last updated 27th July 05
By 4ecotips

It will enhance destructive impact of climate change

PLANS to build more than half a million new homes in south-east will England will increase the chance of water shortages and the destructive impact of climate change whilst doing little to address the region’s shortage of affordable housing, according to Green MEP Dr Caroline Lucas.

The South-East England Regional Authority (SEERA) has adopted a target of 578,000 new homes to be built across the south-East over the next 20 years – with annual targets of 6,100 in Kent and Hampshire, 4,800 in Sussex, 4,040 in Buckinghamshire, 2,620 in Berkshire, 2,360 in Surrey and Oxfordshire and 520 in the Isle of Wight.

Lucas says: “This level of housing development is simply too high for the region, which is already over-crowded and economically ‘overheating’.

“By adopting such high targets for housing growth, SEERA has agreed to place an unsustainable burden on the region’s infrastructure – especially its water supply – and increased the likely human costs of climate change, which studies have shown is likely to affect the South-East worse than any other region of the UK.”

She said there was undoubtedly a need for more affordable housing in the region – but argued that this need for housing must be balanced against the impact of new development on existing residents and the environment.

Other ways of increasing the level of affordable housing – such as bringing back into use the region’s 83,000 empty homes and requiring a higher proportion of dwelling in new developments to be earmarked for social housing – should be prioritised over a policy of “concreting over the countryside”, she added.

“A full social, economic and environmental assessment of the impact of such large-scale development – both on the South-East and other regions – must be carried out.”