Affordable Housing: Planning Reform

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for securing this important debate on planning reform and affordable housing, and also for his work as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on brain tumours, of which I happen to be a member.

The two issues we are debating today are of great importance to people across the whole country, including in my constituency of Bolton South East. Access to affordable, good-quality housing is the single biggest issue that fills my mailbox every week, and I am sure it fills other Members’ mailboxes as well. The importance of housing has been highlighted by the covid pandemic, and specifically by the effect it had on those parts of the country where there is a lot of overcrowding due to multi-generational households or because many people cannot afford a home of their own and are living in rented accommodation—perhaps renting a room in a house. The pandemic threw up this big problem that we have in our country and, to be fair, it is not a party political issue. Over the past 40 or 50 years, there seems to have been a failure to build more affordable, decent homes in our country across the piece.

Obviously, most Members are not able to help when our constituents write to us about such issues, irrespective of how much effort we make, because the housing stock is just not there. In Bolton alone, there are 9,000 people on the waiting list for a council property. I pay tribute to the work of Bolton at Home, whose representative I met this summer at one of its new developments. Jon Lord, the chief executive officer, told me that a single three-bedroom home for social rent, which had just been finished, had received 400 applications from families—400 people applying for one home. How is Bolton at Home meant to choose which of those 400 families, who are all equally needy, is deemed worthy of that property?

When it comes to owning a home, an affordable home is classed as costing no more than 30% of the average monthly household income. Although the median income in Bolton is around £26,000, which equates to a house price of around £80,000, the average house price in my area is £125,000. How does that add up? That builds on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) about the cost of housing in relation to salaries.

Some 14,000 of my constituents are on universal credit, the majority of whom are working people on low incomes. We are living through a massive housing crisis, and that is compounded by the fact that mine is the 37th most deprived constituency in the United Kingdom, with almost 9% unemployment and 40% of children living in poverty. The route out of the crisis is clear: we need to build more homes.

On planning reform, I want to briefly discuss an issue that is important to my constituents. I am concerned that the Government will implicitly force local councils like mine to turn greenfield sites into housing developments, rather than existing brownfield sites. In Bolton, historically an industry-based town, we are blessed with more than 100 existing brownfield sites, predominantly in the form of ex-factories. However, the lack of available funding and the costs of converting those premises means councils are often forced to give planning permission to build on green spaces. Often, if planning permission is denied, companies appeal to the Secretary of State and, because of the rules, most of the time they are successful, so our green space is taken.

I would like to see a legislative and financial framework to assist housing developers, private developers, local authorities and social housing companies to convert existing brownfield sites into affordable housing, which could alleviate much of our housing crisis. That is a possible solution that could lead to affordable housing. We do not have to have this crisis. It is not just in Bolton—across the country, there are brownfield sites that are eyesores, blotting the landscapes of our towns and cities.

We should do something practical to see how we can use brownfield sites rather than greenfield sites. We know that because of the particular buildings that are there, the preparation needed to make it possible to build on that land will cost money. I ask the Government to work nationally, through a special body, with local authorities or even with private developers to give out grants to make the land usable, and then it can be built on. The houses could then be sold with a 5% or 10% profit on each property, or it could also be done through a housing association. There are ways that we can deal with the issue.

Again, it is not a party political issue. Brownfield sites have not been utilised by any Government for so long, and they are pieces of land that could be used for building good homes. I really hope that the Minister will go back and talk to the relevant people. I am sure that they can work out a suitable, fair formula that helps everyone to convert brownfield sites and thereby provide homes. I know that if the brownfield sites in my area were converted, my constituency would not have a housing problem.