A Blueprint for Britain’s Housing

In the 1980s the future King prompted a meltdown among some of Britain’s leading architects, highlighting there is nothing new about culture wars.

The Prince of Wales: Right or Wrong? An Architect Replies by Maxwell Hutchinson, then President of the Royal Institute of British Architects,was a riposte to Prince Charles who had the temerity to champion tradition over modernism.

The showdown began with the “monstrous carbuncle” – as the prince described the proposed extension to the National Gallery designed by the global starchitect, Richard Rogers. HRH went on to make a documentary, A Vision of Britain. But his preferred realm, Hutchinson suggested, was a “deceitful Disneyland” featuring Mr Humbug’s Olde Sweete Shoppe: “It is not a vision of Britain we need, but a Britain of vision.”

The debate over our built environment continues today, given fresh urgency by the housing crisis. In the recent General Election, an arms race broke out between the three main political parties over the number of homes they promised to build over the next five years: Conservatives 1.6 million; Liberal Democrats 1.9 million; Labour 1.5 million.

To deliver, the government is making far-reaching changes to the planning regime, including updating the National Planning Policy framework, introducing mandatory housing targets and allowing building on parts of the Green Belt, which being rebranded – ta-da! – as developable Grey Belt.

In Wednesday’s Budget, Chancellor Reeves promised £5 billion to keep Labour’s house-building promises. But in the rush to get the concrete poured, it is likely that quality is going to be sacrificed for quantity.

Along with the planning reforms, Housing Minister Angela Rayner announced the previous Conservative government’s “beautiful” requirement for new development will be dropped. Instead, Labour’s manifesto highlighted that “exemplary” should be the norm, with “high quality, well-designed and sustainable homes.” Given previous Labour governments’ post-War penchant for brutalist high-rise modernism, such aspirations are welcome. The Deputy PM has stated that the planning changes will not lead to “a load of ugly houses”

The King has led the way on quality, sustainability and beauty at Nansledan, a new town on Duchy of Cornwall land on the outskirts of Newquay. A community is taking root, with eventually 4,000 homes, new business and jobs, along with shops and amenities, such as a school and a church.

The master plan for Nansledan (“broad valley” in Cornish) was drawn up by the architect and urban designer Hugh Petter. So far, about 650 homes have been built by three local firms. They have used traditional building techniques and local materials such as Cornish granite and slate, from which kerb stones and street signs are also made.

About one-third of the homes are social housing, scattered among owner-occupied properties. Residents sign up to a Design and Community Code with guidelines about, for example, holiday letting and second home use (both discouraged) and exterior paint colours.

There is a sense of harmony, but not uniformity. While most homes are in space-saving terraces, every property is slightly different, with variations in, for example, building materials. Prominent properties, perhaps at junctions, have extra features. The roads gently curve: some houses are slightly set back. Shops have opened, cafés are busy. The impression is of a place growing up organically rather than just plonked down, at odds with its surroundings.

While not banned, cars are parked mostly out of sight. Superfast broadband is standard. With its garden squares, orchards, allotments and planting, Nansledan is eco-friendly, underscored by bee bricks, swift boxes and front gardens of fruits bushes and herbs.

With plans for a market square, Nansledan could take time to complete, not least because care is being taken not to flood the local market.

Detractors point out that, as one of the country’s biggest landowners, the Duchy of Cornwall can take a long view – rather like the monarchy itself. It is not subject to the same commercial pressures as volume housebuilders.

Nansledan has been described by the Mirror as the King’s “passion project” and an “immaculate toy town estate”. It follows Poundbury, outside Dorchester, his first venture as new town developer. There, critical visitors don’t hold back: “It’s The Prisoner!”; “fascist film set”; “Stepford Wives’ nightmare.” Others have nothing but praise: “How life should be.”

The iron laws of supply and demand caused by two decades of unplanned immigration have made home ownership unaffordable for too many. It is unsurprising that, hoping for two terms, the government is determined to bulldoze the NIMBYs aside and get Britain building. How will the LibDem stronghold of Richmond-upon-Thames react to the demand that it must build almost 14 times more houses than last year to fulfil government quotas?

With little interest in Britain’s history, literature or countryside, the Labour government might be more at home with grim Soviet-style workers’ paradise Khrushchevkas. Is house building the new tractor production? Poor-quality housing is socially self-defeating – all that misery and those hives of crime. Unsustainable, it will quickly need to be repaired, then replaced.

Although Nansledan and Poundbury represent a tiny contribution towards Britain’s housing stock, the King is setting a positive, life-enhancing example of building on a human scale. Dorset County Council estimates that Poundbury will have increased local GVA (Gross Value Added) by £105m per annum by 2025.

Policymakers should be talking to experts like Hugh Petter about the stewardship model of creating places such as Nansledan – and how the current tax regime gets in the way, differentiating between landowners and land traders.

A 2015 Ipsos MORI poll for Create Streets found that, when shown examples of five building styles, 75 per cent of those polled would favour development on brown field sites if the new housing looked like Poundbury. The poll should be re-run to include Nansledan. As it concluded, “The most popular housing would appear to be the most conventional in form, style and building materials.”

The public prefers the King’s vision for Britain’s housing. His Majesty’s Government and Loyal Opposition should take note.