How to make Tory vote safe as houses
THE shortage of access to affordable housing by the young and striving is becoming a scandal and has to be dealt with. It could be the key to the return of support for the Tory Party over the now crypto-communist Labour leadership yet the Tories are just resting on their oars, squabbling and feeling sorry for themselves.
We are the most ownhome-eager country in Europe. Rare is the young man or woman who does not think: I really want to own my own home.
The problem is the dreadful lack of supply at a price the young, even with a bit of help from mum and dad, can afford. The key lies with the planning departments of local councils, urban and rural, for it is they who grant developers and builders planning consent.
It is all very well for theorists to rabbit on about “brownfield” sites available, meaning abandoned city venues. Yes, they are there, hundreds of thousands of them. But the costs are huge and scoot the price of the finished structure into the clouds.
Many sites are toxic from chemicals in the soil. Land and soil purification cost a fortune before a single brick can be planted. Derelict buildings have to be demolished and cleared away. All extra costs, sometimes more in all than the value of the houses and flats yet to be built.
The antagonism to greenfield building is the other inhibitor and it divides into three. The local civil servants have a built-in gene for saying no rather than yes – to anything. Bureaucrats are no enablers but mainly deniers. The local population of nearby homeowners, even though their comfy houses were built on fields, tend to be nimbys almost to a man and woman. The third factor: the elected councillors of the planning committee dare not offend their constituents – they want to be re-elected. So… total constipation. All applications denied on the advice of the chief planning officer – who certainly owns his own lovely home.
As a conservative I prefer to leave coercion to the socialists. Incentivisation is my preferred option. Make it worth their while and they will usually do what has to be done. But there are rare instances and this is one where the firm hand of central government has to cut the Gordian knot.
The problem will be solved only when every council is given a flat order: you will sanction X number of new houses, cottages and flats in each of 10 price-categories within your government area by year’s end, or… Or all government financial subsidies to you and your pet schemes will suddenly dry up. If you sting the jobsworths and local blowhards in the wallet area, as Dr Johnson said, it concentrates the mind wonderfully.
IT would need some hard study, constituency by constituency, borough by borough, district council by district council. And it would antagonise some homeowners who think their own home should be the last ever built within eyesight. But 100,000 new homes would also mean 200,000 young couples on the threshold of life, able to think curtains, suites, a winter fire and making a baby.
And probably voting Conservative. There is nothing wrong with pleasing your constituency. Successful governments have done it for centuries. And young homeowners tend to swing from socialism to capitalism. Why? Because suddenly they have a place of their own, a property, an asset, something to cherish. Such young people no longer want violent change which is what socialism offers.