The ‘Right-to-Buy’ scheme, a slowdown and privatisation of housebuilding, 15 years of austerity, escalating land values and costs of construction are all factors contributing to the UK dire housing crisis, with London Council’s alone now spending £1.4bn per annum.

 

This is an unsustainable amount of money to firefight the problem, putting people up in B&Bs, hostels and costly private accommodation. And this is just treading water.

 

Unbelievably, one child in every London classroom now lives in temporary accommodation, often in sub-standard, overcrowded conditions. Often this isn’t even temporary and could be many years of a child’s life. Whole generations will be impacted by this catastrophic situation, impacting the long-term mental and physical health of these vulnerable people, and huge costs for wider society.

 

We MUST come together as a sector, and better work together to address this problem.

 

Meanwhile Space has 15 years of expertise in unlocking the opportunity of small sites as part of the solution, including resourcing the very necessary placemaking, community infrastructure and engagement elements that ensure greater success.

 

At our recent workshops on the 28th November and 4th December, we welcomed a range of different experts and practitioners from the public, private and voluntary sectors, working or wanting to work in this space. The key takeaways were:

• There is a need for well-designed, secure housing that must be place-based and not a 'one size fits all'.

• Solutions must needs-based and look at specific requirements and support as part of the solution (eg single person, single mothers, LGBTQIA+, victims of abuse, young adults)

• The need to provide shelter and a place to sleep cannot be decoupled from the need for a healthy context of opportunity, civic infrastructure and support services.

• Policy changes are needed to help tackle this challenge (aka the Nightingale hospitals) - via emergency planning powers or stringent and specific Permitted Development rights for design quality and place-led transitional housing.

• What are the levers for impact investment and how can we gain access to this?

• How can we best measure social value impacts to access funding - some toolkits are too rigid and not geared towards the stories of place, community and qualitative outcomes.

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WATCH THIS SPACE for our next steps – and more convening around this topic, looking at case studies to tackle the challenges and offer solutions. 

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Contact us to join future conversations.