Brownfield first - why it won't happen

EUV - Existing Use Value is an acronym used by developers for the value of land doing what it has always been doing. When a large house in an affluent area sells it's significant garden and two houses are built for a tidy profit , it is because the Existing Use Value as a garden was low enough for developers to buy and build on. The three factors determining a profitable development are land cost, build cost, and sale price , if sale price goes down and build cost goes up, the margin above EUV shrinks and the development ceases to be profitable because the value to the house of the large garden is equal to what developers can pay after build cost and sale price are factored in.

In the 1993 report by Hampshire County Council the heritage landscape of Stoneham park is set out as a valued strategic gap which they are comitted to protect.(Report of the county planning officer 26th July 1993) So why now 18 years later is it being opened up for development , 19 years cannot be too long a time for planners to foresee demographic pressures or affordability issues. Eastleigh residents voted for the stance taken in 1993 and paid for it , and they did not expect it to fade away in such a short time.

Eastleigh's building boom has made some people rich , in 2005 when the Pirelli development was started conditions were perfect for the developers, so perfect that developments were undertaken that would otherwise, and are clearly now, out of place ; such as building on school playing fields at Nightingale school - it was a 'dash for the cash' . 'Brownfield' developments used to work , as many 1 or 2 bedroom flats as possible were squeezed onto a site and with mortgage lenders offering credit to whoever asked politely, the gang of planners, lenders, developers and buyers , all presuming house prices would always rise were living it large in Eastleigh, but the truth was a bubble was being inflated - the lenders, developers and ,I'm sorry to say buyers, will go bust as punishment .The planners should have known better and this correction in bank lending and drop in house prices should result in them losing their jobs.

Mortgage lenders will now not lend £150,000 for a flat in Eastleigh to average wage earners, so developers will not build them on brownfield sites , as build costs have increased due to inflation (diesel costs have an impact) and sale prices have dropped, the profit margins have disappeared so that a brownfields EUV is large enough for it to be left as an industrial site.
Build costs have not just increased due to inflation, councils increasing demand for social housing squeezes developer's margins , Section 106 payments and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) squeezes developer's margins and now the drive to 'carbon neutral' developments through ever stricter building codes has squeezed developer's margins so much that they are no longer interested in brownfield sites. If councils want developers to build on brownfield sites they own, they must give them away. Don't ask why a school playing field is brownfield and don't ask why a tiny flat for £130,000 is affordable , you will be falling out of the daydream , you will be letting go of the helium balloon that is this housing bubble and watching it rocket up into the clouds where it belongs.

On brownfield sites building costs are about £110 per square foot , many industrial sites have added costs when changed to residential , like the old petrol station in Chandlers Ford which I presume will be flats - excavators are carefully removing the petrol tanks under the site, inspectors are monitoring , contamination can be an issue. Housing associations will only pay £130 per square foot, the margin is so low that developers might as well buy residential sites for development , where locations are often more sought after. The discounted rate that industrial sites offered developers has been sucked up in additional costs forced on them by local and national government , so now only the 'uplift' of greenfield sites can feed the monster that has been created.

Winchester council is trying to force developers to build 40% 'affordable' homes in even the smallest of developments and developers are lobbying against it, the councillors fear the promises made on affordable housing , daft as the concept is, cannot be achieved and as one councillor said 40% of nothing is nothing. Whilst cheap credit was available all of these people in the loop were having their piece of the pie, now it is not, they are stuck, only by opening up previously protected green spaces can enough financial incentive be offered to developers to fulfil the politicians promises. Of course you can't build one house and have 40% of it 'affordable' , the council gets cash in lieu of the 'low cost' build (perhaps you could if you made the family buying the 2 bedroom house rent out a 3rd room to a lodger -the effect would be the same but the council would not get the free money) 

Eastleigh had a 12.5% reduction in government grant for 2011/2012, worse than predicted, they have made no redundancies like the private sector has, it is income from the continued development of Eastleigh that they need to fill the gaps. There are 32 vacant brownfield sites in Eastleigh with rental values greater than £45,000 p/a but national and local government have been taking ever more of the profits available to developers through S106 , CIL and now  carbon neutral building codes - (to me the idea of 'tackling climate change' is ridiculous , CO2 is not a threat and I am proud that I am a climate change 'denier' , one who has an ecology degree and was a Green Party member for years, perhaps we can save that discussion for another time)

The irony of life is such that it is the latest round of green policies which apply to new builds within the time frame of the new draft plan that is forcing us to sacrifice our green spaces to developers. We need a different plan , it is not population pressure that has made EBC (and other councils)change their policy to the 'strategic gap' admirably protected by them for so long , it is the economic situation that exists , and this situation exists with the connivance of our planning department.