Future development and the need for sustainable affordable social housing: How do we get from here to there?

Abstract

This opinion argues that there is a desperate need to create more sustainable affordable social housing in the UK, like Goldsmith Street in Norwich, because the younger generation in particular cannot currently afford to buy homes and that this demand is likely to increase in the future. It argues that in order to create sustainable affordable housing, the government needs to raise taxes to pay for it (which is unpopular); that local people need to accept this type of development in terms of where it is located (including in their backyard); that existing legislation, including the planning system and indeed government itself, needs to be more supportive in creating this type of housing by offering incentives to developers and by using more creative tools (such as encouraging sustainable design features and allowing for more lenient or perhaps more and stricter planning conditions as is currently being mooted by government and by requiring minimum/higher standards to be met); and that the students of the future learning to become the planners, architects and construction professionals of tomorrow need to be better educated in how to design and deliver it in practice.