Where will all the people come from?
67,000 HOMES TO BE BUILT AND LEFT EMPTY
Mismatch of population size with house-building
Oxfordshire is attempting to build 100,000 homes over 20 years from 2011–2031 following a Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) which allows for economic growth over and above natural growth. This strategy would house 250,000 new people, a 40% increase in the population of Oxfordshire from its 2011 level of 650,000, bringing it to 900,000.
The Office of National Statistics (ONS) make regular projections of population, based on recent trends in births, deaths and migration. Using their figures the realistic population of Oxfordshire in 2031, is likely to be 730,000 (using county-level data for 2014, adjusted by 2016 national data).
Oxfordshire’s plans mean that in the next 13 years we need to attract 170,000 people over and above those expected to migrate in. Without them (since 2016), we will have built four times more homes than can be filled. (Table with data for graph at bottom of article).
Housing the Homeless
But what of our homeless? According to Shelter 0.5% of the population is homeless or in temporary accommodation. Evenly spread this would be 3300 people in Oxfordshire. It would take a mere 1350 homes to house our homeless. We have overcrowded homes too, 3.3% of our homes according to SHMA, or 8500. Generously, we could provide another 8500 so that each overcrowded home could decant to a second home. Thus, to house all our homeless and the overcrowded, we need 10,000 homes. 13,000 Oxfordshire homes lay empty in 2011: a remarkable match with the number needed.
Similarly, if homeowners were enabled to downsize to smaller homes without losing capital value from savings earned over a lifetime, more than 200,000 bedrooms would become available: 73% of homes in Oxfordshire have at least one spare bedroom.
Then how many?
How many homes do we need to build? To house our expected population in 2031, relative to 2011, we need 33,000 new homes. 15,000 have been built (to date), so in the next 13 years we need only another 18,000; not another 85,000. There would be 67,000 too many homes.
How would we fill the 67,000 homes? How would we bring in 170,000 people? We must emphasise that these people simply will not exist — there are no surpluses of people elsewhere in the country. The extra people can only be brought into the county by depopulating other parts of the country, or by a massive immigration programme from abroad, counter to the express determination of our government.
THE TRAJECTORY BEYOND 2031
This housing growth trajectory from the SHMA is assumed to continue to 2040 by the Oxfordshire Infrastructure Strategy report of 2017; resulting in a further 23,500 homes in 9 years.
Thereafter, a road to be built between Oxford and Cambridge, is to be ‘paid for’ by one million homes along its route. The road runs through three counties, so Oxfordshire may receive a third of these, but let us assume a fifth (200,000 homes), in 20 years to 2050.
If all the homes were to be built and occupied, by 2050 there will be 1.5 million residents in Oxfordshire, against the actual likely population of 790,000. Population growth would be 8 times greater than expected, and the population twice as great as it is actually likely to be. Or, 700,000 people missing.
HOW CAN OXFORDSHIRE GROW?
It is the aspiration of the SHMA, and the Oxfordshire Infrastructure Strategy of 2017 (OXIS) that Oxfordshire’s economy, and hence built environment, should grow beyond the normal, competing with other counties and pulling in people from elsewhere.
Could these people come from surrounding counties, from London, from the North? This does not really work, as all counties have been obliged to set high housing growth targets, and across England there is a levelling off in population growth.
In economic terms, growth in housing is an end in itself, bringing in investment money from abroad and providing jobs in construction and hence improved GDP (but creating second homes and ghost villages — already true in Oxfordshire). What housing growth does not do is reduce the price of homes.
Developers pay high prices for land and struggle even to pay their obligations towards infrastructure, often failing to provide the hoped-for affordable housing as their margins are squeezed. They would not, and do not, flood the market with homes to bring down their cost. Thus, the house-building in Oxfordshire since 2011 has been at half the rate anticipated. In any case, the near-infinite global market of investors seeking the safe haven of buildings in England keeps prices high.
Unfortunately, the National Planning Policy Framework provides a presumption towards development in inappropriate places for unplanned housing estates, as developers can argue for planning permission if the SHMA targets are not met, as indeed they never are. Thus the unnecessary, unachievably high targets are detrimental to the proper planning of our county, the welfare of our citizens, and the protection of our natural environment.
The disparities between the official population projections and Oxfordshire’s plans are so great that is clear that our leaders are taking a huge risk with our communities, countryside and economy.
FURTHER INFORMATION
HOW DO WE SET HOUSING TARGETS?
Very high targets for house-building have been set in this country, and in Oxfordshire. All counties must use the SHMA tool, to identify how many homes are needed to accommodate existing residents better, to allow for natural population growth (the balance of births and deaths, plus net immigration), and to permit economic growth over and above natural growth.
The economic growth targets are set by collections of business-people in each county, the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). Government is attempting to make their workings more transparent and accountable. Oxfordshire’s LEP is a limited company.
Leaders of the LEPs, District, City and County Councils, and, in Oxfordshire’s case, the Universities, come together as the ‘Growth Board’ to determine housing numbers. It is the task of the District and City Councils to plan where all the new growth goes.
The anomaly that we face, is that all LEPs aim for economic growth and increased population and they set these targets high to bid for central government funding. Counties are set to compete with one another for growth. But there are only so many people in the country to share out at any one time.
In contrast, DCLG (Department for Communities and Local Government) bases its population projections on estimates of the current and projected population, published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) which collates data on migration flows and natural growth.
DEFICIENCIES IN OXFORDSHIRE’S SHMA
The SHMA has been shown to be flawed. Compared with DCLG it prescribes:
• 28,000 homes by dint of excess industrial growth over normal trends
• 20,000 too many homes due to misinterpreted population and household formation forecasts plus double counting of new residents versus workers
• 14,000 too many homes due to double-counting of affordable homes
REFS: Strategic Housing Market Assessment for Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire SHMA Note on Local Needs March June 2017
SHMA projections were to be monitored and adjustable, but we have not seen any monitoring and adjustment taking place.
Assumptions in SHMA have already been outdated by reality — here, we have assumed 2.47 people to a home, as ONS observes and projects (as a minimum), rather than following SHMA in its assumption that household size will shrink to 2.4. (If it were to, the difference to the projections here would be trivial).
EXPRESSLY UNTHOUGHT-OUT
To plan roads to accompany our 100,000 houses (and to note deficits in all other services that support civilised life) the Oxfordshire Infrastructure Strategy (OXIS) was written in 2017. It identifies £9 billion of spending that would be required to 2040, of which approximately £250 million has been secured.
The National Infrastructure Commission is planning for a major road between Oxford and Cambridge because (to paraphrase): “people do not travel between Oxford and Cambridge and so we should provide a link to have them do so”. Not paraphrasing: “For example very few people currently live in Milton Keynes and work in Cambridge or Oxford.”
This Expressway is not a motorway as it specifically links two destinations and is probably to be a 2-lane road. It will however have more ‘levels’ (overpasses) than a normal road.
We have supposed that perhaps a fifth of the million homes to ‘pay for’ the road may end up in Oxfordshire, but it is immaterial where they go, as the lack of people to fill these homes holds true in neighbouring counties too.
Underlying data
The table below shows the underlying data used for the graph here, and in a further article on this topic. NB for a later article, the 2011 census baseline of 650,000 people in Oxfordshire was used, with the then-anticipated SHMA projection of 716,000 people in 2016.
