Will Garden Cities Combat the Housing Shortage in UK?
By the passes of time and increasing population, Britain is having the housing scarcity and whatever is available whether in terms of landpiece, apartments, flats or well built houses, are very costly with sky high prices, and are utterly inaccessible for an average earning person. There is seriously a big lack of space in the cities, perhaps the idea of creating new areas for residents that could have more space, and to establish them to the cities outer space, instead of thinking of to squeeze them into already crammed metropolitan land, has been introduced in the form of “Garden Cities” movement.
The Derivation of ‘Garden Cities’ Movement
Garden cities movement is not a new concept but it was derived in the times of Victorian when the very famous shorthand typist, named as Ebenezer Howard had propositioned a better substitute to the urban foulness brought about by industrialisation. He had a strong belief that the establishment of independent and small suburban hamlets along with some large extension of greenery would thwart the poverty and homelessness that we could now see portrayed in illustrious Victorians works such as Charles Dickens’ Oliver.
The initial two products of this vision, Letchworth and Welwyn, were artistically appealing but not at all self-reliant and reasonable and for the fact, they got winded up as “Commuter Dormitory Towns”. But the movement has now again reintroduced in response to the UK housing crisis and it’s believed that this will alleviate the housing crisis in UK and will leave a positive impact on London property market. It has been re-emerged by the Chancellor George Osborne who has announced the plans for a 15,000-home garden city in Ebbsfleet, Kent.
This will be one of the various planned garden cities which will be built to house the population of low-density by leaving a lot of space for the lush greenery. These cities will have their own work complexes and shopping centres to evade it of becoming a puffed up community. This time, the new garden cities would possess the greater degree of community input in planning and functioning.
Number of people public supports Garden?
3 years back in 2011, entrants were challenged by the Wolfson Economic Prize to design garden city. There are five contestants have been pointed down to submissions including- Barton Willmore- Planning Consultants, Chris Blundell- Housing Development expert, URBED- Urban Design Specialists. According to the Director Miles Gibson, if these five proposed garden cities were to be built then they would create homes for 400, 000 people that will bring jobs for 400, 000 construction workers.
At the same time, there was a short survey conducted to promote the competition that found that:
- 72% of Britons have feeling that UK was suffering from a serious housing shortage
- 74% of Britons felt that garden cities are the feasible means of addressing the shortage
- 78% of Britons felt that private gardens were an important addition to new homes
As per the Liberal Democrat Lord Taylor said that it would take a lot of time for garden cities projects even to get off the ground by seeing the modus operandi involved in finding the suitable sites and acquiring the cooperation of local communities in establishing the garden cities. For just the reason it would take a lot of time in getting completed, argue is still among people and some believe that it would not solve the housing crisis. But, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is very positive about this moment, garden city and believes that it’s one of the best measures to combat the housing shortage.
So, if you have a property and planning to sell it out then hold it, and soon it will be converted into lush green paradise with the arrival of garden cities.
