A few weeks’ backs the country welcomed in the new coalition Government who have appointed the Cabinet that are now getting to work on fixing the country’s problems including the massive deficit, immigration and the major shortage of housing and many many more issues.
Early this week the LibCons unveiled their ambitious plans to give the public more say and responsibility in their own communities by launching the ‘Big Society’. The press release on the Cabinet Office website describes the Big Society as a way ‘to give citizens, communities and local government the power and information they need to come together, solve the problems they face and build the Britain they want.’ All very commendable indeed!
The Big Society policies include;
- Giving communities a greater say over their local planning system and saving local services, such as post offices and pubs
- Creating a new generation of community organisers that will be trained to support the establishment of neighbourhood groups and introducing measures to encourage giving and philanthropy
- Encouraging volunteering and involvement in social action, including launching a national ‘Big Society Day’ and making regular community involvement a key element of key civil service staff appraisals
- Piloting a new National Citizen Service which aims to give 16 year olds the chance to develop the skills needed to be active and responsible citizens, mix with people from different backgrounds, and start getting involved in their communities
- Supporting mutuals, co-operatives, charities and social enterprises and giving them greater involvement in the running of public services. Funds from dormant bank accounts will be used to establish a Big Society Bank, which will provide new finance for neighbourhood groups, charities, social enterprises and other non-governmental bodies
- Increasing access to government-held data through a ‘new right to data’ for citizens to ensure Government data is published. The Police will be obliged to publish monthly crime statistics.
- Extending powers for local government by giving a general power of competence to local councils and conducting a comprehensive review of local government finance in order to help remove restrictions that limit the work of local councils
The area we’re most interested in is how the government will tackle housing, which wasn’t addressed or spoken about all the much during the race to power. There have been some positive moves with the appointment of Grant Shapps as the new Housing Minster and Eric Pickles as CLG Secretary who have pledged to abolish HIPS and deal with housing.
They have quite a mountain to climb though with annual households set to increase by 252,000 per year to 27.8 million by 2031 (www.communities.gov.uk). But with only 166,570 additional homes built in 2008-2009 an ever increasing housing black hole has been created.
The task of improving the housing situation isn’t going to be easy but the fundamental answer to the problem is actually really rather simple…make it easier for house builders to build houses. Sort out the planning system by overhauling it, cut out as much of the red tape as possible, make it easier to understand and also make it more affordable. There’s no point trying to polish a turd – get the planning policies put them in a skip add something flammable and burn it!
Another area that needs to be sorted out urgently are the rules on building on Greenbelt land. The current position is to use up Brownfield sites for new developments but this is expensive and these sites are running out. Bear in mind that housing only takes up 1% of the whole of the UK so relaxing the rules a little surely can’t hurt that much. We’re not endorsing a free for all but with careful and well thought through ideas building on the greenbelt will certain help alleviate the lack of places to build and thus the lack of housing.
We wish Grant and Eric all the best and look forward to reform – watch this space.