Housing: The concealed crisis.
Sir: Your special survey, 'Housing in Britain : The concealed crisis,' highlights economic waste on a vast scale; you have performed a most useful ser- vice in drawing this issue to the attention of the. informed layman. I believe the public (and I sus- pect also the Government) has little idea of th., scale of this economic inefficiency, and what is equally important, the long-term damage to the social and urban fabric.
In addition to the costs so clearly brought out by, your authors, I would suggest that the following• are' costs which receive very much less attention= butwhich must be added to the debit side.
(1) The very large annual maintenance bill for' Local Authority housing (tying up scarce build-T, ing labour) which could be borne by occupiers,.
(2) The increasing social division derived from low-- income public housing, immigrants and middle- - class `ghettos---whioh are increasingly being, isolated from one another, with an obvious. danger of social conflict if the 'ghetto gap:,: increases.
(3) The faster advance in private-sector land prices- caused by sharply declining availability, contri- buted to by LA volume compulsory purchase. -
(4) The unknown costs (I would guess very large) of professional advisory time being consumed in the appeals procedure. (5) Excess personal expenditure in other areas, e.g. gambling (surely a form of national insanity) and drink. -
(6) The long-term effect on the aesthetic quality , of urban life (a minority of developments reach- Gm standards) as the volume of LA hOusing alters the balance radically.
(7) What sounds like a cliché (but is I believe a
most serious issue), the alienation and loss 'of hope of self-improvement, of those living in LA slums of the future—violence becomes a quite understandable outlet.
Clearly a fundamental restructuring of the finance of housing in this country is most urgently needed.: and f would most strongly support the proposals ptil forward by your contributors. I would add a stir_ gestion for a capital grant for the deposit on private purchase, where income is, very low, and a sliding scale interest charge on loans for deposit as income rises.
As your leader states 'housing policy in this country is a mess one hopes that increasingly in- formed public opinion will create a situation where both political parties can make a truly radical reappraisal—thus saving the community the vast costs derived from party dogmatism on housing.
D. J. Fitzgerald Senior Lecturer, Land Economics, Brixton School of Building, Sussex Road, London SW9
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