Are you planning to be a NIMBY?

It's time, I think, and if I may, to point out a few things about planning and development - as a slightly more serious follow-up to my tongue-in-cheek blog about that great ally of the NIMBY, the Great Crested Newt - here. I am both anti NIMBY and a fully fledged NIMBY too as are we all. It's really about exactly where you live. To the yard. And it's awkward for us all, but you should have some facts to hand in my opinion.

This is neither a party political blog nor pro or anti any specific developments. In general terms I am in favour of building more homes in the UK - we haven't been building enough for decades and the result is a current situation in which many young people - especially if they come out of University with a £40,000 debt around their necks - have little hope of getting onto the housing ladder anytime soon.

I read somewhere that the average age of a first-time buyer is now 34. And when one considers that the first time buyer is the foundation stone upon which the whole market rests, this is a scary prospect. Help to buy seems to me to be pretty close to a scheme to re-inflate the housing bubble that got the whole world into its current financial mess: It's not a solution to the overall problem, but another way of getting some movement into the market for the benefit (it seems to me) of people selling financial services, rather than people who are financially capable of buying and sustaining a home, without being saddled with crippling debt and essentially trapped into lifelong struggle.

And the pressure on the market - demand for new homes - is not just about immigration (although one would have thought that immigration doesn't exactly help); it's about people living independently into older age, rising divorce rates, people choosing to live alone and a growing population generally. It leads to ever rising house prices which are portrayed by the government and the media as a good thing, but unless you downsize or move northwards, they simply are not. They just encourage you to think you have more 'assets' so you'll spend more on 'stuff', but you still have to live somewhere. It's not generally 'accessible' money in your lifetime.

Anyway without going too far down that particular track, I think tackling the supply-side of the housing issue is massively important: Where else are our kids going to live? And how else can we try to breathe new life into some tired old towns and places particularly outside the south east, if not through the development of new communities and the provision of jobs and infrastructure that must be planned and delivered alongside the houses?

Planning is a massively divisive issue but, generally speaking, being in favour or against a particular proposal, almost invariably comes down to where you live. And I don't mean town or region, but street or indeed the very house that you live in. The Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) is really an extremely apposite and accurate description of the issue. People living in one area of town which will be largely unaffected by a proposed development tend not to have much of a view and can quite easily be persuaded of its merits and its value to the place. Whereas other people who are otherwise entirely rational, understand the need for new homes and the other benefits associated with the proposal, will never be persuaded that it should go ahead if it will impact negatively on their view (out of the window) and their 'space' even if only for a short period of time (building work etc).

And in this scenario, these people will do anything, use any argument, to oppose the plan.

I often see reported in the media, arguments like 'we don't have enough schools', 'what about the extra traffic?', 'our health service is already creaking' 'what about energy and waste and water?' 'What about the wildlife?' 'We can't afford all this'.

People who don't have kids, have private health insurance, know nothing about energy or waste or water supply and don't give a toss about wildlife suddenly become experts overnight. People who use the town as a dormitory, have never spoken to a neighbour, and would not themselves have anywhere to live if development hadn't been approved to build their own home 5, 10, 50 years ago, will make banners and placards, go on marches, threaten to vote out the local council; anything to stop the proposed development.

And that's not really a criticism of individuals (well it is a bit but bear with me); it's what happens, every time and everywhere. And ultimately, it's about their view, their 'space', rather than logic or generosity or recognition that more homes are needed. Suggest that the development be sited on the other side of town and they almost immediately agree and start to come up with reasons why that would be a much better place to build. It's not about principle but their 'view'.

Everyone is a NIMBY to one degree or another. I was involved in opposing the opening of a local sand quarry near to where I live some years ago. I am by no means exempt from the criticism outlined above. I have also worked on the side of the developer on plans for 50,000 new homes across a number of sites in North Northamptonshire. This is not a 'holier than thou' bog in any way, just an attempt to point out some realities and some facts that might make you think a bit more about this perplexing and difficult issue.

But there are some (planning) facts you should know about in my opinion.

You don't own your view. Unless you own the land as far as the eye can see (in which case you're probably the Duke of Buccleuch and live in Kettering - and were a partner in the proposed developments that I was, in a small way, involved in). And (and this blew me away) even if you do own the land, the local planning authority can grant planning permission on it if it falls within the 'local plan'. The uplift in land values from £2,000 or £3,000 an acre (agricultural) to over £1 million an acre (with planning permission) usually overcomes any principled problems with this.

New developments have to provide schools and healthcare facilities in line with the numbers of houses. Something like 800 houses equals a new primary school and 5,100 houses means a secondary school. The primaries are built by and paid for by the builder/developer via their Section 106 (S106, or 'planning gain') contributions and then taken over by the local authority, academy group or free school initiative. Secondary schools, a bigger ticket item, are also 'sponsored' by the developer but will also involve the local authority the DfE and others (school groups, Church schools etc) for whom this is a commercial opportunity.

S106 contributions will also part-fund local healthcare facilities (policy is now to provide healthcare more locally rather than at the creaking local general hospital, in a way which will also free-up capacity at the hospital - in theory).

There are also legally binding requirements for energy, waste and water provision. If requirements cannot be met then no homes can be built. Obviously the energy companies will do their bit so they can make their profits (no comment in this blog but much more here) and waste and water companies also benefit commercially from making provision, although they only review their capacity every 7-11 years so this can cause problems. (We threatened to build our own waste treatment plant in competition with Anglain Water and amazingly they found they could do something to help after all).

Then there's traffic - another 'show stopper'. The developer pays for the roads on site and the connections into the existing road network through S106. But the Highways Agency also needs to consider and address any traffic issues both locally and regionally and must provide additional capacity (new main road junctions, main roads, by-passes, even new motorway junctions but they're very expensive indeed) if the new development is to get the 'go ahead'.

So none of the 'we can't afford it' or specific schools, energy, waste, health, traffic etc.,  concerns are really issues for the NIMBY. They're taken care of by planning law.

And also you should bear in mind that the developer has to actually sell these houses once they're built, so he or she has to make the site attractive and ought to (and generally will) provide incentives and benefits to the wider location in terms of facilities, leisure and sports amenities, connectivity with other local communities etc. This will extend to the use of sympathetic building materials, energy efficient homes and homes that meet current and future demographic needs - single person homes (I find that sad but it's real) and homes in which a growing elderly population can live independently for longer - wider doors, wheelchair access, redesigned bathrooms etc.

So what's left? Bugs and bunnies. Wildlife. Our friend the Great Crested Newt - and badgers funnily enough, although we seem to be trying to kill about 70% of them, they're still protected in terms of development land and have to be found, negotiated with and re-housed somewhere else - presumably where the men with guns can get a clearer shot?

But whilst a major pain, the wildlife issue can also be reasonably addressed by the developer, it just takes more time, costs a bit more money, but in the end it's not a real obstacle, just a delaying tactic. And I have to say that delaying tactics quite often work when governments change, local politics change and policies are reviewed. All that money wasted for nothing. But you've saved your view, deprived people of a place to live, for a couple of years perhaps? Whereas if you'd embraced the plan, you could almost certainly have got more out of the developer in terms of benefits for the existing community. Go figure.

Finally, I would argue that bigger developments are best. I'm sure most people (depending upon where they live of course) would not agree, but what happens with a big development (more than 1,000 homes) is that these uplifts in infrastructure (compulsory and in terms of marketing the site) bring bigger benefits, bigger contributions on site and to the wider community and clearer compliance with the planning requirements described above. The alternative is a small, say 50-home site that doesn't require an uplift of infrastructure - schools, healthcare etc - but which does put additional pressure on local facilities. So, over time, 20 years or so, you have 800 extra homes but no new primary school or new healthcare facilities. Over a longer period (with smaller developments) you have extra pressure on healthcare, roads schools etc, but no significant S106 contributions to mitigate the population growth.

Finally finally, as part of its S106 obligations the developer will be required to build a certain percentage of homes on the site as 'affordable' or 'social rented' to you and me. 'Affordable' is such a misnomer it makes me laugh: all of the homes on a site must be 'affordable' to the target market or they won't sell, simples. But this percentage must be for the local authority to take into its own stock of council houses (let's call them what they are) as part of the planning agreement. The current figure is around 35% of homes should be 'affordable', but this is subject to negotiation and will - or should - reflect the make-up of the existing housing stock in the town. If the exisiting stock is 50% 'affordable' then the new development will probably have a lower percentage and vise versa, but this isn't always the case. I have argued (unpopularly) that recreating a town in its own image (same proportion of 'affordable' as currently exists) does not deliver 'uplift' but a continuation of the balance that has left it in its current tired, failing state.

I'm right about that, but it doesn't always win the argument.

So now you know. If you want to be a NIMBY either live somewhere else (i.e. not where anyone's going to build anything close by) or cultivate newts.

 But if you want progress and somewhere where your kids - our kids - can afford to live, try to be less in love with the view out of your window and a bit more generous to others. I know it's not easy.

Thanks for reading.