Yorkshire housing crisis needs to be addressed despite house building boom

The housing crisis in Yorkshire needs to be addressed urgently, despite reports that the region is heading a home building boom, says a Yorkshire based planning firm Spawforths.

Spawforths, the largest independent planning practice in Yorkshire believe that more needs to be done to ensure our future generations have enough homes to cope with demand.

Adrian Spawforth, managing director of Spawforths, said: “We are running into the current housing crisis with our eyes wide open. In years to come we will not be able to say to our children that we were not aware of the problem or the issues.

“It will be legitimate for future generations to turn to their parents and grandparents and state, quite accurately, that we placed our own personal, short term needs ahead of theirs.

“We will have no excuses other than to blame everyone else for not doing something and to distance ourselves from the fact that it was not politically expedient or was not in the best interests of our own amenity or existing property prices to do what needed to be done.”

Spawforths have recently been working with The Academy of Urbanism’s 4X4 Making Places ‘Where Will Our Grandchildren Live?’ debates, which were held in Leeds and Sheffield throughout October.

The debates saw 800 guests listen to 17 different experts across four events have their say on the housing crisis.

A new report by the National House Building Council (NHBC) suggested that Yorkshire is among the strongest areas of the country for house-building activity, with new registrations for house building in the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber up by 32 per cent between July and September compared with last year.

However, the report by the NHBC also stated that there was a skills shortages being seen by construction firms across the country. Bricklayers, carpenters and decorators are all in strong demand with more needed to be done to improve the availability of skilled tradesmen, something which Paul Bedwell, Director of Spawforths, agrees with:

“One thing the 4x4 debates have shown clearly is that delivering the homes we need is fundamental to support the economic growth aspirations for the Leeds and Sheffield City Regions. The construction sector should be recognised as a significant factor in achieving these objectives and the skills shortage they face is of real concern.

“The current average house price is seven times the average wage and this is worsening. Over the next 20 years 369,000 new households are expected to form in Yorkshire and the Humber. If we continue building at current rates the region will face a shortfall of 200,000 homes by 2031.

“If the region takes its share of the anticipated growth in population and households then by 2066 we may need homes for 800,000 more people in Leeds and half-a-million for Sheffield – this would equate to four new cities the size of York and plus another Sheffield.

“Sheffield’s Local Plan, which will be published next year, is likely to confirm an annual housing target of some 2,000 homes. That commitment would require at least 60 housing developments being built concurrently throughout the plan period.”

For more information about the 4x4 Making Places lectures, including videos from each of the four debates, please visit www.4x4makingplaces.info