Comment: ‘Michael Gove’s housing plans mustn’t sacrifice quality to quantity’
Since the Brexit vote, London has been a dirty word in politics so it was startling to see the capital referred to in a not entirely disparaging way in Michael Gove’s housing plan this week.
At last the desperate need for homes in the places where people actually want to live — namely cities — is being acknowledged.
To this end, the Housing Secretary promised Docklands 2.0 with up to 65,000 new homes in east London (much of which is already being built so not technically new). Great! We do need more housing.
Except. There’s still a big question hanging over these plans: ‘How?’
Gove chose not to set out his funding plans in detail but about 75 per cent of new London housing is currently delivered by the private sector. But with inflated labour, materials and land costs, work on building sites has been stalling.
Property developers are businesses, after all, run to generate profit. If their costs spike they need to wrestle that margin back from somewhere.
This is getting harder as buyers’ budgets are hit by inflation, mortgage chaos and the loss of the Help to Buy subsidy.
I dread to think where corners might be cut to make the sums work, especially if planning rules are loosened, and environmental commitments binned.
The extension of permitted development rights to betting shop, department store and barn conversions is not promising.
Recognising the need to build is positive, but we need quality as much as quantity.
