Letter: We Need a Proper Strategy for Building Houses the Nation Needs

Published on: 17 Aug, 2025
Updated on: 17 Aug, 2025

Green belt land in Normandy now subject to a new housing development proposal that, campaigners say, will double the size of the village.

From Sir Mike Aaronson

chair of Normandy Action Group

In response to: CPRE Calls for Government Re-think on ‘Grey Belt’ Definition

The CPRE is to be congratulated on their petition initiative, and I hope all Dragon readers will consider signing it in order that the magic target of 100,000 can be reached and the petition will have to be debated in Parliament.

Given that the recent changes to the planning regulations, including the introduction of the infamous new category of “grey belt”, were not voted on by MPs but rather announced by Government decree (following a period of public consultation where the version of “grey belt” consulted on was fundamentally different from that which was eventually introduced), this would be no bad thing.

However, party political mud-slinging really doesn’t help. Let’s face it: no recent Government of any political stripe has had the guts or the gumption to tackle the underlying causes of the housing crisis, which include demand-side as well as supply-side issues (e.g. making sure young people can actually afford to buy the homes that are built).

As David Roberts has eloquently argued in his letter, (“Guildford Labour Is Out of Touch on the ‘Grey Belt’ Issue”) the real problem is that the housing market in this country is deeply dysfunctional.

Certainly it is depressing that this Government seems to have run up the white flag and passed the responsibility for delivering on its housing targets to the volume builders, who love nothing more than to be handed a nice, easy, greenfield site to build over.

Contrast this with the actions of the Labour Government after World War 2, which committed to fund from the public purse the decent quality social housing at a scale that met the needs of the nation. Nye Bevan, one suspects, would be ashamed of the situation today.

A previous Dragon Artcle: “Normandy Housing Plan Reignites Concerns Over ‘Damage To Our Community” described the situation we face here, where Taylor Wimpey is seeking to build hundreds of houses on previously undeveloped, high-sensitivity, green belt land (see image above).

Please, let us have a proper strategy, agreed across the political spectrum, for building the homes the nation needs, in the right place and affordable by those who desperately need them, rather than leaving it to the big developers to build where it suits them best in order to preserve their profit margins.

Responses to Letter: We Need a Proper Strategy for Building Houses the Nation Needs

Ben Paton Reply

August 17, 2025 at 5:51 pm

Housebuilding policy – like many or even most Government policies (of both the Conservatives and Labour) – is out of touch with what the electorate wants and needs.

1) Government housing aka council or social housing. The solution to this is

a) to stop selling council or social houses, police houses, MoD houses. Over the past thirty years all branches of government have been offloading houses.
b) to regulate the sector better to empower tenants to manage the estates and streets where they live
c) build new houses to very high standards that will prove to be an investment for the public purse
d) change the social tenancy contract and agreement so that once a tenant can afford to move into private accommodation he can be forced to relinquish occupation of a public house to someone else who needs it.

2) Private Housing

There is in fact no shortage of houses in the sense of bricks and mortar. Just take the ONS figures for population and divide it by the housing stock and the numbers of people per dwelling are remarkably low.
Any actual shortage could be solved in two to five years by giving private property owners incentives to let out property.
For example, 100 per cent up front capital allowances on property conversion costs and 50 per cent lower income tax rates on rental income.

Such incentives would have a dramatic effect on the stock of property available to let.

Instead of taking these elementary initiatives Government under the spell of the propaganda of the housebuilding lobby ie the five big housebuilders who are only interested in building new houses at the highest margins which, by definition, means green field, green belt new housing in the South East.

We need politicians with some faith in the power of free market incentives rather than bullies who just want to force the public to do as they tell it.