Alternatives to New Build

Grace Lally

Shared from Hastings Extinction Rebellion, summarising points Grace made at a public discussion on 5 October 2024.

Environment v Housing Need?

• Environment INCOMPATIBLE with housing for profit
• Meeting housing NEED and protecting environment have the SAME solutions.

Why do we NEED to build new housing?

• New housing is more environmentally sustainable – NOT TRUE
• We have a shortage of housing – NOT TRUE
• More housing reduces prices – NOT TRUE

REAL reasons to build new housing?

• New housing creates economic growth, investment opportunities and profits – TRUE – but who benefits? And at what cost?
• We need private development and private landlords because we can’t afford to provide housing with public money – NOT TRUE

Myth 1: New houses are more sustainable

• ‘The greenest building is the one that already exists’ (Carl Elefante, former president of the American Institute of Architects).
• New building – Lower operational Greenhouse Gas (GHG) – less energy to heat and light – but construction (embodied GHG) is 50% GHG emissions over its life-cycle.
• Construction is 10% of overall UK carbon emissions.
• Future Homes Standard (FHS) in 2025 does not include regulating embodied carbon.
• Can achieve NET ZERO by carbon offset payments.

Other environmental impacts of construction

• Green spaces, plants and wildlife, water contamination, air pollution, resource depletion (sand is running out!), flooding, increased car use, loss of carbon sinks.
• New houses CAN be sustainable but we need much higher building regulations and materials standards to achieve this.
• But we can’t build our way to sustainable housing.
• Only 40% rated C or higher – 29 million homes in the UK need to be retrofitted before 2050 to meet the country’s net zero target.

Myth 2: We have a shortage of housing

• Over 1 million empty homes.
• 500,000 second homes + unused & holiday lets.
• Increasing number of homes per person:
  1971 – almost one dwelling for every three people.
  2024 – one dwelling for every 2.25 people.
• Increasing number of rooms per person:
  1.8 uk (OECD average 1.6).

Not a housing shortage crisis – a hoarding crisis

Growing inequality in DISTRIBUTION of homes and rooms:

• In 1991 the richest 10% of people had about three times more rooms per person than the poorest 10%. By 2011 – it was five times.
• 2001 – 757,000 more dwellings than households.
• 2019 – 1.2 million more houses in England than there were households.
• 2021 – 1.4 million more dwellings than households in England.
• 2023-2024, 178,560 households were homeless ( 12.3% increase from 2022-23).

Myth 3: More housing reduces prices

Ratio of houses to households has been falling steadily for 50 years.
We ARE building more houses but house prices are still rising:

• 2018 to 2021: Surplus of English homes increased 1.2 to 1.4 million – Average prices rose by 14%.
• 2000 to 2022 – average cost of housing rose by 314%.

Are we just building them in the wrong place?

• London 2012-2022: Twice as many new homes as new households.
• Average property values increased 76% (115% in Barking & Dagenham).

Does Gov actually WANT to reduce prices?

• House prices rise with supply of money and credit, not supply of houses.
• Rising prices makes it MORE desirable, does not reduce demand.
• 1 in 21 people are now landlords (more secure than pension?).
• 2014 – 2016: 13% all homes bought in London bought by overseas investors.
• Almost half of all bank assets in the UK are tied up in property.

What’s the solution to the housing and climate emergency?

• Take housing out of the market – housing as a right not a commodity.
• Massive public investment to redistribute housing fairly.
• Massive public investment to upgrade existing homes.
• Democratic control of planning to meet housing need and protect environment.

Myth 4: We can’t afford green public housing

• Council housing is not subsidised.
• Cheap rent reflects true cost of housing – maintaining and repairing it.
• Private landlords are subsidised – 2021 to 2026 – 70bn pounds in housing support payments to private landlords (v 11.5 billion pounds government’s total spend on Affordable Homes Programme)
• Private developers are subsidised. No land value tax, no vat on new builds, grants for cladding remediation, AHP grants to for-profit providers.

.. we can’t afford not to

• Public money already has to pay for the effects of the housing crisis: in 24/25 in Hastings alone 6.7 million pounds on temporary accommodation (TA) – mostly going to private landlords (‘wrong and immoral’, said TA worker).
• Damp and cold homes – 1.4 billion cost NHS, 18.4 billion cost wider society (BRE report 2021).
• And the climate crisis: e.g. flooding, infrastructure, agriculture, health, insurance, forced migration.