The Create Streets manifesto for homes, hope and health
How do we create FAR more homes & how do we do so in ways that are more popular & boost healthy places & productive, sustainable living patterns? Our Create Streets manifesto for #HomesHopeHealth sets out our top 16 suggestions for more homes TOGETHER with healthier & happier places. Based on over ten years research, our proposals mainly rely not on increased budgets but on changing the wiring & bringing the democracy forward we do need more homes in the UK but it is not JUST a numbers game. We need to think carefully about process & risk & the stewardship & creation of places to support health, prosperity & resilience. Most of our top 16 proposals could be done now or soon & don't require legislation.
At present >90% of British public believe new development will make existing places worse. This needs to change (& such a change is generational) or the politics of new homes will remain brutal. But there's lots we can do NOW.
So our first theme is about Creating Homes in Existing Places so as to Improve Neighbourhoods.
1. Bring the democracy forward & legalise new housing which people like with light touch approval processes for homes & development in accordance with the local plan. The new Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (LURA) makes this easy to do via National Development Management Policies. A new gov could require local councils to use Local Development Orders (which already exist but are little used) to pre-permit homes that follow the local design code in certain places.
2. Legalise a new generation of mansion blocks with popular mansion block templates which again could be pre-approved in certain places
3. Ask the people what they like using robust visual preference survey techniques to support (1) & (2). Again this could be required via new National Development Management Policies.
4. Reinvent #BoxLand for more homes - reinvent single storey wasteful big box retail as real places which can often maintain the existing use. Again this can be pre-permitted and de-risked.
5. Put housing targets back into the English planning system via a Written Ministerial Statement within days of the election.
Our second theme is Improving existing places helping them become greener, safer to move through & more prosperous.
6. Let the people grow! Use existing rights in the Highways Act & new legislation to make it easier for parishes, neighbourhood groups & residents to plant and maintain urban greenery. We set out detail on this in our landmark report #GreeningUp https://createstreets.com/greeningup/
7. Build on our #RoadBelt & #Restitch our left behind towns as we set out in detail in our papers #MovingTowardsGrowth & #RestitchingOurSocialFabric
Moving Towards Growth - https://www.createstreets.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Moving-towards-growth_080923.pdfRestitching
Our Social Fabric - https://www.createstreets.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/restitching-our-social-fabric.pdf
8. #MoveFree - stop highways departments from preventing beautiful streets & reducing housing delivery. This can also unleash the #GiftOfGentleDensity The detail on how to do this is set out in our detailed policy recommendations accompanying our report #MoveFree https://www.createstreets.com/projects/move-free-march-19th/
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9. Create Civic & Public buildings which elevate and don't degrade their neighbourhoods reinventing the process to design public buildings to let the public in. What large new public buildings will be cherished & cared for as we care for Salisbury Cathedral or Westminster Abbey?
Our third theme is Creating homes more easily in new beautiful & sustainable #GentleDensity new places.
10. We need to stop using obscure highways modelling mistakes to ban new homes, instead use vision-led transport modelling as we have set out in detail in our recent papers #SteppingOffTheRoadToNowhere & #BecomingANationOfTownbuilders https://www.createstreets.com/steppingofftheroadtonowhere/
11. Create new neighbourhoods & new towns at #GentleDensity with opt in pattern books & reduction of back to back distances & FAR more active travel. New places should be Centripetal not Centrifugal
12. #CreateTrams. If we are to decarbonise transport, cut air pollution & boost urban productivity & growth then reliable & fast public transport is key. We have unintentionally made it nearly impossible & very expensive to create new trams. British trams are 2.5 times more expensive than French trams per mile & almost three times as expensive as German trams. This is due to details in the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, The Streets Works (Sharing of Costs of Works) Regulation 2000 and the Transport and Works Act 1992.
13. #CreateGreaterCambridge Our forthcoming report, Greater Cambridge, falling back in the love with the future sets out how linking the land value uplift from a web of new tram lines & new train stations to walkable mixed-use, gentle density developments could create between 183,000 & 214,000 homes by 2050 NOT through our usual model of drive-to cul-de-sacs at very low density
14. Create beautiful and popular new homes & buildings on the grey belt. Create Streets analysis of green belt shows that 3% of the green belt, covering 46,871 hectares, might be characterised as ‘grey belt’. This includes previously developed areas, ex-industrial sites, quarries & some other amenity uses. If just under half of was developed at ‘gentle density we could deliver between one million and 1.5 million homes.
Our final theme is STOP making things worse!
15. Don’t ban sash windows & large windows. Overzealous lobby groups and their supporters are currently attempting to make large windows & sash windows much harder & more expensive to build in a misconceived attempt to prevent people falling out of windows in response to overheating homes (which is actually so rare a problem that there is no data on it). Larger and nicer windows are becoming much rarer, particularly in poorer neighbourhoods where the extra costs of meeting new regulations is unviable. The state should not ban large & sash windows and elements of the recent foolish and inequitable Part O Building Regulations should be reversed
16. Stop #StreetScars. By mistake (no one intended to) we have made it very difficult for councils to prevent utility firms ruining our streets with the heartless removal and non-repair of historic cobbles and York stones when they conduct utility repairs. This tells neighbourhoods that they don’t matter and their aspirations pointless. It is due to an error in the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 which gives utility firm a needlessly long six months to effect repairs and risibly low ￡2,500 maximum fines if they don’t. This should be reversed though a combination of legislative and regulatory change as set out in detail our paper, Street Scar. https://www.createstreets.com/projects/street-scar-february-1st/ Street scars everywhere on Northumberland Street, Newcastle
That's (nearly) all folks! You can read the full manifesto for #HomesHealthHope here: https://www.createstreets.com/employees/create-streets-manifesto/ and you can read more about our manifesto and some further thoughts from our MD David Milner in The Times here: https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/property-home/article/labour-build-15-million-homes-7dxl95h02
Some really good ideas.