Canterbury faces a predicament. The population is growing and the provision of new housing isn’t keeping up. With the average age of a Canterbury person being 40.0 years (the South East average is also 40.0 years old compared to the national average of 39.4 years of age), the population of Canterbury is growing at an alarming rate. This is due to an amalgamation of longer life expectancy, a fairly high birth rate (compared to previous decades) and high net immigration, all of which contribute to housing shortages and burgeoning house prices.
My colleagues and myself work closely with Durham University
and they have kindly produced some statistics specifically for the Canterbury
City Council area. Known as the UK’s leading authority for such statistics,
their population projections make some startling reading…
For the Canterbury City Council
area ... these are the statistics and future forecasts
2016 population 160,477
2021 population 165,977
2026 population 172,863
2031 population 180,324
2036 population 185,833
The normal ratio of people to property is 2 to 1 in the UK,
which therefore means...
We need just over 12,600 additional new properties to be
built
in the Canterbury City Council area over the next 20 years.
Whilst focusing on population growth does not tackle the
housing crisis in the short term in Canterbury, it has a fundamental role to
play in long-term housing development and strategy in the City. The rise of Canterbury
property values over the last six years since the credit crunch are primarily a
result of a lack of properties coming onto the market, a lack of new properties
being built in the City and rising demand (especially from landlords looking to
buy property to rent them out to the growing number of people wanting to live
in Canterbury but can’t buy or rent from the Council).
Although many are talking about the need to improve supply (i.e.
the building of new properties), the issue of accumulative demand from
population growth is often overlooked. Nationally, the proportion of 25-34 year
olds who own their own home has dropped dramatically from 66.7% in 1987 to
43.8% in 2014, whilst 78.2% of over 65s own their own home. Longer life
expectancies mean houses remain in the same hands for longer.
The swift population growth over the last thirty years
provides more competition for the young than for the mature population. It might surprise some people that 98% of all
the land in the UK is either industrial, commercial or agricultural, with only
2% being used for housing, which means one could propose expanding supply to
meet an expanding population by building on green belt – that most politicians
haven’t got the stomach to tackle, especially in the Tory’ strongholds of the
South of England, where the demand is the greatest. People mention ‘brown field’
sites, but recent research suggests there aren’t as many sites to build on,
especially in Canterbury that could accommodate 12,600 properties in the next
20 years.
In the short to medium term, demand for a roof over of one’s
head will continue to grow in Canterbury (and the country as a whole). In the
short term, that demand can only be met from the private rental sector (which
is good news for homeowners and landlords alike as that keeps house prices
higher).
In the long term though, local and national Government and
the UK population as a whole, need to realise these additional millions of
people over the next 20 years need to live somewhere. Only once this issue
starts to get addressed, in terms of extra properties being built in a
sustainable and environmentally friendly way, can we all help create a socially
ecological prosperous future for everyone. For more thoughts on the Canterbury
Property market, please visit the Canterbury Property Market Blog www.canterburypropertyblog.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment