When it comes to general elections, polling companies deal mostly with the bottom line – who will be in Number 10 and how many more people they need to woo to put them there. But sometimes the number-crunchers’ analysis helps to colour in the picture of the national mood.
The “issue tracking” polls usually find that immigration, Europe and the economy top the list of voters’ priorities. Housing, conversely, sometimes struggles to break into the top ten. But this may be changing.
For example, Shelter recently published a blog showing that the electorate’s attitude towards local development has shifted significantly. At the last general election, a majority of voters across all social, economic and party political lines were against development in their areas. But now the opposite is true; more voters now support development than oppose it.
And this is not just a single rogue poll. Another that suggests a sea change in public opinion came from Survation, commissioned by the campaign group Generation Rent. This found that 38% of voters would back a party that included a strong offering on housing in its top three priorities. What’s more, almost half of respondents said they had no idea what the main parties’ housing policies were. That creates opportunities for the development industry to make a point to politicians on an issue that will affect their election results.
Clearly, housing is more of a concern: from “generation rent” sharing rooms in central London to help pay the bills, to young families struggling to get on the housing ladder and pensioners stranded in houses that are too big, people are starting to feel worried.
My company, Curtin & Co, commissioned a survey just before Christmas that found that 37% of people across the UK think it is highly unlikely that their children or grand-children will be in a position to buy their own place before they are 30, and a further 21.1% think it is impossible. This is backed up by what we see in our community consultation work – if they are given an opportunity to voice support for development, residents are often choosing to do so.
It is worth re-stressing that point from our survey: nearly two-thirds of the UK thinks that the dream of home ownership is slipping away from current and future generations. This should be a serious concern for politicians; the thing that galvanises people to vote is whether or not they feel they are getting on in life.
We in the industry have heard the promises of hundreds of thousands of homes per year, a new garden city here, a “Northern powerhouse” with a big pot of money for house building there.
But politicians of all colours need to put out a clear message about what they intend to do to rekindle voters’ hopes of owning their own home. We need not words but action, such as reforming outdated planning policies. We could start with the green belt, which turns 80 this year.
Whoever is sitting in Number 10 will have to act quickly to prevent an entire generation losing all hope in such an important part of our social fabric. Developers have a role to play in making sure politicians know that delivering more houses is now a public priority.
Martin Curtis is associate director at Curtin & Co
