10 COMMENT
overwhelm local flood barriers and drainage systems.
Understandably people are demanding that improvements are made to flood defences to protect their homes, but they are also calling for new homes to be built in safer places, away from flood plains and low-lying coastal areas. The Guardian recently revealed that more than 11,000 homes are currently planned to be built in areas that the Government considers a high flood risk. This is on top of the almost 20,000 houses which were built on land at high risk of flooding in 2017/18, according to official figures.
The Government defines high risk areas as having a one per cent or greater chance of flooding in any year. It is thought that as many as one in 10 of all new homes built since 2013 are on high risk flood sites. And places like Fishlake in South Yorkshire have recently been flooded for the second time in just over three months, while plans exist to build nearly 4,000 homes on flood zones in the surrounding area.
SAFETY AWARENESS HEIGHTENED While we try to get our heads around how we can produce a more sustainable plan for building homes in places where they are unlikely to be flooded in the next 30 years or so, we also need to come up with a solution for how we urgently make safe the housing of up to half a million people living in unsafe tower blocks. This is the number of people estimated
to be living in apartment blocks covered in combustible cladding. The initial focus after the Grenfell Tower fire was on removing aluminium composite cladding panels from 450 tower blocks, but subse- quent tests and surveys have shown that as many as another 1,400 residential buildings are at risk, due to their wood and high-pressure laminate cladding also being found to be highly combustible. Removing and replacing the
combustible cladding panels has proven to be a costly, complicated and very time consuming process. The social housing sector has responded more quickly to the crisis and has almost completed the task of removing all ACM panels, assisted by £400m of extra funds from Whitehall. Delays in getting work commissioned
and started in the private sector has led to demands for urgent action and up to £2bn in funds from central Government to help pay for the works and ease the pressure on individual flat owners. Arguments over ownership and legal liability have further complicated an already complex situation. But thousands of individual flat owners are saying they feel so unsafe that they
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simply want to move out. Where they could go to is anyone’s guess, as we simply do not have thousands of good quality, empty homes lying around just waiting for people to move into them. If we did, we would not have the homeless- ness crisis that we are also grappling with. Returning to the LGA analysis, councils
claim they recognise the problems caused by a shortage of housing and the need to build more homes. With the right powers and funding, the LGA says councils can play a leading role in helping the Government to tackle our national housing shortage. As part of its submission to the Treasury ahead of the Budget, the LGA is calling on the Government to reform the Right to Buy policy, allowing councils to keep all of the receipts of homes sold under the RTB in order to replace them and to have the flexibility to set discounts locally.
and housebuilding has stalled. If we are to solve our housing shortage, councils need to be able to get building again and resume their role as major builders of affordable homes. “It is also vital that the planning
process is protected, so that councils and communities can ensure we realise the Government’s ambition of building beautiful homes, which includes the necessary infrastructure and afford- able housing.” A spokesman for the Ministry of
Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “Local authorities have a responsibility to assess the number of homes their communities need, and our planning policy is clear that housing should be located in the areas at the least risk of flooding. Where development in a risk area is absolutely necessary, sufficient measures should be taken to make sure homes are safe, resilient and protected from flooding.” Getting all sides working together on
FRESH APPROACH REQUIRED Councillor David Renard, the LGA’s housing spokesman, said: “The planning system is not a barrier to housebuilding. The number of homes granted planning permission has far outpaced the number of homes being built. No-one can live in a planning permission, or a half-built house where work on a site has begun but not been completed. “Councils need powers to tackle our
housing backlog and step in where a site with planning permission lies dormant
solving this problem is obviously a key concern. Government needs to ensure the national planning framework sets the correct guidance for planners and builders, while local councillors bring their knowledge to bear in representing community interests. This might require housing targets for councils to be revis- ited, so flood plains can be mostly or wholly avoided. Bigger and better flood defences will be needed just to protect our current stock of housing, let alone the new housing that is needed. But it probably also means that rules
prohibiting the building of new homes in places like the Green Belt or in national parks have to be re-examined. If we are serious about building four million more homes by 2035, then something has got to give. The alternative is continuing as we are now and building ever more homes in places that we know are prone to flooding.
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