£90K salary for staffs head of housing renewal

The North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership is seeking a Head of Programmes. This £90K position will involve implementing RENEW, the housing market renewal programme across North Staffordshire. The right person will have a background in housing or finance.

More information: www.nsrpjobs.co.uk

Developers are urged to set new trends for eco-towns

BioRegional and CABE has published cutting-edge principles for the agencies involved in developing proposals for eco-towns have. Their report defines an eco-town as a place “designed to make it easy for residents to reduce their ecological footprint by two thirds and their carbon dioxide emissions by 80% below 1990 levels.

Entitled ‘What makes an eco-town?’ describes the features of places designed for living within ecological limits. These include generous space to grow food; ample tree canopy cover; attractive alternatives to shopping as the default leisure activity; and substantial reduction in car dependency. It provides clear criteria and practical guidance on how the sustainability of settlements can be monitored and tested.

Eco-town developers have a key role in the areas of housing and construction and home energy, which together account for 31% of a person’s carbon dioxide emissions and 26% of their ecological footprint. The recommended criteria include adopting the Building for Life gold standard for all residential developments, and a 100% renewable energy supply.

The report describes how a 60% reduction can be secured in the ecological footprint and carbon dioxide _{emissions associated with food through measures which include making space for food growing and links with local farms.}

The report recommends residential areas should enjoy tree canopy cover of at least 25 % to alleviate the impacts of climate change, with 15 % canopy cover in mixed-use or commercial areas.

SET NEW TRENDS

Developers are urged to set a new trend by designing places which present sociable and healthy alternatives to shopping and improve quality of life. Recreation provision should

include great parks and play spaces (including spaces suitable for teenagers); and sports facilities and green gyms (groups keeping fit while maintaining open space).

Consumer goods account for 14 % of an individual’s ecological footprint and the target should be to halve the amount bought in eco-towns, with other measures to secure this target including repair and re-use and swap shops.

The report describes how eco-towns can reduce carbon dioxide from driving – which generates almost a quarter of an individual’s carbon dioxide emissions – by 80 %. This entails providing a good, frequent and reliable low carbon public transport, and supporting walking and cycling with a density of 50-100 dwellings per hectare. A maximum of one car parking space per household is recommended.

The report notes that eco-towns should be as much about creating employment and a local economy as they are about building homes. This will assist in delivering the transport targets as well as improving social and economic outcomes.

The report is inspired by the government’s eco-towns challenge panel. It draws on BioRegional’s work on building sustainable settlements and on CABE’s understanding of what it takes to create workable and sustainable places. The criteria recommended in it are a contribution to the debate: they do not represent an absolute or final statement of what an eco-town should aim for.

TRAIILBLAZING PROJECTS

Sue Riddlestone, executive director and co-founder of the BioRegional Development Group and eco-towns challenge panel member said: “We need to see trailblazing projects worthy of the name eco-town. Done well, these real-life projects should advance industry best practice, inform government policy and show how we can reduce our impact to sustainable levels and have an improved quality of life.”

CABE and BioRegional would like to see these criteria by all new neighbourhoods or urban extensions, not just eco-towns. Richard Simmons, chief executive, CABE and an eco-towns challenge panel member said: “If eco-towns are to have a fundamental purpose, it must be to show how we can all live and work in well-designed, low-carbon neighbourhoods.”

Image shows the BEDzed development at Wallington, south London.

More info: www.bedzed.org.uk

Rural housing charter calls for action

Nearly 700,000 people are now stuck on waiting lists for an affordable home in rural England according to the National Housing Federation and Campaign to Protect Rural England.

Over the last five years, the number of people waiting for an affordable home in country areas has soared by 37%, up from 507,757 in 2003 to 695,735 last year.

That means that on average 14,494 people have been added to housing waiting lists in rural areas every month over the last four years.

The situation is now so serious that the NHF and CPRE has launched a charter – ‘Save Rural England, Build Affordable Homes’ – containing an eight point blueprint, setting out how the supply of affordable homes could be significantly, and appropriately, increased in rural communities.

SCALE OF THE CRISES

Figures released by the NHF and CPRE expose the scale of the housing crisis in the countryside.

• The proportion of homeless households in rural areas has more than doubled over the last five years from 16% to 37% of the national total.
• In four South West rural districts, at least 11% of the local population is on a waiting list for affordable housing.
• In the Lake District authority of Allerdale, the number of households applying for an affordable home has increased by 107% over the last five years.
• In Dorset, house prices are over 15 times local incomes, one in 30 homes is a second home and waiting lists have doubled in the past five years.
• The number of households now on waiting lists for an affordable rural home is 311,989.

The Federation and CPRE fear that with the younger generation priced out of the market in many rural areas, unless action is taken to address the lack of affordable homes rural communities face an uncertain future. The only way to solve the problem is to build a limited number of affordable homes in every village and rural town where a need has been identified.

The recommendations made in the charter include:

• Ensuring that a fair share of future government spending on social housing is committed to delivering affordable rural homes.
• Restricting the right to buy in rural areas of acute housing pressure.
• Ensuring all rural planning authorities set ambitious but achievable affordable housing targets.

GOVERNMENT TIMETABLE

The NHF and CPRE are calling on the Government to publish a clear timetable for responding to Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Taylor’s landmark report into the rural housing crisis. Since the report was published in July, the Government has given no indication if it will act on its findings.

NHF chief executive, David Orr, says: “The rural housing crisis is intensifying rapidly, with more and more people being priced out of the market and having to live in cramped and unsuitable conditions.

“Ministers need urgently to implement the key recommendations in the Taylor Review and the Federation and CPRE joint action plan if they are to help those in need of an affordable rural home.”

CPRE chief executive, Shaun Spiers, adds: “Unless action is taken now to provide the affordable homes we need the future looks bleak for many people and their communities in the countryside.

“Today’s challenging housing market highlights the need for public investment to ensure rural communities receive a fair share so that they can have the homes they need. It also suggests a growing role for community-led initiatives, such as Community Land Trusts.”

More information: www.cpre.org.uk