As more babies are being born to Crawley mothers, I believe this
increase will continue to add pressure to the over stretched Crawley property
market and materially affect the local property market in the years to come.
On the back of eight years of ever incremental increasing birth
rates, a significant 9.66 babies were born for every new home that was built in
the Crawley council area in 2016. I
believe this has and will continue to exacerbate the Crawley housing shortage,
meaning demand for housing, be it to buy or rent, has remained high. The high birth rate has meant Crawley rents
and Crawley property prices have remained resilient – even with the challenges
the economy has felt over the last eight years, and they will continue to
remain high in the years to come.
This ratio of births to new homes has reach one its highest
levels since 1945 (back in the early
1970’s the average was only one and a half births for every household built).
Looking at the local birth rates, the latest
figures show we in the Crawley council area had an average of 69.7 births per 1,000
women aged 15 to 44. Interestingly, the
national average is 61.7 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 and for the region
it’s also 61.7 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44.
The number of births from Crawley women between the ages of 20
to 29 are higher than the national average, but those between 35 and 44 were closer
to the national average. However
overall, the birth rate is still increasing, and when that fact is combined
with the ever-increasing life expectancy in the Crawley area, the high levels
of net migration into the area over the last 14 years (which I talked about in
the previous articles) and the higher predominance of single person households
… this can only mean one thing ... a huge increase in the need for housing in Crawley.
Again, in a previous article a while back, I said more and more people
are having children as tenants because they feel safe in rented accommodation. Renting is becoming a choice for Crawley
people.
The planners and Politian’s of our local authority, central
Government and people as a whole need to recognise that with individuals living
longer, people having more children and whilst divorce rates have dropped
recently, they are still at a relatively high level (meaning one household
becomes two households) ... demand for property is simply outstripping
supply.
The simple fact is more Crawley properties need to be built
… be that for buying or renting.
Only 1.1% of the Country is built on by houses.
Now I am not suggesting we build tower
blocks in the middle of the Cotswolds, but the obsession of not building on any
green belt land should be carefully re-considered.
Yes, we need to build on brownfield
sites first, but there aren’t hundreds of acres of brownfield sites in Crawley,
and what brownfield sites there are, building on them can only work with
complementary public investment. Many
such sites are contaminated and aren’t financially viable to develop, so unless
the Government put their hand in their pocket, they will never be built on.
I am not saying we should crudely go ‘hell for leather’ building on our Green Belt, but we need a new
approach to enable some parts of the countryside to be regarded more positively
by local authorities, politicians and communities and allow considered and
empathetic development. Society in the
UK needs to look at the green belts outside their leisure and visual appeal,
and assess how they can help to shape the way we live in the most even-handed
way. Interesting times!
