Councillors Clash on Indymedia over Housing

The Council is not serving the people as it should.
Here are some policy ideas which I think the council would do well to consider ( at least its better than giving public money to private developers!)

The land issue is a 'no no' to many people who falsely believe that land
concerns farmers and Fernlie-Fanshaw fops.. This is an attempt to bring
land into the political debate.
The method is to pick out housing as a universal concern and a subject
which illustrates how the land monopoly affects us all.
There is a constituency out there of those in bad housing, those without
the ability to get good housing, those who want an alternative life-style
away from the job-city-mortgage and possibly commuting life-style.
A key sub group is 16 to 18yolds who must wonder how they are to own their
own home when they 'grow up' and their parents.
The first step seems to be to agree a manifesto.Here is the draft of
”Daring to Dream:Building the Dream.”
Then to have the policy recognised , debated and adopted by an existing
political party.then legislated

JA


DARING TO DREAM : DARING TO BUILD
a draft manifesto - campaign for sustainable affordable housing

The argument for radical change in housing policy building extensive houses
in thecountryside.

Also a method of building very high quality houses at prices suited to
those in housing need.

£82,000,000,000, diverted from farm support, increases the capital gains
of monopoly landowners
They accrue additional gains ( currently £1million an acre) as farmland
gets planning permission for houses.
The countryside was populated in 1851with 14 million people & now is
depopulated with 1 million.
Britain includes the largest regions with the lowest population ( 30 per sq
km) of major European countries.

Population density in the South East skews demand for housing there.
UK is unique in Europe with its concentration of the population in 7
conurbations which skews average national population density statistics .

Developing housebuilding in house-constipated towns is unsustainable

The beauty of the countryside is blighted by proscribing appropriate
housebuilding there and encouraging the spread of tens of thousands of
temporary corrugated iron barns, grain and feed silos.

The beauty of the countryside is blighted by favouring and relying
on profit-driven land speculating housing contractors, effectively
proscribing self-builders and failing to promote vernacular house building.

It is not logical to rely on profit driven housing contractors with a
poor record of consumer satisfaction
To supply the houses required by the most needy sector of society with the
least ability to pay.

There is no evidence that Contractors out-turn is designed to meet the
diverse tastes , needs and price brackets (especially for houses
with productive garden sizes) to suit the population especially where
the greatest need is displayed by those with the least ability to pay.

A self-interested minority are spreading mis-information to help sustain
their monopoly of land and the supply of new houses. This includes
CLBA, NFU and National Housebuilding Federation

Wimpey type housing schemes are designed to maximise contractors' profits
neither to beautify the landscape , address the satisfaction of the
occupiers, nor the needs of those in most urgent need of housing

Self built houses increase consumer satisfaction reduce cost and are
effectively proscribed by monopoly land prices and monopoly of available
and prospective building sites, largely by Housing Contractors .

Wimpey holds the biggest monopoly of building land of ten contractors
named by Barker.
The self-build cost of building a high quality, high specification house
is £40,000
Farm land price is £3,000 per acre increasing overnight to £1.25m per acre
with plg permission for houses.

Money diverted from ineffective unnecessary and unworkable farm support
should reward self build houses.
Planning guidance should favour building in the countryside to encourage
sustainable living, beautify the countryside , revitalise the rural
economy.and encourage self help

Three houses can be built by self builders for the cost of one offered at
contractors' speculative prices..
allowing Councils in return for planning permission to demand two social
houses free for every three built.

This formula is not the place to reform the planning regime. One
suggestion is that planning permission for houses should be made specific
to the would be occupier thus empowering consumers.

The Barker Report is premised erroneously on overcrowded land density,
misguidedly on relying on profit motivated self regulation by Housing
Contractors to satisfy the needs of those in greatest housing need with the
least power of achieving it does not address relieving overcrowding in the
South East entirely overlooks the self build sector.

Barker’s worst failing along with that of the government is a failure to
upgrade peoples’ expectations from occupying cast off antiquated
property to expecting as of right permission to build themselves modern
high specification houses fit to raise health, education, leisure and
social standards for present and future generations. The Competition
Commission refuses to prosecute the illegal monopoly on building land of
ten named contractors.

Uniquely in present day affluent consumer society seeking novelty,
innovation and using modern technology, peoples’ aspirations for houses
are limited to cast-off (sometimes badly used and twentieth-hand) houses
built before and below modern standards of living space, insulation,
ventilation, sanitation and amenity. HMG are content to aspire
to houses of a quality , condition of repair and age which if they were
used cars would long ago have been confined to the breaker’s yard.If HMG
were motor manufacturers they are in 2004 below the 1950 production
target! They would now , of course, be out of business.

James Armstrong 18th September
2004  james36armstrong@hotmail.com

... because the point was made, and a decent argument was made in reply. There's no reason at all why it need generate into a debate over which party's best. This is a question which is totally relevant to the local community and it's a good one to have on indymedia oxford.

the reply, as i understand it, was that taking the option being taken by the council in fact allows more social housing to be built than there otherwise would be, given the presence of rubbish policies on the part of government above the level of the councillors, which they cannot hope to change.

so, what's the counter argument?

i would have thought it's necessary either to a) show that the council's policy isn't maximising the amount of social housing (given the prevailing conditions of funding allocation for social housing); b) argue that despite this, we shouldn't give into the system and should sacrifice some quantity social housing for the sake of the principle; c) outline a different plan that would achieve some more acceptable compromise; or d) argue that rick's conception of the fund allocation system is flawed?

if we're going to have even a semblance of proper representative democracy, then that means people being prepared to have properly reasoned debates in public... if there's no decent reply, we can only assume that the labour faction on the city council was correct in this respect. (for the record, I voted green at the latest council elections, and hope that i'll be able to do so again...)

Hey guys,

Sorry I haven't replied before this - to be honest I assumed that most people who checked the newswire just wouldn't be interested in City Council stuff - didn't see that it had become a central feature! I guess I am so used to being called a 'servant of Mammon' or 'corrupt' or whatever else when I post stories about this stuff that I have pretty
much given up. It's nice to see that some people are interested!

To address Rick's points:

(i) It is entirely possible for the Stephenfield House development to incorporate
100% social housing. Oxford City Council could certainly bid for Housing Corporation
funding, as it has done elsewhere in the city, to make this possible. The fact that
they *aren't* doesn't mean they *can't*. It beggars belief that they have taken this
approach in the Trap Grounds development (which will concrete over a valuable urban
wilderness site in North Oxford and build houses on FLOOD PLAIN - an appalling idea)
but not in Rose Hill. Of course, the problem that Oxford City Council faces is that
developments such as the Trap Grounds (which will end in disaster) have eroded the
confidence of the Housing Corporation in the Council's ability to manage such funding -
but that's the fault of the ruling Labour Group who keep investing in ridiculous
schemes rather than sound, much-needed ideas like keeping Stephenfield House 100%
affordable.

(ii) Rick didn't address the issue of nearly £150,000 going to demolish Stephenfield
House, apart from to say that opinion is split on the issue of keeping the houses
standing or not. Well, that's true, but opinion shouldn't be split on whether the
public purse should pay for it or not! If development of the site is a fair way off,
then keep using the bloody thing, don't knock it down when you have no contracts
signed and no certainty of development...and if a contractor is ready to sign contracts
and get working, then GET THEM TO PAY TO KNOCK THE THING DOWN. Oxford City Council
has a £30 million shortfall in our capital budget...we can't afford to be spraying
hundreds of thousands of quid around to subsidise private developers. We're already
proposing to sell off public land to private companies...lets not give them a fat
wad of cash as well. If you're worried about anti-social behaviour...why not give
Stephenfield House to OCSET for a couple of months? :)

(iii) I do think that it is relevant that it is the appalling record of the national
Labour government that is making affordable housing so scarce in Oxford, the South-East,
and the UK generally. Whether he likes it or not, Rick and other councillors like him
(some of whom, including Rick and Ed Turner, I have a great deal of time for) are
lending credibility to the New Labour project. They can't claim the credit for the
things that the Labour government does that they like (minimum wage etc) and then hold
up their hands and say 'not us guv' whenever Blair screws local government, poor
people, Iraqis etc etc etc. I'm afraid that, to me, Labour councillors have less
credibility complaining about the lack of social housing...because they are complicit
in the problem.

Hope this answers some of the questions at least - yes, Stephenfield House could be
100% affordable, and no, it shouldn't be knocked down with public money. :)

See why I didn't want to write anything...I start ranting. :)

Matt