Magazine Issue 7 - Spring 1998
Paved Paradise?

The greenfield building programme being planned by the House Builders Federation could mean the loss of over one thousand square miles of British countryside. This is despite the fact that every year we are already losing an area of countryside roughly the size of Bristol to development, and that each decade since the war an area the size of Greater London has been built over. Ali Bastin

The House Builders Federation is a trade association that represents some of the largest construction firms in the country. It is actively campaigning for the nationwide development of greenfield sites into housing estates, and is also lobbying hard to increase housing demand predictions.

According to government forecasts, Britain will need 4.4 million new homes by the year 2016. This increase in demand is not expected to be caused by population growth (in fact the British population looks set to fall over the next thirty years), but rather by the fragmentation of existing households.

The Department of the Environment's 1995 predictions suggest that more people will choose to live alone, and that more families will split along generational lines, creating many millions of new households.

The question arises, then, of where all these new 'households' will live. Will it be in flats in the cities, or large detached houses in the country? Will enormous numbers of new houses he required, or will we be able to manage with the housing stock we have at the moment? Attempting to find answers to these questions is a difficult job, made worse by the fact that until recently the dominant paradigm for new housing developments was 'predict and provide'.

Simply put, this means predicting the future demand for roads and houses, and then building and constructing to meet this demand. (The difficulties with this approach arise when changes in supply of a resource like roads and houses directly affect the demand for these resources.)

This has already been clearly seen with road building - the slogan that 'more roads create more cars' is a truism; traffic simply expands to fill available capacity. Conversely, restricting a resource such as roads, reduces demand in measurable ways. For example, the recent closure of Hammersmith Bridge in west London has coincided with a dramatic reduction in traffic on surrounding roads.

There are lessons to be learned here by John Prescott, Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions. And it now appears that he might even be learning some of them!

John Prescott's recent re-appraisal of the predict and provide' model for new housing was under-reported in the national news; but if the decision is taken to abandon the model, it will signify a policy sea-change of the type that has taken the anti-roads movement six long years to achieve.

The main reason the House Builders Federation prefers to build on greenfield land is because it's much cheaper than building on so-called 'brownfield'. Why? Because the land itself is often substantially cheaper, bought at agricultural prices several years ago by long-term investors such as pension firms (see the following article). In addition, there is often more opportunity to build bigger and more luxurious housing on greenfield - especially if there is a demand for executive housing in rural areas (and if there is no demand, a few quickly fudged 'predict and provide' calculations, together with amarketing drive, can make demand appear out of nowhere...)

Furthermore, the attendant costs of building on brownfield provide massive disincentives. These include the demolition of previous buildings; irregular shaped and sized plots (which mean that housing designs can t just be pulled off the shelf); the possible decontamination of the land; and the higher cost of urban property.

Lastly, and most surprisingly, the Government has in the past actively encouraged greenfield building through its taxation policy. Redevelopment of brownfield sites is subject to 17.5% VAT, while greenfield building has been VAT exempt.

Now John Prescott wants to alter this extraordinary state of affairs by implementing a greenfield lax. On the face of it, this may seem like an intelligent move. But in fact, it could actually accelerate greenbelt development.

If enacted, it would provide hard-up local authorities with a way of realising some quick cash. All they would have to do is collect tax from huge greenfield developments in their area.

Environmentalists' responses to the threat to the greenbelt have been swift and efficient. A conference entitled "Halt Greenfield Housing" was held by Friends of the Earth and Alarm UK in mid-January 1998. It called for an urgent review of housing policy. These and other efforts have already been surprisingly successful.

As previously mentioned, John Prescott has decided to rethink 'predict and provide'; and even his own advisors are suggesting that he will have to have another look at the demographic figures on which these predictions are based. Meanwhile, the direct action movement is taking a close interest in the proceedings - a voice from EarthFirst! assures me that "if push comes to shove, this could make Newbury look like a tea-party".

Already unprecedented alliances are forming between green direct activists and so- called 'Nimbys' - people who only get involved in protests to say "Not in my back yard."

If these alliances continues to grow, they could herald the creation of huge networks of concerned people, all fighting for the preservation of the greenbelt on different fronts.

The consequences for the political climate in this country cannot be overstated. The very range of individuals directly affected by the Government",: proposals means that groups of people who previously regarded each other with deep suspicion may now find themselves standing shoulder to shoulder against greenbelt developers. Recent examples of historic cooperation come to mind - the sight of hunters and hunt saboteurs working together to fight the Newbury bypass is one such enduring example. and a possible foretaste of the unlikely alliances to be formed in the coming months.

Home is where the hart is... NOT
Looking beyond the current debate and a little more closely at the HBF itself, some interesting facts turn up~ The Chief Executive, one Rog& Humber, gives his 'usual residential address1 as 82 New Cavendish Street, London WiM 8AD, which by an amazing coincidence is the address of the Construction Confederation, an august body with ,eight 'constituent organisations', including the House Builders Federation. So either Roger lives in hi~ office or he's not declaring his proper address, which is against the law. Section 288 of the Companies Act 1985 obliges company directors to give their usual residential address in their depositions to Companies House: this act was passed to prevent criminals from setting up companies, folding them with outstanding debts and remaining untraceable without a proper address. For the Chief Executive of a housing lobby group to refuse to declare where he lives is at best hypocritical and at worst a symptom of something more dubious. Interestingly enough, Roger Humber is not a director of any major construction firms - his only other directorship outside the HBF is of Magnum Fine Wines. This is in stark contrast to some of his co-directors - take for instance Andrew Mackenzie of Boars Hill, Oxford, who lists 18 directorships, of which the vast majority are various subsidiaries of the Bryant construction group.

Humber himself has appeared on numerous TV an4 radio programmes in recent weeks defending the HBF's stance on development; some might say that he is putting himself and his organisation in a vulnerable position. Even New Labour MPs might have to become as interested in the growing greenfield housing debate (as even Radio 4's Archers seem to be ), particularly when there are votes at stake. In Wellingborough, Northamptonshire for instance, where the sitting New Labour MP Paul Stinchcomhe is defending a majority ofjust 187, a development of 1900 houses is planned - with between 70 and 80 per cent of these on greenfield land. Any kind of local opposition to this could well damage his chances of re election. And there are many others like him - Tony Clark in Northampton South has a 744 majority and seven thousand houses in the pipeline. So once again we see New Labour inheriting Tory policies and getting itself into a lot of trouble. Policy changes come at the cost of accusations of 'backtracking' and deeply upsetting the HBF; whilst many of New Labour's new policies (for instance the greenfield tax) sound fine in theory but become unworkable or even counterproductive in practice. It might be a bit difficult, even for John Prescott and Peter Mandelson, to spin their way out of huge greenfield development - maybe a radical rethink is called for instead.