In the UK, we are facing another of our ubiquitous “housing crises” with calls to increase the pace of housebuilding on one hand and calls to relieve inadequate infrastructure funding on the other. In 1968, before the onset of productive technologies, the UK was building twice as many houses as today. Then we had Ronan Point… today we have Grenfell Tower.
On the positive side, our contemporary construction industry has the potential to generate jobs, stimulating economic growth, reducing unemployment rates and creating many needed homes each year. Moreover, modern methods of construction, such as prefabrication and modular techniques, offer benefits like faster construction timelines, increased efficiency, and improved housing quality. But that needs a shake-up of the existing construction industry.
Why do we build so few dwellings? We have the most technologically-advanced, efficient, computer-assisted design and construction sector, and yet a 2023 report states that “the construction industry is one of the most inefficient industries in the UK due to its low profitability, skill shortages and lack of investment in research and development.”
In a wider context, of course, the global population is rapidly increasing and more homes are needed. So how do we address the pressing need for housing solutions for the UK’s expanding population, as well as the global 10 million? Where is the political will; and what’s the plan?
Speakers include: Charlotte Gill, journalist; Ike Ijeh, journalist, author of Designing London and 50 Greatest Architects; Lord Moylan, Conservative peer, chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Built Environment; Chair: Austin Williams, director, Future Cities Project.
Uh right thanks it’s been a kind of a nice long arduous day and we have a nice big heartwarming finish for you on a session called housing what housing uh which I suppose the idea is conveyed in the title it’s almost like why do we build so few houses that’s my assertion
Maybe you think is enough uh but there’s a government Target of 300,000 to be built every year we’re kind of building around 200,000 but but if you look back to 1968 we were building twice that many 420,000 houses again you may look back to 1960s and see they were very poor
Quality and look what happened with run and point and everything but ultimately still the target was there the ambition of the 60s was one thing um about trying to build to a better more efficient capacity anyway uh so the fact fact that we’ve had this conversation about 3D
Printing about CAD about uh AI all rest of it and all these new machines which are meant to be labor saving devices and much more productive we are year on-year building in some ways fewer houses so there’s a very odd something going on I would say second thing is that a lot of
Councils you may have read about it like uh cuden and Lamberth and walam Forest tried to develop uh development arms in order to maybe kind of make a little bit of money because it’s safe money isn’t it you build a property in London you make a lot of money of course they
Couldn’t manage their own councils let alone manage a housing project so they’ve many of them have gone bankrupt and I suppose the final thing to say is that we still have a situation in this country where only about 8% You can disagree or correct me if I’m wrong but
8 % of the country is actually urbanized in the sense of actually having being built up or having roads or stuff on it the rest is Countryside to not to put too fine a point on it so whether we build on the Green Belt whe whether we
Can expand our agenda here or whether we have to um uh cut our cloth to suit what we have available final thing I would say is that Mark farmer if anybody knows Mark farmer or knows of him who wrote modernize or die probably about six OD
Years ago uh was the modern method of construction Champion brought in in 20 2019 to challenge what he saw quotes as the creeping conservative Chang averse sector which is the built environment uh and he’s never been seen or heard again since um so you know there’s there
Something strange is going on in this country I would say about why we can’t do many things housing is a is a key kernel one so I’ve got we got a very good panel to discuss this uh with you uh first of I’ll give a couple of introductionary comments and then out to
You for questions in the usual format uh first up uh on the far end of the table there we have Daniel Mand Lord Mand who chairs the Lords built environment committee um got some very interesting uh stuff online if you want to check him out out he’s got a terrific biography uh
Just a snapshot you can read more about him on the website uh he’s chaired the mayor’s design advisory panel in the past he was the prime mover in the pedestrianization OR shared space as we should call it uh of exhibition road down by the um uh what do you call it
The alatum VNA yeah um he’s been involved in the promotion of new airport of cross rail of the Olympic Park while arguing for more pedestrian friendly streets whether that’s a contradiction we can discuss uh one of the rare few calling into question the modern methods of construction uh and uh really trying to
Work out why we have never reached those construction targets so that’s Lord Mand in the center here we have Charlotte Gil who’s a journalist of repute written for the time just talking right for everybody actually times Guardian independent she campaigns if that’s not too strong a word for better
Transportation and she has targeted ltns uh if you don’t mind me saying it in the past um it says here quotes landlords private and social have cart blanch to treat renters pretty much how they like that’s another campaigning discussion another aspect of this debate about what’s happened with leasehold and uh
Housing rental uh and the uh says that the council sorry the Housing Association oh my God the housing crisis is the biggest issue affecting adults quality of life and is decimating the economy again see what you think about that and how you want to respond to it
Then finally we have Ike i who’s uh a practicing architect and author written many many books on architecture widely was a writer for uh BD magazine was the architectural correspondent um ar oh okay you can’t remember anyway it doesn’t matter uh anyway um and now he’s
The head of housing policy sorry head of housing at policy exchange um but more broadly he’s kind of writing a whole series with them and more broadly uh on housing um what was the last one you you said you were writing about this Curr tall buildings um and he’s going to be
And he’s going to be taking these kind of topics further because he does have the year of government in some respects uh and so he’s able to uh influence policy hopefully for the better anyway that’s the panel like I say read more about them on the website really great
Biogs uh but to kick us off if Lord Moren would we got maybe five minutes or last oh I’ll go first oh well sorry no my entire I can see you’re still writing myre stick was around going off oh was it well if you have a if if you got a
Big finish Daniel cuz we all know that probably got a weak start no go on then go on Dani I’m Happ to go first and forgive the fact that I’ve got a slightly grotty throat um I’m only going to make uh two broad points um each of
Three parts uh the first is we’re not building housing to meet demand that’s fairly obvious obvious and the reason we’re doing that is we’re not letting the market operate and if we contrast the situation with what existed say in the 1930s when the Metropolitan Railway which was also a property developer
Built out metrand very successfully along its line um and did so in an age where planning control was was relatively light and they have given us a legacy of attractive housing people still want I mean I could give you other examples I live in Kensington which in
Principle should be a hell hole because for the second half of the 19th century when most of it built there was no planning at all just building regulations but actually people are desperately Keen to live in Kensington um so we should recognize that planning is not actually making things easy the
Second reason is that planning restricts the supply of land which is a separate question from the design of what the housing should look like it deliberately restricts the supply of land and creates an artificial premium for land which can get that permission there are other things that restrict the supply of land
And prevent the market from working which include green belts and so on but but the planning system itself inherently does that because it designate lands designates land for housing and refuses that designation to others and the third thing is the planning system through its increasing complexity and cost there is a huge cost
To getting a planning application through even for Fairly fairly small schemes um has resulted in a concentration of the industry so that 20 years ago roughly 40% of new homes were built by what are called small and medium Enterprises that figure is now T down to 10% and those that remain are
Being squeezed out of the market and the result is there is a huge concentration um in the hands of a relatively small number of major house builders who have no incentive to build to meet demand they have an incentive always to build below demand not a little bit below demand maybe but below
Demand to maintain prices the second point I wanted to make also say in three parts because it’s worth thinking about is what do we mean by demand and there are three ways in which people talk about this uh the first is the way planners talk about it planners don’t
Talk about demand at all in fact they talk about housing need this is and I don’t mean to be rude or funny here I’m being just plain literal this is the inheritage the inheritance of the Soviet Five-Year Plan system um which um affected our planning system from the
Second world war on where the state works out how many two brushes the population will need over a 5-year period and then plans to produce them and that mentality continues with the planning system in this country uh the second way is to work out to some extent
Although this is really best left to the market what is it people actually want because what people want will change over time uh the amount of space they want the circumstances in which they want to live whether they need a kitchen you probably noticed kitchens are a becoming sort of the kitchens are
Becoming things nobody ever uses now they’re just the sort of thing you have a kitchen and it’s like a temple you know go and do things in there but nobody Cooks in that’s not true to say nobody Cooks there are there are dedicated Cooks but there are many
Kitchens that are never used or hardly used at all but you’ve got to have a kid so people the way people want to live changes over time and and that should reflect itself in what the market offers but the planning system doesn’t allow it and the Third Way of measuring demand
And this is a um controversial thing to say but I’m going to say it is whether you take account of projections in population increase to the extent that those prote those projections are based on immigration which is a variable under your control and to what extent your demand projections should take account
Of those um and um that is a highly politically controversial matter to open up but with the on yesterday or the day before announcing that the UK population was going to rise between 2021 and 2036 by 99.9% roughly 7 million people of which roughly get the figures but roughly six
Million will be attributable to immigration then there are serious policy questions about the impact of that on housing demand and what we should be doing about it I think I’ve spoken quite long enough thank you very good thank you very much Round of Applause please very good Charlotte if you would
Hi everyone um thanks so much for having me here today um I’m very flattered to be asked to come and speak to creative young architecture students like yourself um just to caveat I’m not I won’t have nearly as much technical know as you guys have about architecture I’m
More I I campaign a lot I like to think of myself as a bit of a monovar on housing sort of using my Twitter and my platform in uh in journalism to write about it and you know like I’m sure a lot of people in this room it’s very
Personal for me I’m 35 I’m still renting um I actually strangely enough I actually grew up in this area um so sort of I don’t know if you know dington Street like I went to school there went to I can’t remember his first name but a
Gray you know a gray Studio gray his son used to go play play there the architect and he had a rocket in the garden I thought that’s very cool but um yeah so it’s kind of weird but the point of that I guess one thing I want you to say is
Yeah like I’m very motivated because I am a bit of a posh and even I I mean I don’t want to say like get violins out for the Posh shows but the point is if you’re even a little bit Posh and you can’t get a housing like there’s just no
Hope is there unless you you know for anyone with a deposit it’s become pretty much impossible especially in the Southeast it’s a very Southern problem um so as Daniel said it’s very obvious that we have a massive Supply issue um we built about 230,000 dwellings last
Year um and then yeah talking about net migration that was over 600,000 last year we know that all the demand yeah is focused in the South um and and as I’m sure you will all know like it’s not just um you know it’s not just housing that’s the problem with infrastructure
Structure and us not being very ambitious as a country I was at the Royal Albert Hall in June last year at the proms and I and I just sort of thought you know where is our Royal Albert Hall we just you know compared to say the Victorian era we just seem very
Dormant and I don’t really know what the legacy of the UK is going to be architecturally perhaps you can you can tell me later but um but it just seems like at the moment the main thing is the Elizabeth line and uh and people getting there’s a sort of evangelism around
People are like oh at the Lizzy line I love it and yeah it is good it has lots of space but it’s also like I don’t think in another era people would be that level of fanatical about a train line going from Reading to wherever um
Yeah so so yeah there’s there is M so the main issue is is that planning is very very hard to get through and that there’s massive out of sync the government are essentially artificially inflating house prices because they have the levers for immigration which very high and just natural population growth
Well they don’t have the leap but you know what I mean and then they’re also constricting Supply in a number of ways I think there’s um it sounds paradoxical but I think there’s too much democracy in the system um the government talks a lot about things like um people want
Beautiful homes and we’ve got to let communities have a say and there’s this uh false idea that the more say communities have the more they’ll build things and actually we see a paradoxical effect and I find because I also moved to Maidstone when I was 13 out of
Islington so more countryside I find that there’s an inverse effect between how much space you have and how much you want the more people move out to the countryside the more they start having land almost like in my experience the greedier they get about preserving the land not wanting any architecture built
There so that’s a massive issue and it’s always because of the amount of democracy in the system when they say local community should decide that’s always going to lock young people out from deciding how the land is used because they never are the local communities it’s like Catch 22 so that’s
A major issue and I get really fed up of the Tories talking about um beautiful housing I mean we just need housing full stop but you guys know a lot about architecture so you’re probably going to tell me that no we do need some beautiful housing but um then uh yeah I
Think that to end on a slightly positive note um yeah I forgot to say that I don’t think Michael go is very gooded as well because he just he’s obsessed with legislation and we’ve already seen like a section 21 they’ve risen by a third since he started saying you know the
Rent is Reform Bill we’re going to put in those legislation just so many bad things like social housing um we know that again it’s it’s Supply not keeping up with demand but the the governments answer answer is that landlords in the social space are going to have to take
Qualifications to make sure they’re nice I’m like how you know how is that going to change things it’s just you’re going to be treated badly if there’s not enough of a commodity um but yeah on my positive note I think the thing that might change the debate is um it sounds
Really small but I think more MPS are getting to the point where their children are starting to get older and they’re going to be directly affected I even saw Jess Phillips talking about Hassan in Birmingham I think he’s coming to the sort of age where you suddenly
Realize I think there’s going to be more of that I think even if rishy sunx I’m not saying his children specifically but then might come a point where they bring someone home from school who is like uh Mr sunap I cannot get house and so I do
Think that there might be a bit of that but um yeah I’d end on a positive miserable Hope Springs Eternal uh Round of Applause [Applause] please okay Ike and Beauty right everybody um apologies I also have um bit of a cold so apologies for sound as if I’m talking from an
Underwater tank but um I I concur with everything that’s been said um before by my two colleagues but I’ll pick up on some some of the things they possibly said um why don’t we build enough housing well very simplistically I’m just going to offer three reasons as to
Why I don’t think we do one is planning one is politics and one is prices but I’ll explain all of those as I go ahead now I know planning has been mentioned by both my colleagues and basically I agree the plan planning system is too risky it’s too slow it’s too inefficient
It’s too authoritarian and it doesn’t provide the safeguards on quality that it should do um I mean there are many people who think the 1947 Town and Country planning Act is like the worst piece of State legislation since I don’t know a dissolution of the monasteries or
Something like that I’m not quite in that constituency because we did have that um piece of legislation in place in the 1950s and 60s when we built thousands and thousands of of housing of houses so I don’t necessarily think um I’m not of that um particular church as
It were but I certainly do see that the planet system as it works at the moment is not as efficient as it should be um obviously as as an architect um I’ve worked for large practices like we’re in now but basically if I was in my practice designing a house extension for
One of my neighbors I would have to go through the exact same planning protocols as a large developer hiring an architect to build a 20 story Tire block around here obviously it’s a different scale of building but the protocols the steps the Hoops you go through are the
Same thing and it’s just inefficient it shouldn’t work that way so the planet system has to change and realize and and recognize Focus where it can do most good in terms of large level um um Urban um interventions and leave all the my shy of planning extensions and domestic
Um accretions alone personally that that that’s my view and also I know I know um um Charlotte was a little scathing about beauty um we can all argue about what beauty is I don’t think it’s we don’t have to agree on what beauty is but I do
Think we have to agree that beauty is important and the planning system should do that as well and the planning system is supposed to be a check and a balance against Bad architecture and bad design and bad interventions and the fact that it doesn’t do that does allow bad bad
Architecture to fester and the problem with I understand I completely get the argument about we have a planning we have a housing crisis we just need to build we just need to build as much quantity as possible I get that but unless we make sure the quality is there
Unless we make make sure that we’re making places that are going to be sustainable that people want to live in then we’re not ending the housing crisis we’re just basically postponing it for the next Generation when the current owners move out we find out that nobody
Wants to live in this place because the because the the kind of qualities or values in which they they were built with weren’t there so I do think whether you call it beauty or design quality I do think that’s important and I I think you’ll find that quality and quantity
Are then interchangeable cuz if people have more confidence that this quality then you’ll get less of the constant wave of opposition to new housing which you sometimes get which I’ll talk about in a minute as well so that’s reason one um reason two is politics now what do I
Mean by that as um Austin mentioned I’ve worked at politic exchange now for the last couple of years and I found it fascinating I’m now convinced that housing is unique it’s Unique to things like health care and defense because with housing there is a clear political incentive to both solve the problem but
Sustain it as well I don’t think that exists with anything else but with housing obviously we all know what the benefits of solving the problems are um social benefits um people young people have a place to live and Wishy Su next children’s friends don’t have to come
Come tell we need a house so those are all the benefits but there are also benefits unfortunately political benefits for not providing housing as well and you see that with the I don’t like using the word nimi movement but you you see that with the kind of growth
Of this um certain MPS in certain areas who will are seen as proudly having um criteria of stopping housing or not allowing housing in their kind of rural community um because and then they and they pitched that to the voters of we’ve preserved your community and we’ve left
It alone and we’ve left all that ugly architecture that was that was going to come here we’ve we’ve pushed that away and they use it as an electoral benefit that’s a powerful tool in our political system and I’m not I’m just saying it’s a Tory thing in the next election if we
Do have a new government I guarantee you that in those constituencies where this kind of thing happens whether it’s Barnet or s or the commuter belt shes around London the new if they are new labor MPS will be singing the same tune within the next year or so that the Tory
Predecessors have been as well because it’s seductive and SE seen as an electoral benefit for some of the me reasons Charlotte mentioned to prevent new housing from coming in so that is a big problem I think with the way our system set up with the way that housing
Can be seen as something that people get a political benefit from if they prevent it and the final reason prices um now this is more to do with affordable housing we just basically as well as not building enough homes I think we need to be really we need to be really careful
We need to build enough affordable homes as well now if you look at London we’ve just done a study on tour buildings in since the year 2000 London’s tallest buildings have provided over 22,000 housing units that sounds great sounds like quite a lot of housing units how
Who would like to have a guess as to how many of those housing units are for social rent just a guess does 2% 2% okay right anyone else 5% okay it’s lower than all of that out of 22,000 it’s less than 100 so that’s un I’m not saying affordable housing I’m
Talking specifically about social rent but that is crazy so that’s a clear example we’re building housing but it’s not doing anything to help the housing crisis because the majority in that case is luxury and it’s not doing anything to make housing more accessible to the vast majority of people on normal incomes so
We have to get more intelligent about how um the kind of housing we produce to enable to ensure that the price of that housing is is at it makes it more accessible to Greater number of people and just to end I think one way in which
We do that is increasing the amount of Council housing that we build we build more than we used to we don’t build as much as we used to in the 1950s and 60s we build more than we did in the ‘ 80s and ’90s and it has been growing
Increasing year on um um incrementally but if you look at the the the government’s budget for the housing benefit housing benefit is essentially what it pays to people to help them pay their rent in the private sector that is estimated to be 71 billion P by 2050 that’s bigger than the military budget
For annual military budget for Russia that’s a vast amount of money and all that money if you think about it it’s the government subsidizing the private sector because people are paying that money to pay their rent in the private sector it doesn’t make any economic sense if we
Were to use some of that money to make a proper capital investment of making our own cheaper Council housing that would make a huge benefit in terms of making housing more affordable as well very good Round of Applause thank you all right well I’ve got a stack of
Questions but not enough time so uh I will throw it out straight to you guys okay thanks right I’ll come back to the panel and we’ll come back for another round Daniel you I didn’t I didn’t mention affordable housing before so I’m going to concentrate on that
Briefly in my response and um not pursue the other matters because I’m sure others will um we need to be clear why council’s going bankrupt Birmingham is not going going bankrupt because of a property deal Birmingham is going bankrupt because they uh misinterpreted equalities legislation and mispa their
Workers for mut dozens of years and have now lost a case and there’s a huge amount of back pay that they’re required to pay that’s the root of birmingham’s problem it’s nothing at all to do with development and a housing problem I’m not commenting on the merits of the case
I’m just saying that’s that’s the that’s the story on affordable housing I think we’ve got to be more radical and my fox has been slightly shot by the young lady um over there because she sort of said what I need to I think we need to think
About so in an ideal Britain looking forward 20 or 30 years when you are all coming up to retirement and whatever and getting your bus passes how much affordable housing would you like to see in this country and the answer has to be none there should be no designated
Affordable housing because all housing would be affordable of course it’s affordable at different price points just like cars are affordable at different price points some people can afford a Rolls-Royce lots of other people are with a Ford Fiesta whatever you choose and so on you know there are
Different price points to cater for people and that’s true in housing as well there are houses near me I can’t afford them obviously uh you know that sell for 70 or 80 million pounds there is a market for them they are affordable to somebody uh and there are things very
Much cheaper that is surely the ideal thing you’d want and you wouldn’t have the government intervening in this segmental politically driven way to try and create housing for particular Target groups because that then raises the question which Target groups are you actually talking talking about and that
Is a highly controversial issue at the moment with this question as people have twigged that the that the the the cheapest most accessible housing even when it’s built um is not actually available to British people it’s it’s available to others and so the idea that actually you should be taking the tramel
Off building housing that people will want to live in in 20 30 40 years time because it is what you described INF felicitously I wouldn’t say this as middle class housing um the the idea that you might actually concentrate on letting the market build that and stop traveling it by saying to every
Developer that you’ve got to have 35% affordable bogus affordable real affordable whatever it is affordable housing as a dead weight cost in what you’re doing might actually if you un if you also at the same time got rid of the house Builder um oligopoly structure and here it is wor worth mentioning the
Competition and markets Authority has just in the last month or so opened an inquiry into the house building sector and that really is something you should be looking at and something where evidence you know any evidence you’ve got should be going in because that could be quite explosive if it finds
What I think it should find don’t know um but but but you would you could end up with a great deal more housing and it would be housing that you want to think of you’ll be able to use in 30 40 years time every housing unit that is built
Today for sale is very likely still to exist in 200 years time the buildings put up near me in Kensington in the 1850s following the great exhibition all that development that took place they’re still here and we’re in the 2020s and they’re going to be here for years to come so think
Longterm think not what do I need today but where am I building for the future whether it’s 30 or 40 years down the road or 200 in some cases we’re going to drown in 20 years sorry with sea level rise we’re all going to be dead in 20
Years so very much shter term uh Charlotte yeah um I’ll try and pick up on three like really quickly yeah with affordable I guess my only comment I can’t add anymore to what Daniel said but um but that sometimes the def even the definitions of affordable are wrong
I think there was a BBC article my friend actually wror and uh they found that that very few people like the threshold is you either it’s just very difficult to me it’s like either you’re being paid too much or too little um on the gentleman at the back’s Point um I
Totally agree about infrastructure especially travel infrastructure I do think I I don’t agree with the general idea of of we should just build over there and then it will automatically regenerate I think there’s evidence that that doesn’t you know they moved the the government moved the treasury to
Darlington it’s not like since then everyone’s been rushing to live in Darlington there’s a lot of the Civil Service they’ve moved to the north um you know we’ve had Channel 4 mve to leads we’ve had the BBC um southford and it’s just it just takes a very long time
But we’ve got I personally think that we just have to deal with the reality which is the most demand is in the south at the moment and maybe that can change but I don’t think trying to engineer hope I’m not putting words in your mouth but
I don’t think we should do things to sort of make that happen more than the transport infrastructure um and then we with the gentleman that talked about local councils I love writing about local councils um sometimes like sometimes people say what do you when they meet me or whatever they say like
What do you write about when I say I’m a journalist and I’m like local government which probably makes someone to fall asleep right but I think it’s fascinating because that I mean I don’t want to generalize but so many are run so so bad badly and I agree that yeah
The problem with Birmingham was what Daniel was talking about but i’ I’ve looked into some of these councils and what they’re spending on I mean Birmingham was hiring food Justice Consultants to talk about food Justice right and it’s that sort of wastage I don’t know if you know even
Um in my view Devolution under Tony BL I’m very anti it U because I think it’s re it’s really splintered the country into a set of administrations that are dysfunctional and no one’s really keeping an eye on um and a lot of counselors are there’s one that I did a
Piece on he had he’s the environment counselor for Hackney he had clocked up around 40,000 Air Miles doing his side job and um you know they they’re making money from taxpayers um yeah what it even if you look at the London Administration I mean I don’t know if
You know you’ve heard of the nights are no no one’s really heard of her but she’s meant to be making night life great in London do you do you think it’s good at the moment does it stay open long she gets paid she got a 40,000 no
40% pay rise she’s paid 120,000 a year so since since 2016 yeah she’s been she’s you know it’s around 500,000 cumulatively and then we’ve got a walking and cycling commissioner were paying over 100,000 for and they just in you know they just invent these crappy jobs take all our money life gets worse
In my opinion because you it’s very hard to go clubbing now pubs Chuck you out at 10 p.m. um so I do think there’s a problem with local government if I was prime minister I would get rid of I would repeal the Devolution act which is
Kind of what Margaret Al did but um and then like I think the point is you want to decentralize planning Powers but for to me it just seems totally pointless a UK government has essentially given loads of many administrations around the UK C blanch to do whatever they like
With some money and when they’re doing a crap job the argument is oh they need more funding it’s like how much more do they want anyway can I just quickly can I quickly interrupt because your in your introduction you said there was too much democracy in housing in housing
Provision uh by which I understood you not to really be dissing democracy but the idea that we ask people for far too small objectives and if there’s a larger infrastructural need that should be mandated rather than you know ask people if they like it or not but when you’re
Talk then about more Devolution or more decentralization sorry Devolution no more decentralization are you then actually going back on that and that would become more localized Democratic accountability conversations no because I I think the the more sort of the more mini administrations we have in the in
The UK the idea that they they sell it on this principle that doesn’t actually add up that it gives people more democracy because then they’ve got local Representatives but AR I mean I don’t know if you guys know what low traffic neighborhoods are um they are basically roadblocks to stop cars going
Down certain areas and the media are quite content with the idea that these brilliant making us a very environmentally friendly um City I’ve talked to people out and about and I got into it really accidentally cuz a van a van driver moving helping me move house
Uh or flat uh sort of venting to me we can’t get anywhere and and there’s a lot of misery and anger and they’re not getting represented so and people are like I don’t remember voting for this people don’t remember voting for will Norman the cycling commissioner he’s you
Know the cycling Lan been sorry really ranting but yeah yeah you get the idea housing what housing cycling what cycling okay just I’ll respond to just um the affordability question and the council’s question I think as well um I I agree you the premise of your question
And yes a lot of the reason why people don’t want to move into what I suppose you may have um been um implying as kind of um lower class um affordable housing it’s basically because it was built badly and if you look there are examples certainly across London across this
Country of poorly built social housing from the 1950s and 60s and’ 7s built with the most altruistic um um um um social um ideals in mind but they were built poorly they were built cheaply and they are not now seen a desirable places to live Ike can I come and say something
Just to annoy you I know I shouldn’t I shouldn’t be interrupting no that’s fine okay just walk back to Baran Tube Station yes pass the golden Lane golden Lane estate pass the barbon it is not true to say these places were built badly not all of them they were
Not built badly they have on the whole some were built I didn’t allow you to finish so why would you allow me to finish but I might get the sentence out they were not build badly they have been horribly under maintained I agree there is a tower block at hid Park Corner a
Concrete Tower block at hide Park corner where people pay £500 a night to rent a room um and that’s because you know the it has been beautifully maintained as an Hotel sorry the Hilton the Hilton the Hilton has been beautifully maintained over 70 years and people may will pay
Money for it and it’s one of the problems with Council housing all those who think the council’s is that councils are always have money to build something because the government gives them the money and they never have the revenue to maintain it so that is why broadly
Speaking it deteriorates I can it’s not that they’re badly built completely agree with the maintenance issue I do and the barbin is wonderfully well maintained but it’s not a typical housing estate from the 1960 it’s not it’s not it do we can go to Hackney we can go to wilon not far
From we can see many Estates of the barban size that were not built with that quality I’m not saying that excuse the barban experience but I don’t think that’s necessarily representative of everything that was built from their area and they undoubtedly I I agree the maintenance issue is important and if you don’t
Maintain a building that’s been built well you’re still going to end up with problems but the fact is the barbin was also as well as being built well it was designed well a lot of these well designed well in certain areas in certain areas it’s not really
Doesn’t really work as a kind of urban um inte well integrated um area but anyway I think it’s a valid thing to say that a lot of housing from that period wasn’t built well as well as wasn’t maintained well but my argument is kind of positive approach mon here is that if
We were to build a new generation of social housing it must be done with the idea that it is both built and properly maintained as well and then you will find if you do that if there’s quality in it I mean just to turn this argument on its head slightly everyone loves The
Terraces around Regent Park um the Nash Terraces beautiful stucco buildings and um Park presentes they’re incredible a lot of them weren’t built that well either kind of sham walls and um um um poor foundations they’re still there 200 years later because people value their Urban contribution to making London what
It is today so I’m not saying building bad is irrelevant but when it comes to social housing which is a far more fragile I think element of government intervention we have to make sure that quality is Paramount and I don’t think that was the case all the time
Previously um in terms of councils um I understand your point about we have to um better distribute demand and you’re quite right we always talk about housing crisis we have a housing crisis in London and the southeast we don’t have a housing crisis in many other areas where
It’s very cheap to buy housing and you don’t get the pressures of demand that you get you have here one of my favorite pictures from the 1980s is seeing the London docklands developed and none of the buildings are there but you just see the DLR the new Railway it’s been built
There because the government did that in expectation of the fact they we’re going to build a brand new um commercial center here but none of that was going to happen without the infrastructure so I get the principle of the government being minded to be bold and to make
These kind of bold infrastructure moves um um before for the the housing or the demand is there but I do think with with housing it’s slightly different but London is a draw it’s more of a draw than other places there’s only certain things the government can do to kind of
Change that no one ever no other areas we’re never going to get equality in terms of demand so I think to a degree when it comes to infrastructure places should have the infrastructure required in order to sustain Redevelopment regeneration Etc but I don’t think there’s anything wrong either with
Accepting that areas have a higher demand and doing the best to sustain demand there yes let’s um let’s try and promote regeneration elsewhere but not to the extent that we’re trying to stop demand where demand is happening and artificially create it elsewhere very good very good very feisty over here uh
What do you like over there anymore take you sir uh okay there were questions I interrupted the questions uh you want to come back on anything that’s been raised please feel free um I yeah I I totally yeah that’s my worry with um some of the obsession with environmentalism at the
Moment um it’s being used to stifle a lot of development as well um something like 145,000 dwellings in England not not to be too English uh Centric um were blocked because of reasons you know this is part of the reason why the government didn’t meet the 300,000 housing Target
Because now a lot of people it’s not only that they’re making very difficult demands about building across governments the devolved governments but also it’s much easier to um be I’m I’m with Ike I don’t really like the word nimi either because I think it alienates
People we need to go on side but um but if we’re going to use that term those people can hide behind the face of environmentalism like I’m sure some of them are really like yeah this is going to damage our environment but I just think it’s quite a good way to sound
Good if you say I’m blocking this development because because of the nutrients or I can’t remember the specific wording nutrient nutrient neutrality and it’s a block put in place by Natural England with defra’s approval and it arises from a European Union Court case that we should not be subject
To because we’ve left the European Union and um and my my built environment select committee did a magnificent report on this which was published only in November last year there’s also I recommend it there’s also water neutrality which is there is also water neutrality that is less extensive in its
Effect nutrient neutrality de blockages affect 14% of England’s land area are a b problem uh hi k um the Scottish experience it’s interesting and it’s really important to add that perspective and I don’t know as much about it I’ve been to a town called lochgelly um which
Is near kiraly I think which was Gordon Brown’s old constituency and um the guardian in its wizard about 15 years ago um highlighted it as the worst place to live in Britain it had all it had all the it’s an old mining town and it said
It had all the elements there of a depressed Community young people moving away um a problem noty had actually was too much social housing essentially they had Council housing that was empty there CU nobody wanted to live there but I went there about 3 years ago and they
Have done a wonderful job turning it around it’s a much smaller it’s a it’s a tiny settlement you can’t compare to somewhere like London but the way they did it was just to use the oldfashioned traditional kind of um tools which we all have access access to such as
Improving the High Street um um public making the public realm more accessible um providing housing that was more appropriate to the need of the town at the moment trying to encourage new businesses to move into the town and it’s a small example but that seemed to me a really good example of regeneration
Working in in certainly in that one particular instance but I do think it is very important to add perspective to this and to realize that the problems that we have in London of kind of not enough housing not enough social housing those problems are reversed elsewhere in their opposite form and they’re still
Problematic so it’s useful perspective um in answer to the question someone asked about the role of Architects it’s really interesting basically because the role of Architects has changed a lot as people like me and Austin will tell you over the past kind of 30 40 years you
Had Architects you would the kind of the main controllers of the kind of whole design um production process that’s not the case anymore we’re very often Consultants we’re very often Consultants who work for people who do control the process as such as Developers for instance so and you asked about
Architect being involved in master planning as well and things like that I think the key for architects in the future is to be as Nimble and flexible as possible and to realize that the kind of the ideal of an architect certainly with a kind of housing um housing sector
Is not to get out there and say this is my building necessarily or this is my object it’s to find yourself put yourself in scenarios where you’re more you’re more connected with creating places I think that’s going to be the kind of way in which Architects will be
Able to still have their imprint on a very different design industry where people like developers even contractors they’re the ones very much now who kind of play the tune and who who most of the money is based Within and Architects it’s not necessarily a case of Architects hoping to jump over them and
Be top of the pile again it’s very much working within that system and still using our architectural skills which are unique there are many skills Architects bring to contractors or developers that they wouldn’t have otherwise but using those skills within a kind of broader professional um environment I think I
Could add to it I I do think people would like more architects in the political space it would really help the debate um I like not a criticism I don’t I can’t think of any architect you know you hear a lot about developers being like we
Really need the government to do x and x I think archit I mean it’ be a brilliant contribution because it would just be like look at all these beautiful ideas we have that aren’t getting built don’t you want to be like a wonderful prosperous Nation so that like any
Political activism would be really sounds like I’m like go on you know um but also I did get a tip I just remembered from Kevin McLoud who I once had to phone for what and um and he told me that if you look at councils a lot of them have like I
Don’t know if people know this already but they have like uh land that isn’t being used they the councils like can can sell or give to people and he said that some people are clubbing together apparently catford has some land and they club together and they all build
The house together um because it’s enough of the plot and if they yeah all the money kind of adds up even for Millennials and gen Z can get the budget together shouldn’t Beed as oh okay I you know I was like I’m not telling anyone but it’s about three years two years later
There’s an example there’s an example in Brighton as well of something similar happening I mean we’re talking about tiny numbers of dwellings uh first of all it you’re absolutely right this is not a Southeast crisis just to take another examp I don’t know about Scotland I have to admit there’s a huge
Rural crisis in England rural housing crisis in England um and uh people have nowhere to stay and so we need to look at it in the more round second is I don’t agree with the person at the back who said that if you put a lot of poor
People together in the same place they’d fail to develop pride and don’t look after their own homes that is not my experience um people can take pride in a community and a community can be established and built um irrespective of income levels um I don’t think that’s
The case but I do agree the fact is that it is already the case and has been for decades that decades 20 years that um uh that that local planning authorities do their best to force um developers to uh at the very least Pepperpot social housing around uh amongst uh private
Housing so I was on the efleet Development Corporation board until August until sacked by Rishi um and uh down at efleet all of the social housing is pepper potted into the estate so and you cannot tell from the outside which is social housing and which is uh private housing uh that already happens
In urban areas in Kingland Chelsea where I come from that’s been happening for years there is a cost to it in places like Kensington Chelsea because the developer says if you want the social housing on site as opposed to off-site then you will get less social housing because here is the wonderful viability
Model which churns out a certain answer so there are real tradeoffs left for planning officers when they ask those questions but the thrust is already there as for Architects I’ve been interested in architects for a very long time I will reveal a Bo I will boast of
A secret not many people know I am an honor it’s an award I am an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects whenever I con whenever I contact the RBA to say there’s a great issue here that you might be interested in coming up they’re totally you it’s
Like honestly you have to pins in them to get them to respond they’re completely hopeless when it comes to engaging with the the political space in my experience but there is a real question about the role of Architects you know you go back to luton’s day the
Architect was the master of the whole thing hired the contractors ran the whole show that is 100 years ago but but there was still a lot of Truth in that right up to the 1950s now nobody knows what the architect is and as Ike says you are a consultant to a developer but
I have seen cases real life cases of planning applications where you know people like C Farrell are the architect great guy big name um and a nice man are the architect to a particular development until planning permission is obtained and then suddenly you never see farell again because they’re using in-house
Architects based in Hong Kong or somewhere um who are stripping everything out um that uh that you approved it on in the first place and it’s it’s scandalous so Architects really have to ask themselves what their role is the one that I’m I’m going to give a plug here somebody I have great
Admiration for especially on social housing who is Peter Barber who has consistently over the last 10 15 years produce really high quality interesting well-working social type housing um and I think is absolutely great in what he does so there’s a role for an architect in this space there’s an example of an
Architect in this space but there is a much bigger question what are Architects for in the future nobody wants them go BL me you can’t end on that one right right look we run out we kind of run out of time for questions but I kind
Of what you can’t leave it on that one nobody nobody wants them unless they need them I mean you know you you ideally you do they need Architects do we need Architects yeah some sometimes you do because you need planning permissions and you need smoothies who
Turn up like you know who can sell anything to a planning committee um there are some um architects who are brilliant at selling schemes to planning committees that’s their real value um and um well welcome to the profession everyone the best is I can’t remember it’s gone out of my head really annoys
Me Michael whatever who tried to sell me once um as as on never got to planning application stage a 40 Story Tower in Kensington High Street on the grounds that it would be a sliver of light almost invisible I said Michael it’s a 40 Story Tower it doesn’t matter how you taper it
You cannot seriously ask me to believe it is going to be almost invisible brilliant salesmanship so we never know if it’s actually been built it was never built and the reason it was never built is that they was some time ago they went off then to say well we’ll
Get round this guy we’ll go and talk to Ken Livingston and he’ll get us this is the developer and we’ll get Ken because Ken likes tall buildings anyway I never heard of it again and I saw Ken a couple of months later and I asked him about it
And he said I’ve never heard of a more stupid place for a tall building than kington AR street so they fell complet completely on flat on their faces with Ken yeah I was only making the point it like when you buy camouflage trousers you can never find them again but um so
We never we never know the tower is always being built anyway it might be there it might be therea it could be there now you wouldn’t you want a big finish um just to finish my um finish is a plea for Quality basically um let’s build housing let’s build as much
Housing as we need but we’ve got to make sure as well as quantity that we’re building the quality to make sure people actually want to live in there we’re making sustainable places and we’re making housing that doesn’t just last for 10 20 years but as I’ve been pointed
Out before we’re thinking on a kind of 200-year level so quality is my um closing okay uh yeah not sure sure exactly what yeah I’m just trying to think but um no I do I also agree with the lady at the back that talked about um demand elsewhere I think
We see with Cornwall the the second homes problem um building so I think it’s sort of there’s a sense that the house even though we’re talking about the demand as well being in London there’s a sense it’s like coming to a cinema near you you know like all the
Demand is going to come out as well um slightly tangential point for us was reading I was like reading about the plague the other day and it was kind of interesting because it exactly the same thing happened in CO as in the plague and like people started moving all the
Posh people went to the to their second home so there definitely needs to be something I guess like yeah sorry it’s a bit of a ramble but um but yeah like more needs to be done to deal with that demand second home demand but I guess my
Main takeaway um is yeah just like Architects have loads to add to the political debate and the more that the industry is like across the political side which is a bit of a headache the B for um for for making more interesting architecture as well as solving the
Basic issue very good I think the current uh uh hierarchy or the elevated status of Architects who inhabit the r buildings have very little to offer the political sphere and if whatever they do is nothing I would like to uh accept um but I do think that you know maybe
People in this room who have a political engagement with some of these ideas beyond what they’ve been fed or or what they’ve been taught even worse uh more critical engagement with it would be a very useful starting point I think but I do think you know when you say uh that your final
Of thoughts on we really need to build what we need the numbers of buildings that we need that’s the big question isn’t it as what that means you know what what do we what do we need what do we desire should we have single person houses should we have uh core habitation
Cor habitation core core living core housing uh you know these are kind of broader questions as to how Society we imagine should be organized and that’s the vision that’s the 10 50 100 Year vision about where we’d like to be and then we can set in train how we or
Should we have high levels of flexibility and adaptability like they did when they were building in the 1850s and 60s where houses built in that period later became one-bedroom apartments bed sits later became lateral Flats some are now being returned being private houses High huge levels of adaptability in the structure um and
That and that I think needs to be a core feature of design as you think about the long term except they didn’t build them with that in mind no but they were just so happened just so happened the worst part is when you see flexible buildings now there was inflexible we can learn
From what happen we can learn from learn a lot from the past ladies and gentlemen Round of Applause for the panel [Applause] please