EPPING FOREST: Campaigners call for more affordable homes (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)
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EPPING FOREST: Campaigners call for more affordable homes
6:50pm Thursday 18th August 2011 in Epping Forest News By Tom Porter
Michael Chapman is one of the trustees of the Epping and Theydon Garnon Joint Charities Trust
CAMPAIGNERS have emphasised the urgent need for more affordable housing in the area, after only a fraction who responded in a recent survey said it should be one of the district’s priorities.
Of the 1,500 people who responded to Epping District Council’s survey, over a third, 32.4 per cent, responded that protecting and enhancing green spaces should be the top priority over the next two decades.
Only 11 per cent thought that housing should be a priority, despite figures released recently that showed that Epping has provided planning permission for only 317 affordable homes, less than 50 per cent of the total required in the Government’s rural homes quota, in the year between April 2010 and April 2011.
The choices will be taken in to consideration by councillors when formulating the district’s Core Planning Strategy, in which they determine what the priorities are in how the council’s land will be used.
But campaigners have warned that many already struggle to find accommodation in the area and an increase in the amount of affordable housing could strengthen the area’s rural character.
Sarah Lee, head of policy at the Countryside Alliance, said: “Having more affordable housing is incredibly important if we want our rural communities to survive.
“We need strong rural communities in which young people and families live, and if they are not to move to cheaper urban areas, they need to be able to afford homes.”
Michael Chapman is one of the trustees of the Epping and Theydon Garnon Joint Charities Trust.
He said the ancient housing charity constantly has a waiting list for its flats due to the lack of affordable and social housing in the district.
He said: “I think that are often wary of social housing developments because they think they will have hoodies and problem families on their doorstep.”
“I think that the way the green belt is drawn is sometimes very tight. There are sites where areas could be developed and the spaces around could still be enjoyed.
“I think the council’s priority should be getting a balance between what the needs of the area are and formulating ways of coping with those needs.”
Andrew Smith is part of the Meadow Watch group, who campaign against developments on green belt land in the district.
He said: “I completely agree with the residents who chose protecting green spaces as their top priority.
“The point of the green belt is to prevent us our future generations from spoiling these areas. There are parts of already developed areas that could be used better.”
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Comments(6)
UKIP-local
says...
8:52am Fri 19 Aug 11
We see this all the time in a national and EU context; the EU finances the press corps in Brussels, for example, and the green lobby is largely financed by taxes.
It is unfortunate but usual these days for words to be distorted by the government and its agencies.
"Affordable" to most people would be understood to mean moderately priced and within the grasp of people. With that meaning I fully agree that more housing has to be available in the South East to accommodate the ever growing population. Of course I also want expanded services to support all those extra people but I hear and read no reports of expanded resources for health, transport etc - only reductions as yet another A&E comes under threat.
As most of the new residents arrive without material assets, it is the existing population that has to finance this additional infrastructure.
But "affordable" does not mean what it seems when coming from the mouth or pen of a bureaucrat; it means "social landlord" but paid for as a levy on privately owned homes through the obligation on landlords.
This meaning I wholly reject. We should not force people who have not got a lot of cash to have only the choice of second hand private homes or socially owned and controlled flashy new ones. Apart from the economic distortions, such socially owned "affordable" housing has a tendency towards bad maintenance, ghetto attitudes and a lack of mobility so leading to unemployment.
There is every reason why private builders and landlords would be keen to supply lower priced property as a part of a larger development or solely as a small development, if only planning consent were more efficiently and objectively available, but NOT in the Green Belt.
The campaign group which the council seems to be supporting simply wants to abandon our pleasant area and build all over it. Sometimes their spokesmen give the impression they are concerned only for their own sons' and daughters'
homes. If so they need to smell the coffee and realise that the most likely occupiers would not be locally born people at all.
One wonders if EFDC financed the group that suddenly sprung up to support the recent application for development on Green Belt (EPF/2040/10).
Ressie1
says...
6:24pm Fri 19 Aug 11
anbank etc because I cannot afford it and I do not expect these places to tarmac their parks/square/country
side to accommodate me. I lived where I could afford to at every stage of my life.
Blod
says...
10:29pm Fri 19 Aug 11
word of mouth
says...
7:00pm Sun 21 Aug 11
pan
says...
6:30am Mon 22 Aug 11
If Epping Forest DC started building lots of affordable housing it would inevitably drive the house prices down. If they came in under the lower price bracket of existing 2 or 3 bed housing then obviously the new ones would be more desirable.
Many people are stretched already with the down turn in the economy, many people in the past few years stretched their mortgages close to the max, 80% and in some cases even a 100%.
If the council wilfully started building or encouraging developers to construct a fair number of affordable homes it could drive people into negative equity and further problems.
Loughton is already losing its character, over developing building plots and the like.
pan says...
6:53am Fri 19 Aug 11
When you look it up its a registered charity that works in conjunction with the District council. Its advertised by the council as a service and is included in strategic planning reports.
Back in Feb 2011 the head of housing was declaring that all is going very well with these projects.
http://www.homeless.
org.uk/sites/default
/files/Epping%20Fore
st%20District%20Coun
cil.pdf
What is not clear is whether the charity is looking for affordable homes for local families or youngsters that wish to stay in the area or if it is desperately finding affordable housing for people that just wish to live in the area, I think that has a big impact of the issue.
For a department, partner, charity of the council to be declaring that we should be building on green belt land (part of the desirability of the area) I find concerning as we can get a feel of where this is going.
We do need affordable housing for our youth to get on the property ladder. There has been many developments in recent years all of which are adding to the strain on the infrastructure. If the council wants affordable housing then it should be building council housing rather then keep making "partnerships" with all these different groups and projects that inevitably profit the businesses and leave the same problems that they were meant to alleviate to be dealt with over and over again.