Yesterday's news about the latest census was not that there are 1.5 million people with second homes. There are 1.5 million people with second addresses:

"More than 1.5 million people said they had a second address in England and Wales (2.8% of the population), of which 189,000 were working addresses, 165,000 were holiday homes and 1.2m were classed as "other", which included students' home addresses and a second address for children of separated parents."

(The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct...NTCMP=SRCH)

I was surprised there are 'only' 165,000 holiday homes but I suppose their concentration in some areas puts pressure on the supply of local housing stock, creating a local problem rather than a national one. I doubt we have many holiday homes in SE London.

I am sure that it is not michael's intention to propose a single option study and it is far from certain that building in real brown field sites is the best or only way way to significantly increase housing provision in the capital, especially if you look at some of the wider issues.

Of course there are some excellent proposals in the pipeline and underway and not just in Greenwich.

http://www.nineelmslondon.com/category/area

It would help us understand more that where we have sight of the national level of un-occupied housing numbers. if it were possible that these numbers could be dis-aggregated to a more local level.

If we were then to find that there were say some 2000+ (or whatever) unoccupied properties in our borough - our position would be significantly improved and we potentially could target efforts toward activities that would bring more improvements in the shorter term.

Of course any such conclusion will rightly be seen as premature at this stage - but certainly is worthy of consideration.

And thank you to blushingsnail for the clarification - I spotted it as I was drafting this.

Lewisham's Empty Homes Team should know how many empty properties have been reported to the council.

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/pl...rties.aspx

Anyone want to e-mail Nick Long (nick.long@lewisham.gov.uk) and ask him?

This report (http://reportemptyhomes.com/reports - date unknown) states that Lewisham has 65 reports of empty properties, and 20 properties that have been returned to use.

The trouble with national figures is that people aren't distributed evenly throughout the country, so while there may be a glut of empty houses in parts of Wales/north-east England/wherever, that's no help when there's a housing shortage in and around large cities elsewhere.

Not me. As is evident from my musical references, I never really got beyond the early '70s. I guess I should have realised there was a cultural reference in there - sorry I missed it. Right now feeling blissed out, having switched off my meter and now listening to Joan Baez.

And now, for the first time in my life, Talking Heads. Don't do this to me! It's hard enough trying to make sense of the UK housing market / social housing without the distraction of a whole new era of music to take on board!

This post was last modified: 23-10-2012 06:02 PM by Tim Lund.

Michael

I've just posted a response to something you wrote on another STF thread of a recent thread I started there on second homes. It's relevant to this thread, but it's just too complicated to spell out the various links here. I'm sure everyone will be able to work it out ...

A piece on the Today Programme just now

is an example of the pervasive idiocy about housing. Throughout the idea that people should own where they live was unchallenged, so discussion focused on availabity of mortgages or lack thereof and the difficultly of getting to a stable market for houses. None of those involved - the mortgage specialist, the campaigner, least of all John Humphrys, thought to raise the issue of the supply of housing. Maybe I am being unfair in thinking that local amenity / civic societies can think any better.

Yup. The whole supply/demand issue for housing is a London wide problem. Even if everybody rented, there would still be a short supply and this would likely cause other social problems.

Local societies are best placed to deal with local issues.

This post was last modified: 25-10-2012 10:48 AM by lacb.

Agreed. Questions about form of tenure are all side issues - it's more supply that is needed, whether owner occupied, private rented or social housing. The issue with local societies is whether they are part of the problem, which, without their wishing to be, I think they are. I think they could be part of the solution if they understood the problem properly, and would say how and where they would welcome more housing in their areas. The reference to the Community Infrastructure Levy and Neighbourhood Forums in the OP is there because the Localism Act is meant to set up incentives for local groups to do what I say they should be doing.

FH Soc is more likely to be able to do the right thing than other local societies, not least because their leading figures are relatively young, and facing the problem of bringing up families against the backgrond of this dysfunctional housing market, rather than older, like me, living as beneficiaries of accumulated intergenerational inequity. But to see what the right thing is, they need to get to grips with the underlying economics.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/...172133.pdf

We all know we are not building enough homes in this country but the majority of the 30% increase in numbers of households (not population, although this accounts for a large proportion). But where are these extra households to come from? The splitting of existing houses into multiple flats is one method, but even that is unlikely to achieve 30% growth, not when quite a lot of people already live in flats. I would suggest that a large proportion of this growth needs to be spread out beyond the high-density city we already live in. New towns need to be built and old ones expanded particularly in rural areas with high-speed connections to central London (Ebbsfleet and Penge take the same time to central London).

As jgdoherty says, one answer will not solve all the problems, we need to use all the solutions we have available. And lacb is correct that this is a national problem and one cannot expect local amenity societies to individually tackle such an issue.

What is required is for amenity societies to focus on what is best for the current and future inhabitants of an area and to treat every planning application on its own merits. Where there are opportunities for large new residential developments amenity societies should help identify these, but all the large sites that come to mind are outside of SE23.

But even if an amenity society wasn't willing to see developments in their area, it wouldn't make much difference. We have planning policy set by elected councillors from across the borough and, as has been pointed out to Tim by a councillor, they are quite capable of overruling civic societies - at least when those groups are being purely NIMBYist without valid justification.

But amenity societies continue to do a good job in providing valid objections to frightening planning application, like Miriam Lodge. I think that Tim is being more than a little unfair in attacking amenity societies for their role in planning policy. The point is that they try to represent local feelings, and what is right in Telegraph Hill is different to Forest Hill or Bellingham; their concerns are different and require different solutions.

All good points.

And without any particular councillor or party in mind, if councillors believe that they hold such powers as you describe to themselves, it is disappointing to observe that the power, used at their discretion individually or collectively, is not exercised more often.

I think the granting of Planning Consent to buildings that include an indisputable surplus of un-lettable retail units, albeit in conformance with local Planning Policy, and issuing of Completion Certificates to buildings that have little better than temporary wooden shutters festooned around their ground floor elevations to the detriment of the areas in which they are built is a very strong case in point.

Elected members could directly influence how our council conduct themselves at both stages of this process and provide significant improvements in a myriad of ways. These temporary shutters almost inevitably become permanent - as exampled by City Walk which has been occupied for some time now and the shutters there are still in place and completion of blocks in Phase Two at Bell Green and in the block across the road show no early signs of interest from prospective retail tenants.

The concept of how amenity societies can improve their influence on Local Planning Policy would be be greatly enhance by their contribution to the formulation of Neighbourhood Plans and by societies' dialogue with developers and council.

Using council pension pots to fund more housing? (See link below)

Given that we've just had a review of public sector pensions because they are considered to be unsustainable, could it work?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20091472

In the same week that it is announced that home owners should no longer be able to rely on rising house prices to help finance a mortage (see New Mortgage Rules 2014), it is proposed that councils should essentially do the same thing with their pension provision.

Ironic isn't it?

The problem is that current inhabitants are likely to be more influention in amenity societies that future ones. If we model amenity societies as taking decisons with will maximise the number of their members whose property values will increase, then they would generally resist development; development will generally mean:

1. a significant increase in the wealth of the developer;
2. the relatively modest benefit future residents of such developments will experience (if they didn't think they were benefiting, they wouldn't move in); and
3. any loss neighbour of the development experience.

If it ever came to an amenity society vote, the third group would carry it every time.

Of course the FH Soc is nothing like as crude as this, but I still feel it telling that Michael cannot think of development sites in his area, but can elsewhere.

Indeed, which means amenity societies do nothing to influence future development positively. I would prefer to see more dispersed, small scale development, rather than the sorts of large developments which seem to happen.

No quibble with this ..

I think all I said was that they were part of the problem than part of the solution, the problem being society's failure to build enough homes. I could well, and perfectly consistently, think that the good work amenity societies do in other ways, including in planning issues, outweigh this problematic aspect of their behaviour.

Absoulutely barking. Economically it would be off-loading over-priced private sector assets on the public sector - so rather like how banks were bailed out in 2008/09 - which at the time seemed like a good idea politically.

Well if that is all you want it isn't too difficult. Admitted not large development sites like Loampit Vale or Catford Dog Track (or Bell Green which is really part of Forest Hill/Sydenham). Here's a start:
Council depot on Willow Way (in an employment zone, so hard to put in residential, but FH Soc have proved that it might be possible in terms of live/work)
Waldram Park Cresent (MOT garage and taxi rank)
Featherstone Lodge (which from the last I heard was empty, but there were some interesting ideas about using it for housing)
Brent Knoll School will be moving and I don't know what is planned for that site. Will it continue to be for education or for housing?
Across the road from Brent Knoll is a garage of some type. I have no idea what it is used for but suspect it could be better utilised
Behind Tyson Road has planning permission for 70 flats. I wouldn't put quite so many units there, I would prefer that if it must be developed it could be developed in the same way as Montgomery Mews
The Old Sorting Office has planning permission and I would like to see something done with that site, respecting the facade of the building
There are a number of sets of garages that are disused on private land, some of these would be better as housing (see attached photo which I have deliberately not identified as I have no idea about their utilisation or suitability as a site for housing, but it's from Google Maps). Most garages are no longer suitable for today's cars so they are used for storage (nothing wrong with that), or in some cases left to fall apart.

Is that enough sites for now? Each of these sites needs to be considered on its own merits and not all the development should be residential, we already have less employment in Lewisham than most other parts of London, so it is not really housing we are missing.

So there are plenty of small sites in Forest Hill for potential development, over and above a number of developments in recent years. But to meet the national housing shortage a larger project of house building is needed - new towns in areas that are currently have very low density levels but good transport connections. Forest Hill is not one of these locations but there are plenty around London and there are even more in the north of England. This is not the responsibility of amenity societies but of national and local government across the country.

What I don't think is the solution is bulldozing streets in Forest Hill to build modern high density low-medium rise development. If such a policy really was necessary I would advocate starting in Dulwich or Hampstead where density levels could be increased but smashing up fewer houses with massive gardens, or maybe golf could be played on 15 hole courses rather than 18 holes

After this one I commented on earlier in this thread:

and others such as this not directly picked up:

we have another cheap debating trick from Michael, very similar to this one where he tries to win a point by ludicous exaggerations of the other person's position:

In this case

Please, Michael, get a grip.

And now let's look as the substance of Michael's lastest response.

Identifying these larg-ish in the area is welcome - I'd no idea about Brent Knoll School moving. But by the very fact of identifing these sites, it presupposes any solution to the housing shortage as requiring larger scale development, which is precisely what I want to get away from, but which Michael characteristic exaggerations - 'nothing but towers', 'bull-dozing whole streets' - suggest is how he thinks.

This is nonsense. Ours is part of a general London housing shortage, reflected in house prices and rent being historically high. That it might be slightly less a problem in Lewisham than other boroughs is of little comfort. Using regulations to specify business uses seems a bit of a relic from when planners thought living and working should be kept separate, but we now accept the idea of live/work units, and some of us - e.g. myself - work from home. Mentioning employment in this context is just another way of trying to confuse the issue.

This is again nonsense. Building new towns might be a solution, but not the only one. You can't say they are needed until you've looked at the other options. The one I'm advocating is making it easier for habitable rooms to be added here and there, according to where there is demand for them. I'm not saying this is needed - it's just one of various possible policy changes, e.g. allowing seriosuly high rise residential developments close in to the centre of London.

This is wishful thinking. What growth there is in this country is centred in London. This sort of sentiment suggests concern for these other areas, hoping that they too can share in London's prosperity, but actually condemns their young people to idleness at home, or homelessness here. At heart, it is heartless.

Another characteristic debating shimmy to the Left. The point is obvious, but the Dulwich and the 'Heath and Hampstead' Societies are not going to allow it. Is this how the FH Soc wouldl like things to be round here? Maybe that shimmy to the Left conceals an actual move to the Right. In the meantime, let's ask again what makes a gradual increase in density in Forest Hill such a problem. Why is it a threat, rather than an opportunity? For more work in adding those habitable rooms, for more customers for local bars, cafés, restaurants and shops, and more Community Infrastructure Levy.

This post was last modified: 09-11-2012 09:53 AM by Tim Lund.

you do sound like some disgruntled former chair of syd soc

LOL. Just what is the issue here?

Tim, it seems that you would like to build more housing. That is fine but the title of this thread is 'Does FH Soc want more affordable houses'.

Am not sure what the answer is to that, but in reality it is irrelevant as it is not their choice. Unless the government of the day chooses otherwise, such matters are surely principally driven by market forces. As a consequence a good deal of local housing is already split into flats and/or extended out and up. I feel sure this trend will continue and there is little that a local society can do about that even if they wanted to.

I very much like the idea of building homes on the golf course.
I'm sure it is lovely but with no public access it, then it is wasted land imo.

I feel the same about the Garthorne Rd Nature reserve.