Plans to build thousands of new houses in Birmingham will send 'shudders down the spine' of anyone who enjoys the city's mature garden suburbs a leading Conservative has said.
Birmingham’s Tory deputy leader Robert Alden also warned that a focus on high density housing, while meeting ambitious targets of 80,000 more homes by 2031, will not meet the city’s economic or cultural aspirations.
His comments came in a letter to the Post responding to a challenge by his opposite number, Labour council deputy leader Ian Ward, to developers to create desirable homes with higher-densities.
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Coun Alden (Erdington) said: “Over the last 60 years, despite having examples of world-leading development practice in Moor Pool Village and Bournville Village, or indeed many of the council estates built in the 1930s that were semi detached and provided a garden for families, Birmingham City Council has focused on demolition of beautiful buildings and infilling the space with high density flats or allowing conversion of Victorian homes into bedsits.
“This may meet the short term housing needs of the city but does it meet the future economic and cultural needs of the city? The answer is a clear no.”
He argued that Birmingham’s economic success since the decline of industry and manufacturing has been the financial and legal sectors - with increasing numbers of those people living outside the city boundaries because it lacks the aspirational properties. And he said that keeping those high earners within the city can only benefit the local economy.
“So housing development must include the type of housing which will keep wealth in Birmingham rather than driving it out of our city. This means the end of infill housing, it means the planning department stopping houses being converted into flats, it means protecting our mature suburbs. It will also sometimes mean being prepared to make a new garden suburb, not an estate.”
Birmingham City Council estimates that it needs at least 80,000 more homes over the next 20 years to meet demand, but the planning department estimates it has space for just 43,000 within existing built up areas – meaning that plans to earmark parts of Sutton Coldfield’s green belt for development are being considered. Alongside this, as revealed in the Post last month, the council wants architects to come up with designs which allow higher-densities without creating slums for the future.
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Leading city architect Joe Holyoak believes this can be done.
He said: “In the Balsall Heath Neighbourhood Development Plan, which I am coordinating, we plan to build several hundred new dwellings in Balsall Heath on vacant land. Density is not by itself a measure of value. Location and design quality, independent of density, also determine value.”
He said that density is an unreliable measure, because 50 one-bedroom flats per hectare is completely different to 50 four-bedroom houses on the same plot.
And he pointed out that parts of Mayfair and South Kensington enjoy both high density housing and the highest property values in the land.
He also said that in Leeds there are successful back-to-back housing schemes, as well as some in Highgate, suggesting that they should not be dismissed as an option for Icknield Port Loop on the basis of prejudice.
“With sensible design policy, we probably do not need to build on the green belt. Well-designed, innovative housing by good, experienced architects is critical. Many housing developers do not employ architects, and produce substandard developments.”
The draft Birmingham Plan is currently out for public consultation and a final document is expected to appear this summer. It requires the city to build between 4,000 and 6,000 new homes a year until 2031.
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The draft proposals saw four sites on green belt to the north east of Sutton Coldfield earmarked for development as well as the disused farm land at Peddimore Lane suggested for a major factory - 15 years after similar proposals were rejected at a public inquiry.
But even with those sites released, the city council is still relying on development in neighbouring authorities to meet the demand.
The proposals also come forward at a time when the economic slump has seen just 1,558 new-builds during the last year, way down on a pre-recession rate of 3,200 homes. This has prompted the Labour run council’s call for innovation and higher-densities designed for 21st century living.