Letters: Give councils the power to build homes

The following letters appear in the 5 March edition of The Independent

(Alamy)

I live in the constituency of Pendle, an area that in the 19th century was the centre of the cotton-weaving industry and so experienced huge population growth. Row upon row of two-up, two-down, terraced houses were constructed for these workers. These were built quickly, and did not have cavity walls or damp courses; if they had toilets, they were in rear yards, and bathrooms were unheard of. Most of these homes remain occupied, and many have been substantially improved, but the undeniable fact remains that our housing stock is in need of replacement.

The Government has set targets for new housebuilding in Pendle which it expects will be met by private-sector development. This is brainless. What we have is a socio/political problem that will never be solved by reliance on free-market construction businesses. We need affordable homes, built on brownfield sites, for our hard-working, poorly paid population. The developers want to deliver three- or four-bedroom detached properties, built on greenfield sites to maximise their profitability. The objectives are mutually exclusive. But our local council is under government pressure to meet its housing targets, and having no ability to build itself, is painted into a corner by the property developers.

The solution is to give the council the ability to raise funds to build social housing appropriate for our area and compatible with our infrastructure.

But the ideologically driven, top-down style of our Government will not countenance that solution.

Peter Catlow
Colne, Lancashire

“Britain’s housebuilding racket” (3 March) did not, in my view, accurately present developers’ positions. Over the last six years the UK housebuilding industry has increased building of new homes by 75 per cent to over 156,000 houses a year in 2015.

The suggestion that housebuilders are deliberately restricting supply of new houses to boost profits is wrong. It does not make commercial or economic sense for developers to sit on land and just wait for prices to go up.

Taylor Wimpey starts building on all sites, where we have a planning permission that legally allows us to, as soon as practicably possible. Where we have larger sites of up to 1,000 homes in one town or village, we work with local communities to ensure that the build rate can be successfully absorbed by the local infrastructure and that schools, hospitals and transport networks can cope.

The construction production time of a new house takes around four to six months, a figure which has remained the case for many decades, not the three to four weeks you cite. The construction process is labour-intensive and a degree of settlement is required. Quality is also crucial, as is getting properly qualified labour.

Legal consents to build usually come with detailed conditions that need to be fulfilled before development can start. These include undertakings regarding environmental and noise issues. These are the real cause of delays in getting on-site. A lack of resources in local planning departments also means that the processing of applications takes too long.

The industry is working with the Government to help solve the housing crisis.

Pete Redfern
CEO Taylor Wimpey
London EC2

The use of factory-made components could save considerable time for the builders and make considerable savings for the buyers. In 1960, aged 31, I bought my first house with a 90 per cent mortgage, at a multiple of 2.5 times my salary, with no help from the family. Wates in Dulwich and Span in Blackheath were building town houses, with almost no bricks for the walls or tiles for the roofs. They were erected on-site, by crane, with a few workmen to assemble the components. So why is this not being done now, instead of using methods going back to Roman times? The builders should be asked.

William Haines
Shrewsbury

Thank you for highlighting a key reason for the UK’s dysfunctional housing market. Our obsession with home ownership has resulted in banks depending to an excessive level on property as collateral, while the Government has allowed the market to be captured by a small number of volume builders who inevitably regulate supply in their own interests. Not only is supply inadequate, the units produced are depressingly uniform.

We urgently need to diversify financing options to promote user-controlled supply and to tax land according to the market value of its approved use.

Geoffrey Payne
London W5

Cycle lanes vital to beating congestion

Most people want more cycle lanes built on main roads, and other road users wouldn’t mind if their trips took slightly longer as a result, according to a new YouGov poll.

World-class sections of safe, segregated cycle lane have now opened in central London. Cycling there now appeals to many thousands of Londoners who didn’t feel confident mixing with the main flow of traffic.

Some say Boris Johnson’s cycle superhighways will make getting around London harder, but the fact is cycle lanes represent an incredibly efficient use of road space. According to the Mayor’s cycling commissioner, the three metre-wide bus lane on Waterloo Bridge carries 1,200 bikes and 2,400 bus passengers per hour while the other six metres of carriageway carry 600 cars per hour, many without passengers.

As it stands, London is the most congested city in Europe. Transport for London predicts that congestion in central London will have rocketed by a staggering 60 per cent by 2031. We need to get people out of cars and on to bikes and we need to do it urgently.

Darren Johnson AM
Green Party, London Assembly, London SE1

John Laird (Letters, 27 February) states, in relation to Boris Johnson failing to wear a cycle helmet, that “every sensible cyclist in London is aware of the dangers posed by heavy traffic”. The highest- rated cycle helmets are designed to absorb 95 joules of energy, which is the force generated by an average-weight adult falling forward at 4mph, and will provide hardly any protection in the event of an impact with any motor vehicle travelling at any speed. “Common sense” may lead an individual to suppose that such a device may offer protection from heavy traffic, but informed opinion knows that the only true protection for cyclists is their segregation from all motor vehicles.

Chris Beazer
Wirral, Merseyside

What’s democratic about Israel?

I was really surprised to see Donald MacIntyre describe Israel as a democracy (3 March). Israel was established as a Jewish state; 750,000 Palestinians were expelled and denied the right of return. It has more than 50 laws listed on Adalah, the legal rights organisation, which discriminate against the 20 per cent of the population who are Palestinian Israelis.

To mention but two: the nationality and entry into Israel law, which grants citizenship to Jews from anywhere in the world but refuses citizenship to a spouse from the Occupied Territories who marries an Israeli citizen; and Negev individual settlements law, amendment 4, which grants planning permission to Israelis building in the Negev but refuses to recognise or supply amenities to existing Bedouin villages.

Pamela Manning
Cambridge

Scaremongering about an EU exit

I assisted in Papua New Guinea’s transition from an Australian Trust Territory to independence, an identical situation to that should the UK leave the EU. Following the exit there would be a period of transition when all EU laws/treaties etc remained in force until the UK decided whether to adopt or reject the same.

The Government’s scaremongering is disgraceful, as is the recent threat by the French of a mass UK migrant invasion. The French should actually be formally processing those seeking to cross the channel, but as they clearly do not want them to claim asylum in France, they are allowing them to lay siege to our cross-channel transport. So much for the EU spirit!

Patrick Lavender
Kilkhampton, Cornwall

The fact that France is now trying to blackmail us with “consequences” if we leave the EU only helps to confirm that we should never have got mixed up with that lot in the first place and the sooner we get out the better. Britain will never be its own boss as long as it belongs to what is becoming more and more of a dictatorship.

Robert Tuck
Wimborne Minster, Dorset

David Cameron tells us that our leaving the EU would be a huge gamble with our national security and economic prosperity. As he called the referendum, we should conclude that he viewed placating the Tory EU sceptics some years ago, in order to protect his leadership, as far more important than protecting the UK. How immodest!

Peter Cave
London W1