MIKE HEDGES AM CALLS FOR MORE COUNCIL HOUSE BUILDING
AND CONGRATULATES SWANSEA COUNCIL FOR THEIR COUNCIL HOUSE BUILDING
Speaking after the Assembly
debate on Housing, Mike Hedges AM said… ‘As I said in my speech, housing is one
of the three most important things in life, after food and drink. The evidence
now is overwhelming – good housing is essential to so many things in life –
ensuring our children have the best start in life, ensuring people have good
end of life experiences, both are so much better if the person has a good
quality home and isn’t worried about damp and poorly heated homes. I am so
pleased that Swansea Council have started building council houses again. I
accompanied Ministers when they previously visited the site in Penlan.
These houses should show the
Way for the Welsh Government and other local authorities when it comes to
building council houses.
I would like to see Councils
able to borrow against the long term value of their house developments; it is a
change that could make such a difference to the number of council houses being
built.’
Mike Hedges AM - First, can I welcome this debate? It's the second debate
we've had on housing since Christmas. And can I just say how pleased I am to
start talking about housing? Because I think it's one of the most important
things. After food and drink, the next important thing for people's life is
housing. So, I think it really is important that we get around to talking about
this. Hopefully, the next debate will be on a Welsh Government house-building
strategy, involving the building of large numbers of council houses.274
Housing is
the great challenge facing all of Britain, including Wales. The post-war period
in terms of housing can be broken down into two periods. First, the period of 1945
to 1980—during that period, we saw a huge growth in council estates and the
building of a large number of new estates in urban areas. We also saw the
growth of owner occupation and the start of the building of large private
estates, again predominantly in the larger urban areas.275
Council
housing has declined through the sale of a large number of houses and the
failure to build new ones. There has also been a substantial growth in housing
association properties, but not enough to make up for the decline in
council-house building. For those people taking a deep interest in politics and
elections, if you go and look at 'The British General Election of February
1974', the book by Butler and Kavanagh, you will see it looked at the number of
houses that were social housing—or 'council housing' was the term they used
then, because nearly all the housing was that—and there were a large number of
constituencies where over half the housing was council housing, and, in
Scotland, and you had constituencies where between 80 per cent and 90 per cent
of the housing was council housing. It was the norm.276
Council
housing has declined—the sale of large numbers and the failure to build new
ones. There has also been a substantial growth in housing association
properties, but nowhere near enough to fill the gap of the decline in council
house building. As a consequence of benefit changes, demand has increased for
smaller-sized accommodation. Since 1980, we have seen almost a complete end to
council house building, the growth of owner occupation, which now appears to
have stalled, and the growth of housing associations into major
landlords. For those people who remember back in the past, housing
associations used to be small, local organisations providing housing. Now, one
stretches from Newport down to Pembrokeshire, one stretches from Cardiff down
to the edge of Wales, and one covers almost the whole of north Wales and mid
Wales. 277
We've seen
a reduction in the average number of adults living in each property. There's
been a large growth of single-person households and a huge reduction in family
sizes. The sale of council housing had a serious effect on the housing market.
It reduced the supply of council housing and increased demand for both housing
association properties and for privately rented properties. That's gone into a
vicious circle. There's money to be made in privately rented accommodation:
people buy it, it pushes up house prices, it makes people less likely to be
able to get accommodation.278
There have
been two periods in the twentieth century when housing supply did a reasonable
job of meeting housing demand and need. The first was between the wars, when
cities expanded horizontally into the suburban development of green fields and,
assisted by Government incentives, builders could offer affordable home
ownership to people on middle to low incomes. If we were to do the same, it
would involve ending all planning rules. I don't think anybody in this room
would want to see the end of all planning rules.279
The second
was the decades after the second world war, when publicly funded council
housing accounted for roughly half of all homes built. What we've now got is a
situation where we need to go back that—to building large numbers of council
houses. Housing associations aren't going to meet the gap. When people talk
about social housing, too often they're talking about housing associations. We
need councils building houses. We've seen the beginning of it in places like
Swansea. There has been some small-scale development of council housing, but
nowhere near what was happening between 1945 and 1979. I don't think the
equivalent of one year's development in Swansea has been built in the whole of
Wales in any year since the last 10 years.280
There are
large obstacles to a renaissance of council-house building, including the
obvious one of money. Claire Bennie, an architect and housing developer,
formerly of the housing association Peabody, said that councils should be
allowed to borrow more against the long-term value of their developments, and I
fully agree with her. That's what we do. When you go to buy a house, you borrow
against the long-term value of your house, and that's what a mortgage is. Why
can't councils be allowed to do the same?281
Unless we
have large scale council-house building, we will not solve the housing crisis.
House prices will go up. It's in the interest of developers not to build enough
houses, because it keeps prices high. Housing associations can help in
developing social housing, and I would like to see a role for housing
associations in bringing empty properties back into use. But, really, there's
only one answer: substantial building of council houses.
