Roy Darke

Politics of place

One of the contradictions of housing in a capitalist society is that whilst some households struggle to find a roof to give minimal shelter, others live in highly serviced and centrally heated luxury with more space than they require. The basic issue of differentials in ability to achieve space and shelter lies at the root of the housing problem which is itself an aspect of differential rewards within a class society and a market economy. In this chapter we wish to extend the discussion of housing beyond the four walls of the dwelling however and consider the implications of house location.

Reflections on 10 Years of Councillor Training

The decisions of planning committees in local government directly affect the lives of individuals as well as the local and wider economy and environment. For outsiders it must be somewhat of a shock to learn that, after 50 years of a comprehensive, legalistic, quasijudicial land-use planning system in the UK, the people charged with making planning decisions have not always been trained for that role. The publication of the third Nolan report in 1997 (on Local Government) partially addressed this anomaly. Its recommendations for councillor training and greater probity in decision making in town planning created a new impetus for culture change. The Nolan Committee stated categorically that ‘‘members of planning committees should be trained in planning procedures and planning law’’ (Committee on Standards in Public life, 1997, p. 6). The UK Government endorsed this position as part of its modernisation programme after 1997, and even produced an on-line leaflet setting out a model syllabus of the topics that councillor training in planning should cover. However, the government fell short of making councillor training in planning a legal or compulsory requirement. Member training for conducting the town planning function remains largely a patchy business, dependent on the enthusiasm of senior planning officers and pro-active planning committee chairs. It adds another responsibility to the busy schedules of senior staff and depends on the willingness of councillors to spend even more time on council premises attending seminars and workshops. Indeed, a recent report highlighted the indifference many local authorities still have towards councillor training (Morris, 2004a). The norm appears to be a cursory run-through of established procedures (particularly in development control) by council staff. We will argue that this is a valuable first step in councillor training for the planning function, but not always enough. These reflections are by two town planners who have been running training sessions for practitioners and local councillors for many years. One is an experienced councillor who has chaired local planning committees and taken an executive role on a large urban unitary council, as well being involved in frontline work in a smaller urban district council. The other author was a development control manager in local government before joining academia.

Some suggestions for action

We have argued that there is a deepening housing crisis. Despite the apparent complacency of successive governments who see the expansion of owner-occupation as the main plank of housing policy we have tried to show that many people are badly housed and that some people are without any accommodation which they can call their own. The evidence points to more and more people becoming homeless yet there is talk of the excess of dwellings over households. The prevailing approach is to deny the growing numbers without a decent home. It is necessary for policy-makers to hide the steady rise in homelessness and institutionalisation because they can only manage to keep control in the crisis provided that the boat is not rocked too forcefully.

The major tenures

We have been discussing the activities of successive governments to support or withdraw support from the housing needs of various sections of the population: owner-occupiers, council tenants, private tenants, landlords and so on. These various tenures obviously differ in the advantages they carry and in the ease with which households can join any particular tenure group. This and the following chapter examine some of these differences.

What’s the problem?

This country has a major housing problem. Yet housing has not figured as an important issue in recent political debates and manifestos, and the majority of people seem relatively content with their homes. The housing problem has not disappeared; it has been submerged. Many people still face severe difficulties in getting a house or live in unacceptable conditions. These same people in poor housing usually face other difficulties sometimes associated directly with their housing: illness and poor education for the children, or difficulties which reflect the unequal distribution of power and wealth within our society. In short, housing problems reflect the problems of capitalism, which accepts an underclass of the deprived.

The construction industry and housing

There is a widely-held belief that one of the major ‘problems’ with housing is the construction industry, that if only this industry were better organised and more efficient the housing problem could be solved. This was the view of the 1964 Labour government with its emphasis on technology and rationalisation, and the idea resurfaces from time to time when the housing problem is discussed. This can be interpreted as yet another ideological view, a failure or unwillingness to recognise that it is the economic system which is at the root of the problem. We shall show in this chapter that it is this economic system too which creates many of the problems in the building industry: the uneven flow of work, the fact that the less socially useful building types generate greater profits than housing, the skewed distribution of sizes of firm, the suppression of trade union activity and so on.

The minority tenures

The largest minority tenure, and the only one widely recognised in the government’s statistics, is the privately rented sector. This is a shrinking sector, from around 90 per cent in the early years of this century, to 61 per cent in 1947 and 15 per cent in 1976.

Political history of housing

Politicians are frequently accused of treating housing as a political football. The Milner Holland Report (1965), for example, concluded that ‘Housing has for too long been the sport of political prejudice’. In accusations of this kind the assumption is made that facts, once ascertained, can speak for themselves and that all men of goodwill would draw similar conclusions from them. Unfortunately for this view, political beliefs influence the way facts are gathered, what is gathered, how it is presented, what assumptions are made and what conclusions are drawn. The political parties have different bases of popular support, and naturally act to maintain the loyalty of their supporters and to gain support from the waverers. Solving the housing problem can never be merely a question of ‘building more houses’ since the decision to build implies further decisions about location, quality, methods of financing and of allocation to occupiers. All these decisions have the potential of benefiting one ‘constituency’ more than another. In the politically pragmatic pursuit of votes the major parties begin to share some similarities in their approach to housing policy. The party political campaigns by those in power to win the allegiance of the middle mass of voters neglect or overlook some housing problems because the people who suffer are relatively powerless, are disenfranchised or are few in number.

Professionals and housing

A number of professional groups are directly or indirectly employed in the provision of housing. In this chapter we discuss architecture, town planning, housing management, housing research and the legal profession. We also take a critical look at the housing pressure group Shelter.