Simon Nundy wants more housing - right?

[Tim Lund]

I also tweeted Simon Nundy to ask if he wanted to see more homes build in Lewisham. He says he does, replying Mar 21

I just stated that I want to see more 3 and 4 bedroom supply to relieve the strain on overcrowded families

But the evidence - anecdotal and market - is that more 3 and 4 bedroom supply is not what's most needed. First the anecdotes - the sort of thing you pick up from talking to fellow allotment holders.

my daughter-in-law has for more than a year attempted to get the council to offer her a smaller accommodation. She has a large victorian terrace in Deptford, lives with her unemployed son, and her daughter and partner, in a five bed house in a poor state of repair and decoration. She is herself unable to work, so the income in the family is small.
Eventually received an acceptable offer and were to have moved today, but two days ago it was disclosed that the rent would be £800 per calendar month. !!
This would have also taken them out of Council into Housing Association property.
The move has (naturally) been cancelled. Finally Council have agreed redecoration and maintenance. (for the first time in c10 years)

The Council is building new homes (?) or arranging for housing association to build them, but no one-bedroom houses, only 4/5 bedrooms. Where are the evicted persons to move to?
And while it may seem hard not t charge market rents, too many people don’t actually earn enough to live there.
I can recall the days when from one week’s salary per months mortgage repayments became two weeks’ salary per month, due to interest rates increases, and without the cost of living automatic wage increases I would have needed food banks – as do so many people currently attempting to survive in this borough.

My emphasis.

And I also hear of a small local housing association where it's the houses with four or more bedrooms they struggle to fill, since most potential tenants actually want smaller homes.

So much for my anecdotes. For a Conservative, if they remember anything of Mrs Thatcher, I'd have thought the market would be telling them something. Converting larger houses into smaller flats is profitable. Funny that - I think it might have something to do with it being what people most want.

So why the stress on 3 - 4 bedroom houses? I think it's cultural - a feeling that you want an area to be the sort of place where stable families can live comfortably, bringing up their kids. Not a bad aspiration at all, but it leaves out all those other people who don't or can't share the advertisers' dream



and prioritising 3 - 4 bed becomes a coded signal to these others that they should keep out.

And if there is a policy of prioritising 3 - 4 bed - as there is - the likely consequences are exactly what my anecdotes tell.

[Kirkdalian]

Are these 1/2 bedroom flats that are profitable what people want or what they can afford? I'd like my family to live in a 3 bedroom house with a proper garden, but what I can afford is a two-bedroom flat with a small back yard. I know more people in my position than in the one you describe (selection bias probably though!)

[Tim Lund]

Are these 1/2 bedroom flats that are profitable what people want or what they can afford? I'd like my family to live in a 3 bedroom house with a proper garden, but what I can afford is a two-bedroom flat with a small back yard. I know more people in my position than in the one you describe (selection bias probably though!)

We're all subject to selection bias, and even market forces, which in principle allow everyone's wants to count, are selectively biased towards those with most money. So when anecdotal evidence comes in that the less well off are not served by this policy, it's clear there is a problem.

Personally, I very much sympathise with anyone wanting a small back yard - or even what most people would consider a generous amount of garden and allotment, such as I have. But the evidence is that there are fewer of us than there were. Recently I was talking to someone working for Savills, who mentioned the difficulty he had getting tenants to look after gardens - there are just so many more things for people to do with their time than when the natural planners' dream was for everyone to have their little bit of garden to look after. People in cities still want there to be well kept gardens and green spaces around, but for other people to look after them. That's okay - it should be possible to work out a way of delivering this. Such as people like you and me living in ground floor flats, with easy access to garden, tolerating the inevitability of the less green fingered in flats above being able to see what we are getting up to in the garden. We can also keep allotments, as long as we keep them properly, and I'd say be ready to open them up to the public or school parties from time to time. Which is what we do at Kent House Leisure Gardens.

And then - the market solution - we should be prepared to pay for professional gardeners to look after our gardens if we don't happen to have a green fingered fellow resident of our block.