Oswestry21

While it’s a “good thing” that such forums exist, it’s tragic that the response to any need for action is a call for the creation of yet another website and for “more funding”. The web is a Tower of Babel of sites created by funding that once running are no longer edited, managed and updated, and are useless in terms of information anyway, and as for “more funding” - get a grip. We are entering an era where funding for essentials are going to be slashed, let alone vanity schemes and free lunches.

Unless forums like this start to imagine the £15 and £20 pound gallon, the need for realistic local employment to go along with the housing imposed on us by the Core Strategy and the ever greater divide between urban and rural, then they will continue to be just flip chart talking shops. Schemes will have to be pragmatic and pay their way; i.e. they will have to make money without subsidy. Imagination and entrepreneurial skills will have to come to the fore. People will have to come together without self interest and with a common regional aim. The problems beginning to face us are huge and difficult, and will not be solved by paying someone to make yet another unmanaged website and calling for more funding from a rapidly drying well.

The following post has been contributed by a reader called Rebecca who e mailed with her concerns about affordable housing in the county and who invites comment and debate on this issue.

In the last decade, the number of people living alone has increased at an incredible rate in the UK.  Town planning has not adjusted to keep pace with trends.  Although National guidelines have in many instances provided the necessary policy statements to encourage forward thinking and provision of suitable housing at a local level, often at the local level the advice and policy is ignored.

Who’s suffering?

Why are National guidelines being ignored?

Who is ignoring the National policy?

You could ask, is this down to interpretation of the English language and the level of ambiguity that can be found in the way phrases are constructed.  This is very often the case with legal interpretations of the law as anyone having had to use the services of a solicitor knows full well.

A significant piece of the jigsaw to developing good practice in Town planning is about providing choice in the housing market, in order to provide a balanced community, of mixed diversity.  Without it, large sectors of demographic needs are left untouched and ill provided for.

Is this sustainable?

Is this fair?

Is this a deliberate prejudice?

Choice is missing, certainly from a local perspective for the communities in Shropshire particularly, in the North of the county, where the situation is reaching a dire near catastrophe.  The Market Towns of Oswestry, Wem, Ellesmere, Whitchurch and Market Drayton, have not supplied housing suitable for a balanced and mixed community with sustainable housing.

Local net income / house prices;

These two areas are continually compared to assess a local economy and its general affordability for its local inhabitants.  Shropshire is recognised as being in the BOTTOM ten percent of counties in terms of net income per household, and yet house prices in Shropshire are considered to be in the TOP ten percent in the UK. (These figures can be confirmed at the UK National Statistics office or web link:  http://www.statistics.gov.uk/default.asp )

When comparing these two figures, Shropshire is stated as being an area designated as not affordable to live in for an increasing number of the local population.  Housing specifically is determined as not affordable by an increasing level of demographic groups.

We need housing of a much wider diversity than has currently been provided, proposed and allowed under the current planning system.  Isn’t it desirable for this County to provide an opportunity for all of its inhabitants to own their own home, regardless of their level of wealth and background?