Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-103)
PROFESSOR ALAN
MURIE, MR
PETER LEE
AND DR
ED FERRARI
28 NOVEMBER 2005
Q100 Martin Horwood: I am slightly puzzled
by your answer, partly because I was expecting something about
the pressure on the green field sites in the south, not the north.
They seem to be different situations. I was asking about the difference
in almost the definition of sustainability between you and ODPM.
You say the danger is that the Barker agenda will not deliver
anything sustainable because it is coming from a Treasury rather
than a housing communities perspective. That is a very brave statement.
Do you want to defend that?
Dr Ferrari: My colleagues might
have something to say but I am talking about sustainability and
the concept of reusing land that was previously developed where
it is in the best position to capitalise on existing transport
links, neighbourhood infrastructure, education provision and other
facets of public service provision. I guess that is my concept
of sustainability in this regard.
Professor Murie: I think it goes
back to the answers we gave earlier. The emphasis on building
housing where it is needed which comes out of the Barker review,
the implication by a lot of people—it may be this is not
the way the Department is thinking—is that you build housing
in the hot spots where the demand for housing is greatest. The
expectation is that that will have an impact upon house prices
in those areas and ultimately will enable local people to access
the housing market. Our view is that the evidence does not suggest
that that is what will actually happen.
Q101 Martin Horwood: Are you suggesting
there is almost a difference between building housing where it
is wanted and building housing where it is needed?
Professor Murie: No. I suppose
it is about the "where". We are trying to say that if
you build within the market that people choose to live in, that
may mean you build a significant distance away from a particular
locality. If you interpret the "where" very locally,
geographically in a very narrow sense, the consequences of that
may be very different and it may affect the sustainability of
communities.
Q102 Chairman: If you consider the "where"
in a regional sense like the south-east, you are not suggesting
that the housing need in the south-east should be met by building
it all up north, are you?
Professor Murie: No. We are suggesting
that the housing need needs to be met within the housing market
that the hot spots are part of, if you follow me, which certainly
would not be other regions and would not be at regional level
either. We mentioned Sutton Coldfield before.
Chairman: Most of you examples seem to
be in the Midlands and the north. There are other places in the
country. All the examples you are using appear to be entirely
irrelevant to the south-east, the south-west or London. In all
of your examples, every time we have asked you, even when we have
started it from the south-west, the south-east or London, you
have cited the west Midlands. The west Midlands clearly has housing
problems which need to be addressed but you cannot generalise
them to the whole country and you do not seem to have a lot to
offer.
Mr Olner: We should not have invited
them then.
Martin Horwood: I think you have an awful
lot to offer. I found your submission a breath of fresh air. It
was clear and relatively brief and offered a lot of very important
insights.
Anne Main: On transport your statement
says that notwithstanding additional problems of insufficient
public transport subsidy and the failure of the deregulation model
outside London, we have to think wider than London because there
are lots of areas where people look for housing. Do you see that
the lack of investment or lack of infrastructure and/or investment
in transport is part of the problem? That is why I said about
access to those empty housing blocks we were talking about. How
much is this about people being able to get to where the housing
is rather than putting the housing where the people seem to be?
Do you know what I mean? A lot of people travel quite a distance
to where they work and they may live in completely different areas
for schooling reasons or whatever, historic family reasons. How
much is transport integral to sustainable communities? What are
your views?
Q103 Sir Paul Beresford: Before you answer
that, I think your second last sentence in relation to the national
spatial strategy is the answer to some of the questions you have
been answering. People have to want to go to live and have something
that they want to live in. The opportunity for the government
to influence it through a national spatial strategy and to calm
some of the hot spots down and influence some of the other areas
is the way forward. That is what you are trying to say. Are you?
Dr Ferrari: Transport is integral
to any definition of a sustainable community. When we talk about
a national spatial strategy, that is important, yes, but recent
analysis of migration trends suggests a counter urbanisation—that
is, movement to suburban and rural locations from existing urban
centres—is more significant than what we used to think of
as a north/south drift of population. Counter urbanisation is
a very important trend that we have to consider. Transport is
crucial to that debate. The further people travel to work, the
further away from places of employment that people live, conversely,
the more difficult it is to provide sustainable modes of transport.
In other words, there is an emphasis on private car use and individual
journeys over and above the provision of public transport, light
rail or other modes such as that.
Mr Lee: In terms of sustainability,
what we are trying to drive at is a national spatial strategy
which is trying to look at sustainability in a very broad way,
not just in terms of demographics, housing need and affordability.
We have an opportunity to change some of our city centres and
the relationship between urban and rural areas and to stop that
counter urbanisation. It is about the whole urban offer, transport
and the ability to travel easily through urban areas and get to
accessible, decent housing, designed well. If we just focus on
the Barker thing which is about increasing the supply of housing,
which might be good from the Treasury perspective, it will lose
sight of the sustainability issues. In sustainability and urban
renaissance, one has to ask sustainable for whom and investment
for whom, because when we look at the kind of investment going
into the buy to let field it is reducing the opportunity of some
households coming through and accessing true owner occupation.
It is complicated.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
| 
