JAN 2011 - Where are our children going to live in the future?

A statement by Martin Nurse, Chief Executive

How many homes should we be building over the next 20 years for the people of Basingstoke and our communities? This is a crucial question in the consultation by the Borough Council which will end on Friday 14 January 2011. Sentinel is the largest Basingstoke based housing association and we are passionate about our housing work. Basingstoke & Deane has a great deal to be proud of in what we have achieved in better housing and better communities over the last ten years and this work cannot stop now if we are to continue with all the benefits into the future.

Basingstoke is a beacon in North Hampshire and a vibrant place to live and work. The local economy is flourishing based on a strong commercial private sector running alongside some of the best public sector organisations in our schools and colleges, Basingstoke hospital and the District and County Councils. Our economic success is vital to us locally but also very much to the South East regional economy and even nationally as we work together to lead the country out of recession. The success of the economy and the success of the employment market require homes for people to live in who work at all levels. We should also be providing some of the best homes for older people to live in with the services they need as they age.

So at Sentinel, we are convinced that in Basingstoke & Deane, we must continue to build on our success over the last 10 years by continuing a good supply of new homes in the future. We need growth in Basingstoke to continue to ensure a vibrant economy. Jobs need people and people need good homes to live in amongst great communities. Most of all, we need to ensure that young people growing up can have a good home in the same way that we have. For people on all income levels, affordability is key to being able to get a good home. Over the last ten years, house prices have risen three times faster than incomes and a deposit on the average home to buy now costs over a year’s average annual salary. In Basingstoke and Deane the ratio of the lowest house prices to average incomes is ten times, rising to twelve times in the more rural areas and in Hart and Test Valley. There are over 1700 households on the housing waiting list in Basingstoke, 1400 in Hart and 3000 in Test Valley. To meet the demand, Sentinel and other housing associations have been working with the Councils and house builders to increase the supply of new homes. However as fast as we do this, the waiting lists continue to grow because of the problems of affordability. If we do not provide a sufficient supply of homes in the future, the affordability problems will just get worse and even fewer people will be able to buy a home of their own.

At Sentinel, we welcome 1000 new households per year into our homes across North Hampshire. Of these, about 500 homes are from the re-letting of existing properties and 500 from new homes. We are a significant local business with nearly 5000 homes in Basingstoke and Deane, over 2000 homes in Hart and a turnover approaching £50million per annum. We are here to help people who cannot afford a home in the open market so the average rent for our homes is £95 per week. Over half the tenants we house earn less than £200 per week net and 87% earn less than £400 per week. For the people moving into our low cost home ownership homes, 90% earn less than £500 per week net. Good housing for people on lower incomes is absolutely vital partly because it is something a responsible society should ensure and partly because the working people in our households are doing essential jobs - good jobs – which are a key part of the local economy that relies as much on those people as it does on senior executives.

Sentinel has also been working hard in regeneration and reviving existing communities. We have completed regeneration projects at Oakridge Village and Longfellow Parade in Basingstoke with two underway at Bishops Green and the regeneration of Maldive & Faroe in Popley adjoining the Reading Road. Oakridge Village has won many design awards and is generally seen throughout the country. as being one of the most successful regeneration schemes. We have worked hard on housing renewal, changing older homes into good new homes as well as supplying new homes on development projects. We cannot continue to do this unless the growth targets for Basingstoke are set high enough for regeneration to continue and enable us to have the capacity for these projects in future.

We don’t just support growth for the sake of numbers. We also believe strongly that new development has to be sustainable and appropriate for where it is built. We would argue very strongly that good design is paramount in the new homes and open spaces that we provide in the future. What we certainly don’t want is small flats packed together in high density developments. What we do want to see is a majority of houses for families with some one and two bedroom flats, all of which should be to good space standards that are well designed as good homes for people to live in over the next 100 years.

Our future plans also include continuing to build new homes for older people, as with our current new developments of extra care, providing mainly two bedroom flats of a good size that we would all want to live in when we are older and with the option of care and support available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Basingstoke is a great place to live and work, but in particular, we have great children and young people in our schools and colleges helping us thrive and bringing energy and passion to our communities. We owe it them not to lock them out of being able to have an affordable home in the future by building too few homes now which some may think is in their interests to stop building near them and benefit from rising house prices. This attitude potentially can ruin the future for the next generations. Let’s make sure that in this consultation, we think carefully about young people. They must be involved fully in commenting on the proposals and our decisions on the future. It is they who will be most affected by the decisions we now make – we must not be selfish and must make sure that the heritage we leave is a great future for everyone in Basingstoke & Deane.