On 15 September 2016, the Town & Country Planning Association (TCPA) hosted the Sir Frederic J. Osborn Memorial Lecture 2016 which was delivered by Professor Christine Whitehead OBE.
S is a key figure of TCPAs history. For over half a century, he campaigned for pioneering public-sector new towns complemented by greener, better cities. He believed in sustainable development talking about co-operative solutions, of sharing risk in hybrid relationships between the public and private sectors, and of restoring faith in the credentials of development in social, environmental, and financial realms.
Christine’s presentation, titled ‘Using projections of household numbers—tensions between planning and economics’, reflects on the estimates for housing demand and on the current housing situation. About the projects Christine asks if they are adequate for the job they are being asked to do, and why is it that planners and economists see these figures so differently.
Click here to access Christine’s PPT presentation.
An excerpt from the slides:
“Can we even meet the current housing requirement?
- Since 2011 levels of housing output have been running far below projected requirements.
- If we wanted to get back on track it would need something over 300,000 per annum for the next five years – including a tripling of output levels in London.
- Achieving that of course would ensure that the government’s aspiration of 1 million units by the end of 2020 would be significantly exceeded.
- But is there any possibility that this can be achieved year-by-year?”