Until there s a home for everyone A new generation of garden cities

Transcription

1 Until there s a home for everyone A new generation of garden cities Pete Jefferys, Shelter Policy Team Tuesday, 1 16 December 2014

2 Contents Background The Wolfson Prize: Shelter s proposal Public attitudes: what we found Lessons for all new garden cities 2

3 Until there s a home for everyone 1. Background Tuesday, 3 16 December 2014

4 Why we need to act The sharp end of the housing shortage: 90,000 children will be in temporary accommodation this Christmas in the UK They are living in cramped conditions: eating their tea on the floor, whole families sharing a bed, sharing a bathroom with lots of strangers, with big impacts on their health 4

5 Why we need to act 5

6 The housing shortage: scale 6

7 Are garden cities the solution? 7

8 Until there s a home for everyone 2. The Wolfson Prize & Shelter s proposal Tuesday, 8 16 December 2014

9 What is the Wolfson Prize? 250,000 Prize to answer an economics questions related to public policy Funded and run by Lord Wolfson. A Conservative peer and the CEO of Next. This year, the question was: how would you deliver a new garden city which is visionary, economically viable and popular? 9

10 Shelter proposal: Stoke Harbour 15,000 homes built over 15 years. Would be home to 36,000 people. Over time there would be extensions to the North and West Based around a central Harbour and largely on greenfield land 10

11 Our proposal: where is it? We looked at potential sites based on environmental, economic and housing factors Hoo Peninsula in Medway had a good mix 11

12 Our proposal: what sort of place? Medium to high density like Dutch or Scandinavian cities & urban extensions Lots of public space (village squares) and green space which makes up 40% of the masterplan 12

13 Our proposal: what sort of homes? 37.5% in affordable tenures (7.5% shared ownership, 30% social rent) 12.5% will be plots for self builders 10% market rent The rest for sale at prices that are competitive for Medway 13

14 Our proposal: the environment Linear parks that people can use in their day to day lives. Permanent green space around boundary. Most of the site is lowest category of flood risk & harbour designed to absorb rising flood water Worked with RSPB to mitigate the impact on local wildlife 14

15 Our proposal: the finances Our proposal had to be entirely self-financing i.e. there could be no government support for the cost of building To make this possible, it is essential that some of the value created by a city (i.e. the new homes, jobs, shops etc) is used to generate money to pay for building it. This requires a new model We suggest that instead of paying the landowner for their land upfront, we offer them the chance to invest it into our partnership for a shareholding. This means that the landowner shares in the profits made by the scheme and can also get an annual annuity ( 2m per year at Stoke Harbour). They also retain some ownership as a development partner. 15

16 Until there s a home for everyone 3. Public attitudes: what we learnt Tuesday, December 2014

17 Research methodology Research kindly funded by Legal & General YouGov polling in the Kent, Essex, Sussex and Surrey counties and in Medway local authorities BritainThinks conducted four focus groups in Medway with different demographic groups (younger people, older people, social renters, middle income families). BritainThinks conducted a full day Citizens Jury where 16 people selected to be representative of the community debated the idea 17

18 What we found Medway is a relatively deprived area for the South East of England. There are both urban and rural areas in the local authority. We found that there is already majority support in Medway for a new garden city on the Hoo Peninsula (54% to 33%, excluding don t knows) However, there are very different groups within these headline numbers. We used a demographic tool to map where people were more likely to support or oppose. 18

19 What we found Residents welcomed elements of the proposal they thought would deliver the most important benefits: 1. Investment in local economy 2. Improved local infrastructure 3. Affordable housing for local people 4. Be a place that I would want to live The most important reason to support the idea is that it would create jobs. Make the infrastructure first before you start building the houses. Once you ve got the trains and roads in place you can build around that. Give the transport companies a subsidy until it takes off. 19

20 What we found However, residents could not be persuaded by financial incentives (i.e. Cash for NIMBYs) We tested whether 5,000 per household would be enough to help them accept a garden city, but there was a very negative response Any more than that though and financial compensation is simply not affordable Talking about cash incentives made people suspect that the development would be poor quality 20

21 Turning research into a campaign Split voters into support, oppose and don t know groups. Target key messages at different groups based on research Win a local authority wide referendum 21

22 Until there s a home for everyone 4. Lessons for new garden cities Tuesday, December 2014

23 Lessons The three key things we learned in terms of winning local support for a garden city proposal were 1. The proposal needed to be located in a wider narrative of the need for local investment and jobs, (not just) the need for housing in the local area. 2. That it would be important to position this as a project undertaken in partnership with local people to communicate that it would be built with their needs in mind and ultimately shaped by them. 3. That local people want a straightforward debate about the merits of the scheme for them and family not to be bribed with financial incentives. 23

24 It can be done 24

25 Until there s a home for everyone Questions Tuesday, December 2014