In 2019 I am carrying out national research with groups objecting to housing development. I would like to hear from any community groups who would be interested in taking part in this research through interviews or group discussions.
For my contact details please go to: http://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/staff/dr-quintin-bradley/ or twitter @quintinbradley.
The objectives of this research programme are 1) to identify the main common elements in the objections to new house-building raised by communities; 2) to test out with communities what changes to the housing supply model would reduce this opposition; 3) to disseminate research that portrays community opposition as rational and founded on notions of public good; 4) to disseminate a critical perspective on house-building that promotes changes to the model of supply and distribution.
The issue of community support for, or opposition to house-building continues to dominate the policy agenda. The release of new household projection figures in late 2018 raised evidential doubts over the government house-building target of 300,000 homes a year, while a new standard methodology for setting housing targets, and a new delivery test have reduced the room for local flexibility over housing supply. The policy emphasis on housing numbers has become hegemonic, but it leaves rational questions unanswered over the importance of affordability, housing type or design standards. In this context the continuing use in academic and practitioner circles of the term NIMBY to denigrate all opposition to an agenda of increasing supply is unhelpful. There is a policy gap in the discourse on housing supply, and a need to provide research that promotes a view of communities as rational in their approach to house-building, and that prioritises questions about the mode of housing supply, and its relation to housing need.