Letter: Future Generations Have A Right To Home Ownership Too

Published on: 1 Sep, 2016
Updated on: 1 Sep, 2016

From Christopher Dalby

There is a massive housing crisis in this country (500,000 new arrivals in the country every year to start) and yet still we get the people with their nice homes doing all they can to deny the future generations the right to own own home like they do.

How dare they? I have no doubt that if they were young now their opinions would be very different. The attitude shown by some is an absolute disgrace and they should be ashamed of themselves. The fact that some people can even claim there is no housing crisis is both ignorant and selfish.

What they mean is that they themselves don’t suffer from the housing crisis. Of course, if you own a home, with prices as they are, you certainly don’t accept that fact. Says it all.

Whatever the reason the population is growing people have as much right to own a home as existing owners do. It is truly shameful.

And as for people claiming that more homes won’t bring down prices, well that shows a total lack of common sense. There is a simple economical definition called supply and demand. When you have more of something prices go down. Just like wages with the huge workforce now here. And of course low wages mean that housing is even more expensive for many people.

What we need are more European style apartments built (all council properties should be apartments) and more affordable properties for working families. People that work deserve the right to own their own home in their home town and quite how anybody could disagree with that I have no idea?

We have no choice but to build on areas of the green belt. Times have changed and we have moved on from when it was protected. The population of Britain was much smaller back then and we simply have to move on with the times.

Of course areas of natural beauty must and will be protected but there are many areas which are very suitable for housing developments and homeowners have no right to deny others of the lifestyle they have themselves and must not be allowed to act in ways which will severely effect future generations in a negative way.

Responses to Letter: Future Generations Have A Right To Home Ownership Too

Adrian Atkinson Reply

September 1, 2016 at 2:17 pm

Mr Dalby, is another person who:

1. Says that if you don’t agree with the number of proposed housing in the Draft Local Plan then you are arguing for no housing being built or as he puts it: “..doing all they can to deny the future generations the right to own own home like they do.” He says: “The attitude shown by some is an absolute disgrace and they should be ashamed of themselves”. But the real questions we should ask are what is the need and how do we satisfy that need in a sustainable way?

2. Thinks that building more houses is going to bring house prices down – his common sense view of supply and demand might seem persuasive but sadly the cheap cost of money at 0.25% means people can afford to pay higher prices irrespective of the level of supply. There are other confounding factors in the housing price dynamics. Even the pro excessive building lobby confirms that this will not bring the prices of homes down.

House supply went down in 2007, and prices should have risen, but they didn’t. Ireland, during the massive house building program of the naughties found prices continued to increase dramatically.

3. Not backing up claims with facts that population increase is out stripping housing provision. Housing supply has actually kept up or even outstripped demand from population increase: The UK’s population has grown by seven million in the twenty years from 1994 to 2014, from 58 million to 65 million. The housing stock in the same period has grown by 3.3 million from 20.1 million to 23.4 million. Using the household formation rate of 2.4 people per home, this increase in housing caters for nearly eight million people, in excess of the population increase. This is not the explanation for house ownership crisis. Buy to let, low interest rates and overseas investment in UK property as a safe haven are the reasons.

4. Says there is no choice but to build on the green belt. But it depends on who you ask. Ask me, and I turn it round. Nearly 70% being built on the green belt and only around 2,000 proposed for the town centre while massively increasing the shopping area of the town is the wrong balance and bad planning. Perhaps some green belt development is needed, but the plan proposes too much.

5. Says, “Times have changed…” as a reason why green belt needs to be built on. Hmmm. Surrey is the most densely populated county in the most densely populated country (England) in Europe. Protecting the green lung of the South East is even more vital than in the past, not less. Pollution levels are well above legal limits in many places. This is only going to increases as more trees and green land are concreted over attracting even more cars and reducing the CO2 and NOx emissions in the process.

I do, however, agree with Mr Dalby’s point about “…more European style apartments built (all council properties should be apartments) and more affordable properties for working families.” However, the proposed Local Plan will deliver neither of these to meet the local need.

House prices are driven by a number of factors:

a. Supply of money – used to be 2.5 single salary
b. Cost of money – 0.25% interest rate
c. Buy to let demand as an investment vehicle (to combat low interest rate returns)
d. Property for investment.
e. Overseas (not immigration) demand from investors looking a safe haven and sure bets – “buy to leave”
f. South East attractive proposition for previously closed economies of the East, especially Russia and China.
g. Supply
h. Interest only mortgages – increases ability to pay higher prices.
Ben Paton Reply

September 1, 2016 at 6:17 pm

When you have to play the man and not the ball you really have lost the argument. This letter is devoid of verifiable fact or logical thought. What it lacks in that regard it makes up for with offensive statements about the motives and circumstances of those the writer disagrees with.

How dare the writer deny the right to express an opinion without suffering personal attack? Or the right of local people to self determination? Or the right to protect our environment and heritage? In Ockham more houses are planned for the next 15 years than in the previous 1,500 years.

A new town three times the size of Ripley is proposed on prime agricultural land. Why? Not because it is sustainable but because it will make a Caymans company around £500m in profit. And what is the pretext? That there is a shortage of houses.

But there is no shortage of houses in many places. The population of Leipzig has barely recovered to its level of the 1930s. (And it enjoys a high standard of living.) The real shortage of housing is in council or social housing. That’s a shortage created by policy – in other words by selling council houses off cheap and not building any for twenty years.

Frankly this country and our borough has a history which is worth something. It is not something to be desecrated purely in the interests of central government growth targets – which are necessary because it has not controlled immigration.

It is not reasonable or sustainable to allow decades of economic migration from Eastern Europe to come to Surrey purely because they prefer to live here rather than in their own countries. We (the UK) are the third most densely populated country in Europe after Holland and Belgium.

Our population per Km2 is 269 people. That compares with 111 people for France. Look it up on Wikipedia.

It’s time everyone engaged with the facts rather than deployed mock indignation.
John Perkins Reply

September 1, 2016 at 6:21 pm

Assuming that the population increase stays at a mere 500,000 per year, then in 13,000 years time there will not be a square centimetre anywhere in the UK that has not been built on, including all the protected areas.

Will those generations alive then deny the ‘rights’ of future ones? Or will they build on up to the sky?
What will all those people eat and drink? Will someone deny them the right?
Jules Cranwell Reply

September 1, 2016 at 6:48 pm

I stand by my assertion the the so-called housing crisis is a myth perpetrated by the development lobby to inflate it’s already eye-watering profits, while sitting on massive land banks. This is where the disgrace lies.

And why is home ownership considered a “right” in the UK?

Having lived in many continental countries and beyond, ownership is rarely the norm, and the French, Belgians, Dutch are happy to rent property, rather than rent money to give themselves the illusion of property ownership.

I do agree that more affordable accommodation, in apartment buildings is required, but the Local Plan does nothing to help with this. It is a plan to sate the developers’ appetites for large executive homes, because that is where they maximise their profits.
Paul Bishop Reply

September 1, 2016 at 8:52 pm

Well put by Mr. Dalby. Judging by the few comments already, he certainly seems to have touched a nerve with some people.
Valerie Thompson Reply

September 2, 2016 at 6:15 pm

No one has a “right” to own a house. If you have the money, or can raise a mortgage then you are able to buy one, otherwise, do as they do in America, on the Continent, and in the Far East, and rent.

The bigger problem is the government’s absurd policy on selling off council houses and those built by housing associations, without building new ones for people who need somewhere to live.

If you were desperate, homeless or living with parents, you would not mind whether your house had a bedroom for each child (they would share, as we used to do), had a garden (there are lots of parks and public spaces to play in – at the moment, nor whether it was in a lovely part of the country, on green belt land.

Mr Dalby should get real. Maybe he wants to live somewhere which has lost most of its open spaces, but Surrey cannot absorb many more people. Certainly there should be modest development on suitable sites (brownfield first), with proper infrastructure, hospitals, schools, decent roads, surgeries etc. But these developments should not be imposed randomly on open countryside, increasing car-usage into towns where most people work.
David Pillinger Reply

September 18, 2016 at 10:25 am

Mr Atkinson is 100% wrong to diss the premise that the supply of housing is not the primary cause of pricing. I totally concur with Mr Dalby in his letter that huge amounts of extra building is required. For me it is clear that we need to liberalise planning policy which benefits the “NIMBIES” and overwhelmingly rejects flat conversions, building of additional properties on existing plots and use of green space of brown field sites.