The housing crisis will only be solved through development and growth
Thursday, 16th February 2017
• WHILE some will always be opposed to any development in their area, it’s time to live and let live.
The housing crisis will only be solved through development and growth. This often means 1960s sites will be proposed to be rebuilt with denser development and better design than before, subject to local democratic scrutiny. You can’t dismiss many months of meetings, changes and modifications which take place on regeneration projects either where the council is the developer (Somers Town) or not (West End Lane was not a council development, as stated last week).
In these debates no one seems to canvass the views of key workers who can’t afford the homes the editor or many of the objectors live in; but now some at least can see a shared ownership flat within reach. Nor do you talk about local people on the housing waiting list who will benefit from homes at 30 per cent market rents (approximately what council rents are).
Public services are changing through austerity cuts imposed by the government and the use of technology. Camden has 1,000 fewer staff than five years ago. Rather than leave vacant council buildings empty, sales of several old council office sites in Camden Town and NW6 have raised capital to reinvest in new public services buildings and infrastructure – making the council better run and helping to keep bills down. The borough also has a new public swimming pool and new library as a result. These public benefits are matched by a push for social and shared-ownership housing on these office sites – in total around 180 extra affordable homes, with another project proposing a new library, archives, homes and employment space in Holborn.
This is in addition to the regeneration of council estates: 425 new council homes are due to be completed by the end of the year, the biggest number in any year since the 1970s. Building will accelerate over the next four years as projects carefully developed in the first years of the programme come forward.
If you only give a platform to the shrillest voices against development, accounts risk being one-sided and can misrepresent what’s going on.
THEO BLACKWELL
Cabinet Member for Finance, Technology & Growth
