Radical answers needed to build homes for Generation Z
THE need for new housing is clearly an ongoing debate and becoming something of a political game of chess; yet there is a dire need to provide homes, particular affordable ones, for many people seeking their first home.
Housebuilding in England is due to fall to its lowest level since the Second World War, according to an analysis by the Home Builders Federation, owing to a range of government policies that threaten to dramatically slow development.
The study says: “The supply of new housing is likely to fall below 120,000 homes annually over the coming years, less than half of the Government’s target, as a result of changes to planning policy and what developers say is over-strict enforcement of environmental regulations.
“The drop will leave England with a huge shortfall of new homes, the HBF warned, making it harder than at any point in recent history to become a homeowner.”
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently produced a report called Reboot: Building a Housing Market that Works for All. In the report it notes that: “Inadequate housebuilding is both a cause and consequence of wider dysfunctionality, and reforming housebuilding will be central to building a better housing system.
“This means reducing our overreliance on market housing and delivering a greater diversity of tenures and types of housing, including social rent homes affordable to households with low incomes as well as low-cost homeownership options targeted at creating genuinely additional first-time buyers, without contributing to house price inflation, as recent schemes like Help to Buy have done.”
The need for affordable homes in rural Yorkshire, is well-documented as rising house prices prevent younger generations living and working in the areas they were brought up in.
Perhaps building a small number of affordable homes in each rural settlement would assist greatly to rebalance the demographics of villages and sustain the facilities required for a substantive community.
Such issues were highlighted in a Design Review I attended, looking at the creation of a new settlement on the fringes of a local city. We discussed what was needed to create a thriving community and talked about the needs of Generation Z.
I know that the new generation are keenly focused on environmental issues which should influence the design of new homes to ensure that they are sustainable and flexible to cater for changing needs.
The trend towards home working highlights the need for private workspace in the home or a garden studio. We discussed how a home office could become a fledgling business office employing one or two local people and we talked of transport infrastructure to cater for bikes and pedestrian and the creation of community facilities.
Such initiatives require determination and a willingness, perhaps from landowners, to have sensible land values which could translate into affordable homes.
Whatever way we go, the housing crisis is real and we need radical solutions to ensure that members of the next generation have a home to call their own.