Architect says more local councils need to get involved building homes
Richard Rogers has said more local authorities need to build more homes in order to help solve the housing crisis 鈥� adding volume housebuilders won鈥檛 plug the shortfall.
Speaking at an event on factory made housing organised by New London Architecture, the architect said: 鈥淲hen local authorities who had been elected by the local people lost planning control in favour of the government, who handed it to the developer, we lost control.
鈥淵ou can argue this is more efficient 鈥� I鈥檓 sure [the developer] would say that, although I would question that 鈥� but we have lost that power.鈥�
And he said more architects needed to be carrying out work for local authorities. 鈥淲hen I was a student, I鈥檓 going to guess that 80% of all architects worked for housing, local authorities, schools. Today you could count on one hand the number of people that actually work for a local authority.鈥�
Rogers, whose firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is behind modular housing schemes at Lewisham and Mitcham in the capital, suggested the UK had the same number of houses and the same problems as when he had chaired the Urban Task Force in the late 1990s.
He added: 鈥淚n some ways its worse because the volume housebuilders are [therefore] more in control and their interests are more鈥reed is the bottom line. It is called profit. And it is not really about whether you get the right quality or the right numbers.
鈥淰olume housebuilders are not motivated to build more but to build more expensively. Actually, that means they want to build less because they want the demand to be higher.鈥�
Earlier this month, prime minister Theresa May last week signalled the start of a new era of council-house building in England by announcing an end to borrowing rules that stop local authorities using a key fund to deliver new homes.
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