Major challenge to build 80,000 extra city homes
Huge consultation to start on Local Plan
A“HUGE challenge” lies ahead for Birmingham City Council if it is to deliver almost 80,000 more homes in the next two decades, a report said.
The authority is gearing up for six weeks of public consultation on a new city plan, starting this month.
One contentious option is to use more Green Belt land for building.
The Birmingham Local Plan will set out how many new homes, jobs, services and what infrastructure will be delivered and the type of places and environment that will be created.
The council wants to hear the opinions of people across the city.
The report acknowledged there are already “high levels of homelessness and overcrowding” and over the next 20 years, a further 134,000 people are expected to be living in the city.
Birmingham has a large young population which requires affordable housing, but also a large ageing population, which means some parts of the city have high underoccupancy (single or low numbers of people living in larger houses).
Of those living in homes, 18% are private renters, usually in their 20-30s. They are economically active, and often with children, but cannot afford to buy a home.
Only 55% of households are owner-occupiers, significantly less than the national average of 63%, and the growth of Homes of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) and exempt accommodation means there are fewer privately rented family homes.
Based on government figures, Birmingham needs to deliver 149,286 more houses between 2020 and 2042, but under current plans there are only 70,871. This means there is a huge shortfall of 78,415.
The report said: “Delivering these many homes will be a huge challenge given that our current annual rate of housebuilding is 3,347 homes (average over the last 5 years). We will need to explore the scale of housing growth that can be realistically achieved and consider where and how we can accommodate new homes.”
Several options are suggested including increasing housing densities, acquiring further land for building, more housing regeneration and using further Green Belt land.
But the report said: “We do not want to see further release of Green Belt but the city’s housing need is now much greater and the ability of neighbouring authorities to accommodate any Birmingham housing shortfall will be challenged by the need to deal with any of their own housing shortfall.”
We do not want to see further release of Green Belt but the city’s housing need is now much greater... Report