BARD offers Shelter affordable housing solutions

8 October 2008

Representatives from BARD, the Campaign established to resist unnecessary and unsustainable development at Long Marston, met last week with the national housing charity Shelter to discuss the real affordable housing requirements in Wychavon & Stratford Districts.

BARD discussed at some depth with Shelter the failings in the Government’s eco-town proposal which is purported to solve the affordable housing need in this area.  The BARD representatives explained that Stratford and Evesham districts are spread across a wide geographical area¹ and have a low population density.

Their housing requirements are best met geographically close to the sources of that need. Shelter was informed that such needs cannot be met at a proposed ‘Middle Quinton’, due to its remoteness, inaccessibility and distance from key employment hubs.   

However, a viable alternative would be to incorporate small scale provision across each of the parishes and towns rather than through one major development.  This approach is similar to that recommended by the CPRE and the National Housing Federation (the trade body for housing associations).  The recent Government-commissioned Taylor Review also highlights how small scale developments can help sustain individual settlements and services.

BARD appointed affordable housing specialists, Tetlow King, earlier this year to give expert guidance in this field.  These consultants identified the following factors which clearly refute Central Government and the Developers’ suggestions that building 2000 ‘affordable houses’ as part of an eco-town at Long Marston,  is both sustainable and necessary to fulfil local need.

Tetlow King explained that:

• 2000 affordable homes at Middle Quinton will vastly exceed the very limited local need deriving from its nearby parishes, which BARD estimates amount to only a few hundred dwellings, which could and should be resolved through existing planning policies.
• Parish needs can be met by small-scale, ad hoc Local Choice or Rural Housing Exception Schemes within established policy mechanisms.
• Most affordable homes provided at Middle Quinton will be offered to people living in towns and cities far away, thereby encouraging unsustainable patterns of movement and divorcing people from their existing communities.
• Such a large amount of affordable housing concentrated in a rural area, poorly linked to larger settlements, will disadvantage its future residents. Existing support networks will be broken, to be replaced by a large, unsustainable and un-cohesive new community at Middle Quinton.
• Middle Quinton is not set to deliver more than 33% affordable housing, which in any event is below both Wychavon & Stratford District’s guidelines.

Maurice Howse of BARD commented:
“We agree with Shelter that there is an affordable housing need across Stratford and Wychavon districts. However, we made it plain that a ‘Middle Quinton’ would not contribute usefully to meeting these needs.  On every conceivable strategic level, Middle Quinton is totally contrary to fundamental ‘step-change’ philosophy of the area’s adopted and emerging regional policy. It is therefore no coincidence that the West Midlands Regional Assembly, Stratford DC and Wychavon DC all object to Middle Quinton as a means of delivering affordable housing.   Quite simply affordable houses should be built where people who need them can be close to their jobs and their support networks. “  

He added:  “Middle Quinton must be one of the most improbable and unnecessary locations for an eco-town in the whole country. It would represent a major residential and commercial development in a remote and isolated, countryside location area with poor transportation linkages to the Major Urban Areas and large towns. The infrastructure required to help make Middle Quinton sustainable would negate any alleged environmental benefit.  What’s more, it would divert huge public and private investment from much needed urban regeneration projects north of the County and thereby exacerbate the north/ south prosperity gap.”

Ends

NOTES TO EDITORS

Nathaniel Lichfield this week issued a report which the Government Office will use as evidence in its Regional Spatial Strategy process.  This report confirms that there are affordable housing concerns across Stratford District and the rural hinterland around Long Marston, which stretches into Wychavon and the Cotswolds District, which BARD and its experts have always acknowledged. 

However the Lichfield report provides no additional evidence as to why building a ‘Middle Quinton’ would be the best solution for an affordable housing perspective.  Indeed it is noteworthy that the Lichfield Report highlights the major transport issues that Middle Quinton would create and that there may be other alternatives in the district capable of meeting the affordable housing needs.

BARD’s own Sustainability Appraisal, submitted to the Government on 30 June , concluded that any level of residential, employment and commercial development in Stratford and Wychavon Districts for the period 2006 – 2026 in excess of local needs will conflict with the 'step change' objective of the adopted and emerging RSS and the government's sustainable communities policy for the West Midlands.

Most obviously, an eco-town located at Middle Quinton is wholly unsuitable because it lies outside:-

• The Major Urban Area (MUA); namely Birmingham/Solihull, the Black Country, Coventry and the North Staffordshire Conurbation;
• Sub-regional foci for development beyond the MUA; namely Worcester, Telford, Shrewsbury, Hereford or Rugby;
• North-South Corridor from Nuneaton through Coventry to Warwick/Leamington and to Rugby;
• The nearest 'Settlements of Significant Development'; namely Warwick /Leamington Spa, Redditch and Worcester City
• Other Large Settlement; such as Stratford-upon-Avon, Leamington Spa/Warwick, Nuneaton, Bromsgrove and Droitwich. Development here should only meet locally generated needs;
• Rural Regeneration Zone.