We urgently need new housing – the British generally agree on that. But there is disagreement over where to build it, and these disputes tend to be concentrated on the outskirts of cities. For example, the government’s new plan to build on the grey belt – “low-quality and ugly areas” – is already leading to threatening semantic squabbles.
What exactly is “poor quality”? What should we classify as “ugly”? And what about the bees and butterflies that circle these unsightly areas? Anyone who wants to expand the radius of a city is usually blocked by conservationists and residents. And these are powerful groups: the existence of the green belt is proof of that. But there is another direction in which a city can expand: upwards.
Compared to European cities, Britain’s cities are flat. London is one of them. In New York, almost the same number of people are crammed into half the square metres. Even the capital’s most populous district does not reach the average population density of Barcelona or Paris.
Building upwards has advantages. People can live closer to their workplaces. Fewer commuters mean a smaller carbon footprint and less congestion. Car-dependent urban sprawl is largely a consequence of the growth of the car industry in the 1960s: new towns – Milton Keynes, Telford – were designed for car owners, and this pattern continues today. New developments are, with few exceptions, car-dependent, far from jobs and public transport, built at low density, and so are new commercial sites. In sparsely populated towns, transport emissions per capita are much higher. The Centre for Cities has calculated that moving from spacious Telford to crowded Brighton is a quick way to help the planet: your transport emissions are likely to fall by a third.
Even London’s most populous district does not reach the average population density of Barcelona or Paris
It’s not just the environment that benefits from a sardine-can city. The prospect of shorter commutes attracts talent. Denser cities are more productive, more innovative, provide public services more cheaply and are better at preserving green spaces. Apartments produce fewer emissions than detached houses and everything you need is on your doorstep. The president of the Royal Institute of British Architects has already warned Angela Rayner that building plans on grey belt land risk creating isolated communities cut off from transport, schools or shops.
While Britain is good at talking about its environmental goals and the need to make its cities more productive, its planning laws stand in the way of a solution. In London, plans to build a new skyscraper are facing draconian rules on obstructing views. Local residents have previously rejected plans for tall buildings on the grounds that they are too ugly, too odd or too wide.
This week, for example, we heard that a planned 25-storey tower block next to the Thames in east London was scaled down because local residents found it “visually disruptive”. The project was to include 564 new homes; the developers have promised that 20 per cent of these would be for social housing and a further 12 per cent for shared ownership. The site is currently described as a “discarded eyesore”, but the hurdles residents have put up reflect a general rule: people generally don’t want new things built near them.
The changes made by the last government help residents more and developers less – they restrict the height and location of tall buildings.
Of course, it’s not just building regulations that prevent London from becoming a version of Manhattan. There’s a cultural barrier too. Recent research from YouGov found that we’re less willing to move into high-rises than people on the continent. Parisians are happy to move into a fancy apartment, but an Englishman’s home is his castle – preferably with a moat of grass around it. The survey found that almost half of Brits would even be against three- or four-storey apartment blocks in their area, while their cousins on the continent would be more in favour.
There is, however, an argument for making it easier to get around residents’ objections. It is surely better to build cities higher than to encroach further into England’s green and pleasant countryside. Even a few extra medium-density areas would be an improvement – perhaps residents can be persuaded to opt for villa housing. If the Government relaxes planning laws outside cities, it should also think about making it easier to build upwards. And there is another reason. Rayner has said her aim is to make it easier for young people to enter the housing market. But do young people thrive better in the hustle and bustle of a city or in a far-flung commuter town? At 21, I know which I would have chosen.
Martha Gill is a columnist for the Evening Standard
