THE LAND FETISH
A Suitable Case for Dr Freud?
Professor Sir Peter Hall
UCL
LSE Seminar
6 March 2006
Planning in Britain:
A New Verdict (1)
• Andrew Gilg: Planning
in Britain:
Understanding and
Evaluating the PostWar System (London:
Sage 2005)
Where Are We Now?
Gilg’s Verdict
• Middle-class bias
• Not always democratic
• Balances economic growth, conservation: a
dilemma
• Increasingly market-driven
• No obvious alternative
Where Are We Now?
Gilg’s Verdict
• Big Achievement: urban containment;
preservation of countryside
• Big Failure: development not sustainable: work,
homes separate
• Another Failure: transport not integrated; transport
system overloaded
• Need: integrated development; New Towns
• Compare: Containment of Urban England (1973)!
Where Are We Now?
Planning in Uncertainty
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•
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•
•
Values and interests
Essentially political
Producers versus consumers
Public action for private good
Political cultures: very deep
Where Are We Now?
The Barker Challenge
• Need for massive
increase in housing
completions
• Will need brownfield +
greenfield
• “Political” attack by
shires – “unholy
alliance” with cities
• The architects’
crusade: “Barcelonise”
our cities
A Continuing Issue? Brownfield,
Greenfield and the Sequential Test
Housing Completions: 1999, 2004
1999 %
000s
2004 %
000s
1999-2004
% change
Total
Brownfield
Greenfield
100
56
44
140.0
78.4
61.6
100
68
32
152.9
104.0
48.9
+9.2
+32.7
-20.6
A Continuing Issue? Brownfield,
Greenfield and the Sequential Test
1999-2004
Completions
% change
Brownfield
% change
Greenfield
% change
-8.3
+37.9
-39.5
0.0
+27.5
-43.1
Yorks Humber
+5.9
+52.9
-41.2
East Midlands
-6.8
+31.7
-28.4
West Midlands
-9.3
+18.3
-42.0
Eastern England
+5.4
+8.4
+1.3
London
+92.8
+104.5
0.0
South East
+10.0
+25.9
-16.1
South West
+1.9
+50.0
-28.6
England
+9.2
+32.7
-20.6
Region
North
North West
Housebuilding: Houses v Flats
1999, 2004
Dwellings: % of total
1999
Houses
2004
Flats
Houses
Flats
North East
88
12
83
17
North West
85
15
73
27
Yorks Humber
93
7
71
29
East Midlands
93
7
86
14
West Midlands
*88
*13
71
29
East of England
*91
*10
78
22
London
41
59
20
80
South East
83
17
62
38
South West
90
10
74
26
England
84
16
66
34
What do people want?
• Home Alone (Hooper et al 1998): only 10% want
a flat; 33% won’t consider a flat
• CPRE (Champion et al 1998): people want to
live in/near country
• Hedges and Clemens (q. Breheny 1997): city
dwellers least satisfied
• Conclusion: we hate cities!
Housing Preferences:
MORI for CABE, 2005
• Over half the population want to live in a detached
house
• 22% prefer a bungalow
• 14% a semi-detached house
• 7% a terraced house
• Detached house most popular choice, regardless
of social status or ethnicity
• Period properties (Edwardian, Victorian,
Georgian) most desirable overall: 37%
Good and Bad Arguments
• Bad: we must save farmland
• Good: we should give people choice of access to
public transport, shops, schools
• By public transport as well as car
• So: concentrate growth around transport
interchanges
• And: raise densities there (“pyramids of density”)
Land Lying Idle…
• EU Set-Aside: June 2004, 476,000 hectares,
almost 5.0% of England
• Greater SE: 100,270 hectares, 8.6%
• Essex 10.7%
• Hampshire 9.1%
• Oxfordshire 11.4%
• Bedfordshire 11.6%
• Far in excess of most generous estimates of land
needed for housing!
New Households, New Homes
• 80% one-person
• But only about one-third “single never married”
• Will demand more space per household:
Separate kitchens/bathrooms/loos, Spare
rooms, Work spaces
• Land saving reduces as densities increase:
• 30 dw/ha yields 60% of all potential gains, 40
dw/ha 70 per cent
• So biggest gains from minimising development
below 20 dw/h, not increasing 40 dw/ha+
• So: go for 30-40 dw/ha with variations: higher
close to transport services (Stockholm 1952!)
• But won’t achieve same person densities as
before!
Densification: Effects
Density
Dws./ha.
Net
Land Saved
%
Total
Saving
Land needed to accommodate 400 dwellings
Area required, ha.
Gross
(with local facilities)
%
Cumulative
Land Saved
%
Total
Saving
%
Cumulative
10
40.0
46.3
20
20.0
20.0
50.0
50.0
25.3
21.0
45.4
45.4
30
13.3
6.7
16.7
66.7
17.9
7.4
15.9
61.3
40
10.0
3.3
8.3
75.0
14.3
3.6
7.8
69.1
50
8.0
2.0
5.0
80.0
12.1
2.2
4.8
73.9
60
6.6
1.4
3.5
83.5
10.6
1.5
3.2
77.1
Density Gradient (Rudlin+Falk)
Lessons from Land Use
• Public Transport needs
minimum density:
• Bus: 25 dw/ha
• LRT: 60 dw/ha
• Exceed recent densities
• Big gain from 30-35 dw/ha
• Plus “pyramids” up to 60
dw/ha round rail stations
• Urban Task Force
• Traditional – Stockholm,
1952!
• Or Edwardian suburbs!
The Challenge
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•
•
•
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Building sustainable suburbs
But: can be Garden Cities too!
“New Towns”: seldom just that…
More often: planned town expansions
The need now: build sustainable urban places –
linked along transport corridors
• A big challenge for us: equal to 1950s, 1960s
• They did it – so we can we!
Where Are We Now?
A 3-Pronged National Spatial Strategy
• 3 key needs:
• “Grow SEE”: Better connections on
Sustainable Community Growth Corridors
• “Shrinking the N-S Gap”: Bring North,
Midland Core Cities/City Regions closer to
London
• “Grow City Regions” around Core Cities
Where Are We Now?
A New Geography of England…
• Towards an “English
Spatial Strategy”?
• 4 SE Growth Areas
• Plus Northern Way
South East England:
Global Mega-City-Region
Urban Clusters (Hall+Ward 1998)
Sustainable Communities Corridors:
Growing the SE into the Midlands…
The Infrastructure Gap:
Roger Tym Report
The North: Managed Decline?
• The great Pathfinder row
• How much to keep? How
much to demolish?
• Are incentives perverse?
• YES: SAVE Britain’s
Heritage
• NO: ODPM
• Family-Friendly Housing in
Cities
• How much Greenfield?
• Issues: VAT, Infrastructure
(Manchester, Leeds,
Liverpool)
Shrinking the N-S Gap:
Slowing Traffic, Speeding Trains…
Shrinking the N-S Gap:
A New High-Speed Line?
Shrinking the N-S Gap:
From Core Cities to City Regions
• Eight city regions: key to faster
economic growth in North
• Build on renaissance of Core
Cities
• 90% of population, more than
90% of economic activity/assets
• Most of North’s growth here
• 50% higher per capita GVA
growth than rest of North
City Regions:
Accessing the Core City…
London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly
Outward Journey on Fri 2 Sep 2005
Option
1
2
3
Depart
07:35
08:05
08:35
Arrive
09:48
10:24
10:48
Duration
2:13
2:19
2:13
Changes
0
0
0
City Regions:
…and Periphery (not quite, actually!)
London Euston to Oldham Mumps
Outward Journey on Fri 2 Sep 2005
Option
Depart
1
07:35
2
08:05
3
08:35
Arrive
Duration
Changes
10:44
3:09
2
11:35
3:30
2
11:44
3:09
2
Making it happen:
The 2004 Act
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Radical change – biggest for 35 years
Working through at regional strategic level
Still to work through at local level
Planning Gain Supplement
Can it solve the “infrastructure deficit”?
The major issue in solving the housing crisis!
But also: the NIMBY factor – will get worse?
Planning Gain Supplement v. S106
• Planning Gain Supplement (i.e. development land tax)
on windfall gains by developers
• Could vary locally: brownfield v. greenfield
• Can it meet the “infrastructure gap”?
• Or are existing mechanisms as effective?
• MK, Bedford…
• So retain “Section 106” as an alternative?
• Local versus regional investment: ‘local gain’ for ‘local
pain’ (retention of PGS; higher proportion of Council Tax
receipts from new housing)
• But problem of regional infrastructure: Bypasses v. new
rail connections…
• Need for better integration ODPM/DfT! SE Orbirail,
Manchester Metrolink, etc, etc…
Summing Up:
Key Challenges
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Deliver the houses
Defend the “balanced portfolio”
Demonstrate its sustainability
Resist vested interests
Fund the infrastructure
Coordinate development, transport
Countryside – for people!