DISPATCHES: BRITAIN’S BAD HOUSING
Earlier this month, Gordon Brown placed housing firmly at the top of the government’s agenda, unveiling plans to build 3,000,000 homes by 2020. But in this edition of Dispatches , reporter Andrew Gilligan investigates the role of private house builders in Britain’s chronic housing shortage. Gilligan raises serious concerns about the way in which house-builders currently operate. He exposes the business tactics which are used to manipulate the planning process, questions the quality of houses and shows how public authorities have allowed developers control over housing policy.
Monday 30 July 2007
8:00pm, Channel 4
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I watched the interest the programme ‘Britains Bad Housing’ and you would do well to investiage the corruption and sleaze that takes place on an individual basis within local planning authorities. I am currently investigating a developer who manages to build luxury houses on Geen Belt land under the guise of ‘Barns’ which seem to evade a lot of the planning rules. My information so far has 3 local authorities implicated with the same developer. This in itself is a story in the making, if you are interested.
regards
Vincent Crewe
Would Andrew Gilligan please get in touch me, A very big interesting story regarding the development of Middlehaven dock area Middlesbrough[a horror story]For starters building a new college on a known newly made contaminated infill [Hydrocarbons] site on a flood plain in the shadow of a chemical works and the land in the vicinity is known to be contaminated.I have the proof.
Yours Sincerely Dennis Lane 01642 595346
Dear Mr Gilligan Please investigate the special relationship between Inspector Homes and the Berkeley group and why Inspector Homes clients who have had a very raw deal from the later are never asked to come forward to relate their experiences from hell on programmes such as your depite their requests to do so. E.g. our case in particular has involved, in short, us having to live outside our home for close to a year whilst St. James (a subsidery of Berkeley’s) attempted to patch up our substandard home. During this time the builder stopped paying our temporary accomm. costs after we discovered it doing unagreed illegal works in our home in an attempt to cover up serious flouting of fire regulations. During this time large items of our furniture were also removed and stolen and two and a half years after purchasing our new build we still have serious problems to be addressed some of which were highligted in Inspector Homes original report. In depth our story is a lot more horrific than stated and not an isolated case on the development.
Thank you.
Sheila Majid
tele:0208 3354123
At last, a documentary that starts to reveal the questionable tactics of certain ‘regeneration’ developers and their PR companies,lobbying and donations.
This programme showed the mere tip of the iceberg.
PPS Group have been involved in the Countryside Properties led consortium to apply for residential planning permission on what was the world’s largest asbestos textile factory -Spodden Valley in Rochdale. I couldn’t help a wry smile when I watched the Dispatches programme suggest that PPS may be involved in bogus letter writing and emails enquiries to campaigns from “university students”. All these curious tactics appear to have been deployed against the Save Spodden Valley campaign.
Is it a mere coincidence that PPS Group were advisors to Countryside Properties on the Spodden Valley planning applications?
PPS Group’s website pride themselves on “crisis management” and delivering the voice of the silent majority against a vocal minority.
Although the planning appication has not been approved (currently on hold) and Countryside Properties have withrawn from the project, the Dispatches programme has raised serious issues.
We will be calling for an Inquiry about tactics used by any developer, public relations company or lobbyist. Asbestos contamination should be addressed by medical doctors- not spin doctors.
A good contribution to the debate. It would be good to see some European comparisons, as my impression is that homes on the continent are better built and, of course, built to a much higher density. Urban design is much better, but this would not be cost-effective for the UK house builders since higher quality would eat into their profit margins.
If we followed the European example, then a lot less land would need to be taken to provide the homes the government says we need. Higher density housing is able to be well-served by public transport and combined heat and power schemes become more viable.
But first, Government must tackle, through the tax system, the large number of houses currently left empty.
I don’t expect any of this to happen as New Labour has many business friends and controls many large councils.
I found this programme lacked evidence, sought to blame developers and their advisors when government policy is more at fault, and failed to make any sensible conclusions.
The programme displayed fundamental ignorance of the planning system.
Developers have not “rewritten” public policy.
The “North West Plan” example was used in the programme to suggest that affordable housing targets have been removed because of developer pressures. In fact, this is a strategic plan, and as such, it would be inappropriate to set rigid targets for an entire region. Affordable targets are set by local authorities to meet their specific housing needs, which are identified within their local housing needs surveys.
There has been a sea-change over the past 5 or 6 years in policy whereby many local authorities are now seeking 50% or more of new housing as “affordable” which often effectively requires developers to give away half of their product for free. This is in addition to the ever-burgeoning “shopping lists” of goodies that local authorities seek to secure from new development, such as new schools, health facilities, roads, parks and social facilties. It would be surprising if developers did not try to resist this rampant consumption of their profits.
The question we should be asking, as the CABE representative pointed out, is why is this policy acceptable in housing development? Developers are already required to pay taxes on their profits like all other industries, and they take on significant risks and financial burdens in the pursuit of profit. We do not ask publishers to provide half of all their published books to schools for free, or food companies to provide “affordable” (free) food to lower income families. The government continues to try to manipulate and direct the housing market, and always with unintended consequences. The willingness of lenders to provide multiple-income low-cost mortagages has had more to do with house price affordability than anything the housing industry has done.
I am no supporter of the housing developer – clearly, there is a lot wrong with housing development at the moment, particularly in terms of design and build quality. However,I had hoped to see a much more forensic examination of the facts instead of this half-baked, over-simplisitic clap-trap.
Andrew Gilligan’s program was most thought provoking and relevant to my current circumstances. It did not however offer any advice on what to do when rogue builders and the NHBC seem to collude on problems that are not resolved. I refer to the matter of “Noise Transference” which affects me and has been ongoing for over 2 years. A most recent investigation by the NHBC found in favour of the builder saying that the building regulation had been followed and the builder had nothing to answer for! I also have a neighbour below me who can hear my neighbours above me when they are walking around their apartment or flushing their toilet. I would argue that the level of sound insulation can not be adequate when noise transference causes the occupants of an apartment to be woken in the early hours of the morning by such noise. Since NHBC seems to be a toothless tiger what further action would anybody recommend that does not involve me in a long drawn out process just to get the right of peace and quiet? Oh by the way my neighbour above has been contacted but is not interested in my problems.
I also am the victim of unscrupulous builders. A company called Costwoldgate is operating in Swindon in Wiltshire in a most deceitful and underhand manner.
They have already ignored the Party Wall Agreement they have with me and put my gable end wall at serious risk of collapse for a week with their dangerous behaviour, lied in writing to my MP and the NHBC inspector about it (I have proof), and now they are building outside their planning permission, and even though they have been told by Swindon Borough Council to stop immediately they have not only carried on but have put more men on the site to complete the works.
Futhermore, the planning permission they did have which they are now flouting, was given in most bizarre circumstances BEFORE the planning meeting that was supposed to debate it, behind closed doors.
They seem to now believe that they can build what they like, and also seem strangley confident that Swindon Borough Council will approve in retrospect what they have decided to build, even though it is totally outside their planning permission and is so out of keeping with the local area that if they had proposed it in the first place they would no doubt have been refused.
They now seem to be totally confident that they can take the risk, with impunity, of building something totally inappropriate which is the opposite of what they were supposed to be building, and that Swindon Borough Council will approve it after the fact.
You have to ask yourself – why?
Why is it that if you or I were found guilty of breaking our planning permission and building something taller, wider, in the wrong place with a different ground floor plan than agreed, we would be certain that the local council would demand we took it down, but Cotwoldgate seem to have no such concerns and are plowing ahead at an accelerated speed.
Perhaps they know something we dont!