Oxfordshire: building ‘well in excess’ of needed homes

Dominic Raab, Housing Minister rejoices that Oxfordshire is planning 100,000 homes “well in excess” of the number that it needs.

“Well in excess” indeed! That number of homes would push Oxfordshire’s population up to 900,000. But such a number is not likely. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) projects a far smaller population, which would be accommodated with the building of 33,000 homes.

Thus, 67,000 homes would be built and left empty. That is some ghost town! Bigger than the size of Oxford.

After 2031, Oxfordshire presumes that it will continue to build 5100 homes per year for 9 years, followed by a share of a million homes to ‘pay for’ a road between Oxford and Cambridge. The graph shows the resulting populations of non-existent people, if a fifth of these OxCam homes came to Oxfordshire. By 2050, we would be able to fill only half of the homes in the county. (Underlying data shown here).

ONS has the most reliable figures, unbiassed by ‘aspirations’ for growth, for property investor profit, for the 10-fold up-valuing of farmers’ land, for developer land banking, for high GDP: money changing hands as we sell off the ground under our feet.

To house our homeless including those in temporary accommodation or on the waiting list for housing, and those in overcrowded homes, would take 10,000 homes. As the new housing is generally not social housing, the new homes are unlikely to be allocated to these people. Perhaps we should instead look at the 13,000 homes that (in 2011) lay empty in Oxfordshire. A remarkable match.

Luckily, already at 2018, 15,000 homes have been completed. From now, for the next 13 years, we need only 18,000.

Why does it matter that we plan too many homes?

If they are built, we lose our wildlife and our food production, and the 67,000 homes will serve only financiers and the housing investment boom.

But would it reduce the quality of life the people of Oxfordshire?

Yes. Mr Raab is pleased to announce that Oxfordshire’s sacrifice in urbanising the county will be rewarded with £215 million over the next 5 years. From this, 1300 affordable homes will be built (enough to house one third of the homeless). The rest of the money will go towards roads.

That leaves us short of only £8,785,000,000. Oxfordshire estimates we need £9 billion in the next 15 years to support new housing: for schools, medical centres, social care, transport, police, fire and ambulance services, water and energy, waste and flood defences, parks and nature. This in itself is a woeful underestimate, especially given the backward state of affairs we are in since County Council budgets were halved.

Why else does it matter? That the housing targets are far too high?

Because, should the local district council fail to have several years worth of housing in progress, any developer can claim any beautiful productive greenfield site and insist on it being granted planning permission. This, despite the paradox that the developers are in control of whether housing progresses, not the council.

In South Oxfordshire for example, John Cotton, Leader of the District Council, states that there are permissions for 10 years worth of housing, but it is not in progress and so our sacrosanct land, the very land that was not allocated for housing, is grabbed and built upon.

But why don’t the developers build?

One, it is not possible to build at this speed. Oxfordshire would have ‘needed’ to build 5000 homes a year, but in 7 years we have only 15,000 homes (2100 per year).
Two, developers pay high land prices and would not make the desired profits if they flood the market with homes: there is currently what is euphemistically called a “lack of market absorption”.
Three, developers do not need to build to increase the value of their company, that is always best achieved by adding the land asset value to their balance sheet.

So, don’t build, don’t reduce profits, don’t keep up with the housing targets (can’t anyway), and hey presto! More land can be grabbed and the asset base amplified.

In essence, the National Planning Policy Framework has rigged the system so that the only places homes are built is where the council and the neighbourhood do not want them to go.

We, at South Oxfordshire Sustainability, Need Not Greed, and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England have for years been pointing out that the growth figures are absurd. The government may choose to continue to listen to property magnates, but Thames Water have chosen to listen to us.

Thames Water have revised their post-2040 projections for the population of Oxfordshire in line with ONS figures. As a result, the proposed reservoir that will take out a slew of Oxfordshire countryside, is to be postponed for 10 years. (Unfortunately Thames Water are obliged to use local authority population numbers up until 2040).

We hope South Oxfordshire District Council (SODC) will take a leaf out of Thames Water’s book. The council is in some disarray, with John Cotton resigning the leadership of the Conservative majority due, it seems, to intractable problems with assigning excessive homes in the Local Plan. SODC has (wildly) settled on destroying the village of Culham, and evicting a multi-million pound business (Martin Baker) at Chalgrove to build a massive housing estate miles from anywhere — all supported by minus £8,785,000,000 of infrastructure.

Of course, Mr Raab was not talking about the excess housing relative to the likely ONS projections, of which the government seems entirely unaware. He was talking about a re-working of the infamous strategic housing market assessment which dictated the original 100,000. The re-working brings it down to around 60,000 so-called need. Why don’t the councils work to this? It would mean SODC could get its plan passed without troubling Culham or Chalgrove.

SODC is meeting to rubber stamp its cabinet’s decision to plough on with the Local Plan on Tuesday 27th March 2018 at 7pm at the Fountain Centre, Howbery Park, Crowmarsh. Members of the public are welcome to watch! You can also register to speak:

http://democratic.southoxon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=122&MId=2272