The housing crisis - new perspectives
The Head of Planning at Deloitte Real Estate, John Adams, drew on his report for British Land 'Meeting London's Future Needs' at our Future Cities Forum on 6th March at IET, London. He stated that there needs to be better community engagement on the advantages of densification of our cities as time and again councils and developers run up against problems when they want to increase the number of dwellings in cities. Following discussions with stakeholders, Deloitte put forward a menu of ideas for the Mayor of London to consider in solving the housing crisis. These included the creation of 'garden villages'.
However, during the housing crisis panel discussion, David Edwards, Director of Housing and Regeneration at Oxford City Council argued that although 'garden villages' had a role to play, they are not necessarily the answer to the immediate housing needs for the city of Oxford. He suggested that government policy on housing, planning and land use is not joined up properly. He gave the example of 100 million pounds being offered by the government to build a link road from a proposed new village on an old airfield site to the congested commuter routes into Oxford. This is instead of allowing building on a green belt site near the city centre which is far more suitable as it is 200 meters from a railway station and 50 meters from a science park.