Smaller houses

Consultants for the Vale of White Horse District Council advised that 97 per cent of new dwellings would need to be one- or two-bedroomed to rebalance the size of households and housing.  The average household size is about 2.3 people, and decreasing.

Over 75 per cent of dwellings in Oxfordshire have one, and more often two or more spare bedrooms. And nationally, the spare capacity in the existing housing stock of about 26m dwellings is the equivalent of building 250,000 new two-bedroomed homes for the next 80 years.For many reasons, we are not all going to immediately “right-size” into a house to fit our family circumstances.

However, these current planning applications show the intention of housebuilders to provide a majority (ie about 60 per cent) of three- and more often four-bedroomed houses (and three parking spaces/dwelling!).

That the smaller dwellings are mostly for rent suggests that larger houses are being provided for reasons other than meeting ‘objectively assessed housing need’, as is intended by Government.

If, however, a large number of attractive smaller dwellings (some with generous gardens) were provided, a significant number of large dwellings vacated by downsizers would become available.

The recent Parliamentary Select Committee enquiry into the working of the National Planning Policy Framework found that interpretations of ‘sustainable development’ had been inconsistent and  unsatisfactory.

Making efficient use of the housing stock will become more urgent as other sectors, power generation, industry, transport and agriculture, fail to meet statutory carbon reduction targets.

Planners must insist that new housing contributes to the achievement of sustainable development (including six per cent carbon reductions/annum) while residential development and employment is planned to grow at 2.5 per cent.

Daniel Scharf, Drayton, nr Abingdon