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The UK Housing Market: A Place of Your Own?

What about the north?

Isn't it a mistake to destroy viable communities in the name pf progress? © Photolibrary Group

In the north of England, the collapse of heavy industry and manufacturing have left a stock of housing that no one wants to occupy. The Government estimates that there is an over-supply of more than one million homes in the north. In some towns there are entire streets of abandoned houses. Their plan is for a programme of housing market renewal. Nine areas will be targeted to have their housing 'restructured', which appears to mean the demolition of older buildings that are deemed to be surplus to requirements and replacing them with modern houses.

Opponents of this plan say that there is a risk of repeating the mistakes of the 1950s and 60s when viable communities were destroyed, only to be replaced with inappropriate and unwanted new housing. Critics also believe that the uneven nature of demand and supply in housing is an economic, not a housing problem. The regional variations that exist should be corrected by job creation in the areas with surplus housing. If necessary, economic growth in the south east should be cut; building new homes in this region, they say, will only serve to fuel further economic expansion, thereby creating a more uneven distribution of wealth and housing demand.

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