)
754 at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust (up two)
41 at Lincolnshire Community Health Service hospitals (no change)
1 at Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust (no change)
420 in Northern Lincolnshire (NLAG) (up one)
4,163,085 UK cases, 122,415 deaths
DATA SOURCE — FIGURES CORRECT AT THE TIME OF the latest update. postcode data includes deaths not in healthcare facilities or in hospitals outside authority boundaries.
After roadside littering reared its ugly head in Lincolnshire again, councils across the county appear to be passing the buck, without taking any action.
The issue was raised by The Lincolnite reader Rebecca Dunn, who went to clean up with her friends part of the roadside on the Western Bypass in Lincoln, because she said it was “starting to look like a landfill site.”
Some of the litter that was found at the roadside dated back 17 years to 2004, suggesting that the area hadn’t been cleaned in years.
A can dating back to 2004 was found at the side of the road. | Photo: Rebecca Dunn
Rebecca had told The Lincolnite that she was consistently asking West Lindsey District Council about roadside cleaning for over two years, but nothing was done about it.
She was eventually given a response, which claimed that funds are no longer available for litter picking on roads over a 50mph speed limit — the bypass has a 60/70mph limit depending if it’s dual or single carriageway.
An alarming amount of bags filled by roadside litter on just one stretch of Lincoln’s roads. | Photo: Rebecca Dunn
When asked about this, a spokesperson for WLDC said: “Working on high speed roads is a real challenge for us, wherever possible we will work with partners to allow our staff to work safely.
“For instance, we litterpick dual-carriageways at the same time as lane closures are in place for grass cutting operations.”
Rebecca and some of her friends went to clean up the roadside. | Photo: Rebecca Dunn
The council added: “We are aware of reports of litter on this section of the highway and have been working in collaboration with the Highways Authority to get the trees cut back.
“Now that work is complete it will allow us access to the laybys to undertake litterpicking work.”
West Lindsey District Council also said that there is no specific part of the street cleansing budget, of which we weren’t given the total figure, dedicated to the stretch of road in question.
However, the council said that anyone with specific issues regarding street cleansing should call 01427 676676.
“Starting to look like a landfill site.” | Photo: Rebecca Dunn
The Lincolnite also approached Lincolnshire County Council for a response about this, who declined to comment and called it a “district matter”.
Part of the A46 ring road around Lincoln is the responsibility of Highways England, while others are under County Council management.
In response to our original story, many people pointed out that a similar issue is arising on roadsides in North Kesteven.
North Kesteven District Council were also asked to comment on the problem, but did not reply.
A man living in North Hykeham has started his own family business offering authentic homemade Punjabi style curries for the local community.
Rizvaan Ashfaq, known to all his friends as Sid, launched Hadiqa’s Street Food Kitchen on February 15 after moving to the Manor Farm housing estate in North Hykeham last summer.
He runs it alongside his fiancée Raluca Nistor, a forensic psychologist for the prison service who runs the admin side of the business.
Mutton and potato curry (bottom and top left) and chicken and chickpea (top right). | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
There are currently three curries rich in flavour to choose from, which are priced at £8 and include traditional pilau rice. They are mutton and potato, chicken and chickpea, and mixed vegetable, with the latter suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
Sid, who also enjoys bodybuilding in his own time, said the motto for his business is ‘Just heat and eat’ as the dishes are all prepared freshly and just required heating up by the customer.
Hadiqa’s Street Food Kitchen is based in North Hykeham. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
The curries are all served with traditional pilau rice. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
He told The Lincolnite: “Takeaways are often very commercialised and people suffer in Lincoln and Hull who cannot get authentic Indian curries.
“I thought why not bring it local. I did some surveys on social media to gauge interest and the reaction was positive, so I started building my business from November. I launched on February 15 and it has been very busy.
“Normal curry houses or takeaways are often not traditional. We buy all the spices fresh and blend them by hand. We make it in an authentic way, they are tasty and people will get all my hard work and passion.”
Rizvaan Ashfaq, known as Sid, and his fiancée Raluca Nistor run Hadiqa’s Street Food Kitchen in North Hykeham. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
The 39-year-old is originally from West Yorkshire and also works as a general manager/director of the cocktail bar Level Cafe Bar and Grill in Hull, which is owned by his uncle Zafer Yildiz.
The food is made freshly in the professional kitchens there before being transported to Hykeham in a refrigerated van ready for delivery.
People can order to North and South Hykeham, and Lincoln through Facebook, via email at [email protected] or by calling 07791542912.
Orders can be placed Monday to Thursday with the menu changing monthly, with the next one in mid-March. The customer can choose a delivery day between Friday and Sunday before being allocated a time slot. Delivery is within a four mile radius, with surrounding villages also eligible soon.