The Politics of Housing

The Politics of Housing is necessarily societal. In other words you can’t really divorce housing from politics.

When canvassing for the Brexit vote in 2019 and accepting becoming our Prime Minister in July 2019, Boris Johnson promised that his government would be a government inclusive for all in society; having won the popular vote on that basis.

Whatever political view individuals may take, it would appear that there are three institutions that should be held as being vital to the wellbeing of present day society. These are The Judiciary, The NHS and The Town and Country Planning Acts.

Whenever setting out to make new policy for the benefit of Britain’s populace, these three and established pillars of fairness should always be carefully considered.

Tough love, directed towards some parts of society, may well be necessary for its further improvement but it would, by its own definition, have to be based on love and nurture and not prejudice.

However even so, the noblest of such decisions, taken in the quest to improve the lot of society may occasionally fail, especially where housing matters are concerned.

What follows is a set of proposals specifically designed to resolve the present housing distribution problems.

FIRSTLY: Before designing a new Town & Country Planning system, ideally for the whole of Britain, it would be a very good idea to get a clear picture of what might make each local community thrive, and then incorporate precisely that into the new planning model.

To date we have seen little evidence of such an approach and practically no justification for the arbitrary zoning designations which are being proposed in the Planning White Paper currently being debated in Parliament. This does, therefore, deserve further and serious consideration.

In peacetime (i.e. whilst our country is not at war with another), residential planning consents should be delegated to all local town or parish councils for them to determine, depending upon local housing need.

This way, genuinely democratic decisions may be arrived at using local decision-makers whom are best able to understand what the current needs of the community are at any particular time.

The clear and over-riding objective must surely be for ordinary working people to be able to find openings for good new jobs close to where they may live.

This should mean the forward plan ought to involve a proper debate with business leaders to start searching for and employing more-skilled people, including training them up and paying them adequately whilst expecting more productivity/profitability from them in return.

Such an outcome and gain to industry could be achieved from increasing the incentive amongst school leavers and university graduates alike to decide on a higher-skilled career for themselves earlier, and then to train them more intensively for that.

Those youngsters who do not choose to follow this clear path would be likely to have to accept the unskilled jobs which there may be and at low wages (though with little or no prospects), of course.

This is, in effect, increasing the incentive for job seekers to decide what they would like to do earlier and to embark on getting the necessary training and qualifications which they will need for their choices of career.

Other successful economies have already achieved such outcomes and because this has been done elsewhere it could certainly be done in Britain, if the incentives were provided.

One organisation, KPMG (the accountancy conglomerate) is already in the news for helping in the battle for greater diversity among types of job, especially within the poorer communities, by offering apprenticeships. It wants nearly a third of their staff to be coming from working class backgrounds by 2030. Enabling diversity of perspective, fresh thinking, and, wide-ranging insight which should help all businesses to perform better.

People coming from routine maintenance and service organisations may apply. Levels of pay and prospects in life really matter to employees but so does aspiration. Van drivers, butchers and factory workers should be among those applying for schemes such as these if they should wish to do so.

What is Levelling Up really about?
Added to this post 2 jan 2022:

Levelling up is about empowering local leaders and communities.
It’s about raising living standards and growing the private sector.
It’s about spreading opportunity and improving our public services.
It’s also about boosting local pride and improving our local environments.

Young people should be empowered to learn all the skills they need in order to be enabled to use their passions and their abilities to help them get good jobs in the future, wherever they may choose to live.

All this is can now be achieved with the localised Towns Deals which are being made available by government as well as the Community Renewal Fund and other funds also to do with Levelling Up.

Link to: Department for Levelling up Housing and Communities

Equally important however is resolving the house price crisis itself!

To find out all about everything to do with the extreme lack of adequate and available housing on the market and how to deal with the non-affordability of it, see below.

What do you think about this idea for drastically improving the operation of all housing markets potentially across the whole of Britain?

Constructive comments are very much welcomed.