Developers are not building the types of houses Leeds needs says senior planning councillor

With Leeds being the third largest city in the UK, it all makes for one of the busiest and most varied housing markets in the region.

In the first part of a new Yorkshire Evening Post series, Emma Ryan takes an in-depth look at housing in our city.

Recent statistics show that the number of properties in Leeds is just shy of 355,000 yet the population stands at around 789,000 – and experts predict that this will grow by a further 12 per cent by the end of this year alone.

One senior figure at Leeds City Council told the YEP that the surging population has led to a “perfect storm” of housing issues in Leeds over the past decade.

Last year we reported how some people spent 200 weeks on the waiting list before getting a council house and, in some areas, there are more than 560 bids for just one property.

He says that the issues around housing in Leeds stem back to the Right to Buy scheme introduced in 1980. It has led to the loss of 35,000 houses from Leeds City Council’s stock and they are not being replaced fast enough.

A Perfect Storm

Those issues, he warns, are being compounded by modern day housing developments across the city.

Coun Gruen said: “It has been a perfect storm since even in the Labour government.

“They got into the housing agenda in 2009 and 2010 but it was too late by then. They were no longer in power, lost the election but it took until then to come up with the concept of affordable housing and what needed to be done.

“And has anybody defined what it is that we want to build? What do young people in Leeds need? They don’t need four and five bedroomed, three car garage houses.

“Some may but the principle need is for people to get on the housing ladder with and have two or three bedroomed houses which are affordable – but they are not the houses where developers make the most profit.”

Coun Gruen said the housing market in the city needs to reflect the needs of residents throughout their lives, not just at one particular stage.

“There is no doubt in the last few years we have concentrated on student accommodation which by itself is great – we welcome students and they make a fantastic contribution but they are not the only people who want to live in the city centre,” he said. “There must be room for different developments to student accommodation.”

Call for Action

He has called for developers and the council’s planning chiefs to come together to design a brief based upon what the council says the city’s changing housing needs are and what developers can deliver. It would incorporate homes for older people looking to downsize and properties that are set to address issues of climate change.

His call to action is echoed by Fabian Hamilton, MP for North East Leeds, who has penned a 40-plus page report on the issue of housing.

The report, Building Homes for Britain, looks at how the country can provide the people with the homes they need.

Mr Hamilton said: “We will reap the consequences of that perfect storm if we don’t do something about it.”

MP Report

In his report, he sets out ideas surrounding neighbourhood led approaches to what housing needs are, making councils central to delivering new homes, self-build and community housing, council collaborations, a thorough empty homes policy, the creation of a National Housing Investment Bank and ways of addressing the issue of skills and apprentices within the construction industry.

The idea came about prior to the 2015 election when he looked at what the Labour party could do that would have a real impact on people’s lives in light of rising house prices.

He recalls selling his parents’ family home, which his father bought in London in 1959. The mortgage was three-and-a-half times his father’s wage.

The house is now worth £1.5m. In order for his daughter, who is a teacher, to buy it, the mortgage would have to be 35 times her wage.

“I get more enquiries concerning housing than anything else,” he said. “At one point it overtook health, benefits and immigration, which are the areas I do have a say over.

“It is crazy really. We have to do something but nobody seems willing to want to.

“The fundamental basis of sustainable society is for everybody to live in decent, quality housing that they can afford.

“If you want to solve a lot of social problems – and I don’t mean professionals buying houses in London, I mean people in ordinary jobs in cities like Leeds – you have to build publicly supported housing that is rentable and affordable.”