The two maps that reveal we’re building too few houses and the ones we are building are in the wrong places
I’m a geographer so love maps and cartograms. In this article two maps apparently tell the story of one of the biggest problems facing Britain and I would add rural England: the chronic lack of housing. The first map shows the rate of population growth in different locations across the UK. The second map shows the rate of housebuilding across the UK. Together they reveal where the houses that are being built are located; and they’re not where they’re most needed. Barney Stringer, director of planning consultant Quod who produced the data for the maps, describes how “there is an overall shortage of housing and not enough housebuilding, and new homes are needed almost everywhere, but the high growth areas that need it most are not managing to provide new homes much faster than low growth areas. The really big planning question for the next few years is whether the districts around London can and will provide for any of the growth that London can’t accommodate. The maps show quite how little is being achieved at present”. The article opens up the debate about brownfield sites and the green belt, with the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) estimating there is enough land for about 200,000 homes on ‘brownbelt’, with Mr Stringer and others (including academics and the OECD) believing the green belt cannot be preserved perpetually. The OECD believes the green constitutes a “major obstacle to development around cities, where housing is often needed”. However the Council for the Protection of Rural England said their arguments were missing the point, insisting that the idea of green belts was primarily to prevent urban sprawl. Indeed, CPRE has launched a campaign calling on Government to turn rhetoric into action and protect Green Belt. And the House of Commons Library recently produced a Briefing Paper setting out the purpose of green belt land, its size and planning policy. Amid these debates one thing remains clear: going forward we need to think about what we want from the countryside; for land is a finite resource which as Mark Twain reminds us – they’re not making anymore!