The Government outlined its plans for three million new homes across England by 2020 in the Housing Green Paper.  The proposals, published in July 2007, came in response to widespread concern about the growing gap between housing demand and the availability of affordable homes to buy or rent.  
 

 

  

 

  
 

The south east is particularly badly affected by a lack of affordable homes. The Dever Society has always supported local initiatives to address this shortage, and we welcome the Government’s intention that a significant proportion of the three million new homes will be affordable.

However, we also recognise the inevitable pressures that such huge increases in new housing will create on the landscape, environment and infrastructure of an already overcrowded region. The Green Paper attempts to mitigate these pressures with a continued emphasis on using brownfield land. It also includes proposals for well-designed and ‘greener’ new housing, with a range of initiatives to deliver essential infrastructure such as transport, schools and water resources.

The three million target includes new housing already accounted for in agreed regional plans, as well as in those currently awaiting approval.  But this leaves a considerable shortfall – and two of the Green Paper’s proposals for dealing with this are particularly relevant to the Dever Society.
Read the Green Paper
     

More houses in growth areas
One of the proposals is that the 45 New Growth Points in the Midlands and south of England take more homes than is currently planned.  Two of these New Growth Points are in Hampshire, namely:

  • the South Hampshire sub-region, which mainly encompasses Portsmouth and Southampton, and;
  • the Western Corridor and Blackwater Valley sub-region, which includes Basingstoke at its western boundary.

Ten new ‘eco-towns’
The Green Paper’s eco-towns initiative also rang the Society’s alarm bells. Eco-towns would be entirely new settlements of between 5,000 and 20,000 new homes, built to fulfil a range of strict environmental criteria.  The Government’s recently announced plans for ten new eco-towns, one in each region, has given Eagle Star another opportunity to promote its proposals for a new town at Micheldever.

... and finally
It is not entirely clear how the increased housing numbers in the Green Paper relate to those in the draft South East Plan. This blueprint for development in the south east region from 2006 to 2026 is currently going through the formal approval process, following an enormous amount of background research and public consultation.

We would be extremely concerned if the Government imposes higher housing numbers on the region during the SE Plan approval process without proper consultation or examination of the consequences.
         
 
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