We are in desperate need of new homes — a fact on which Brits tend to agree. They tend to disagree, though, over where to put them, and these battles generally concentrate on the edges of cities. Take the Government’s new plan to build on grey-belt land — “poor quality and ugly areas” — which is already causing ominous semantic squabbles to break out.
What is “poor quality” exactly? What should we categorise as “ugly”? And what about the bees and butterflies that hover around these unlovely stretches? Those who want to increase the radius of a city usually find conservationists and existing residents standing in their way. And these are powerful groups: the existence of the green belt is proof of that. But there is also another direction in which to expand a city. Up.
Britain’s cities are flat compared to their European equivalents. London among them. New York squashes nearly the same number of people into half the square-footage. Even the capital’s most populated borough falls short of the average density of Barcelona or Paris.
Building tall comes with advantages. It means people can live closer to work. Fewer commuters means lower carbon footprints, means less congestion. Car-dependent urban sprawl is largely a consequence of the growth of the automobile industry in the Sixties: new towns — Milton Keynes, Telford — were designed for car-owners, and that pattern exists today. New-build developments are, with a few exceptions, car-dependent, at a distance from jobs and public transport, built at low density, and new commercial space too. In low-density cities, transport emissions per head are far higher. The Centre for Cities calculates that moving from spacious Telford to crowded Brighton is a quick way to help the planet: your transport emissions are likely to drop by a third.
Even London’s most populated borough falls short of the average density of Barcelona or Paris
It’s not just the environment that benefits from a sardine-tin city. The prospect of a shorter commute attracts talent. Denser cities are more productive, more innovative, provide public services more cheaply, and are better at preserving green spaces. Flats produce fewer emissions than detached houses, and everything you need is already on your doorstep. The president of the Royal Institute of British Architects has already warned Angela Rayner that plans to build on grey-belt sites risk creating isolated communities, cut off from transport, schools or shops.
Britain might be good at talking about its environmental goals and the need to make cities more productive. But its planning laws stand in the way of one solution. In London, plans to build a new tower block will come up against draconian rules about obstructing the view. Local residents have previously thrown out plans for high buildings on the grounds that they are too ugly, or too odd, or too wide.
This week, for example, we heard that a 25-storey tower block planned next to the Thames in east London has been scaled back because locals deemed it “visually obstructive”. The scheme was to include 564 new homes; developers have promised 20 per cent would be for social rent and a further 12 for shared ownership. The site is currently described as a “fly-tipped eyesore”, but the hurdles residents have flung up conform to a general rule: people tend not to want new things built near them.
Changes made by the last government are helping residents more and developers less — they restrict the height and location of tall buildings.
It’s not just planning rules that prevent London becoming a version of Manhattan, of course. There is a cultural barrier too. Recent research from YouGov finds that we are more reluctant than those on the continent to move into tower blocks. Parisians are perfectly happy to move into an elegant apartment, but an Englishman’s home is his castle — preferably with a moat of grass around it. The survey finds almost half of Brits would oppose even three or four-storey blocks in their area, whereas their cousins on the continent would be more in favour.
But there is an argument for making it easier to bypass residents’ objections. Better, surely, to make cities taller rather than eat further into England’s green and pleasant land. Even a few more areas of medium density would be an improvement — perhaps residents can be eased into accepting mansion flats. As the Government loosens planning laws outside cities, they should consider making it easier to build upwards too. And there’s another reason. Rayner has said that her goal is to help young people onto the housing ladder. But do young people thrive better in the rush of a city, or in a far-flung commuter town? At 21, I know which I would have chosen.
