BBC Radio 4 - Housing: Where Will We All Live?

[Tony Gosling]

BBC Radio 4 - Housing: Where Will We All Live?
It's been identified as the single biggest threat 
to the British economy: we are simply not 
building enough homes. In this debate recorded at 
the London School of Economics and Political 
Science, BBC Social Affairs Editor Mark Easton 
and a panel of guests discuss why the problem has 
developed and how best to fix it. They will hear 
the stories of people who are both desperate for 
new homes and from those who oppose wanton 
destruction of precious areas of countryside. 
Producer: Lucy Ash  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046rbm7


Living in an airing cupboard is no joke but the 
housing crisis forced me to do it

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/living-airing-cupboard-housing-crisis-rent
Apparently I should accept my lot as a renter 
while lining the pockets of the richest in society. No thanks
    * 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/http://www.theguardian.com/profile/holly-baxter>Holly 
Baxter - 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/http://www.theguardian.com/>theguardian.com, 
Wednesday 11 June 2014 12.18 BST
'I was expecting to hear practical solutions to 
the housing crisis, and a drive to burst the 
bubble. Instead, excessive pandering to landlords 
and an insistence that my experience was 
anomalous seemed to dominate.' Photograph: Business Visual/Rex
Not too long ago, I did a stint living in an 
airing cupboard. It's a funny story, really – one 
that I've written about a few times to honestly 
describe where Vagenda, the online magazine I 
co-edit, started. It's memorable, it gets a 
giggle, and I've been asked no fewer than three 
times by BBC Radio 4 to go on air to describe it.
The most recent occasion was this week, when I 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2014/06/20140609t1830vOT.aspx>addressed 
a panel led by housing experts including Richard 
Blakeway, London's deputy mayor for housing, land 
and property, Rachel Fischer, a head of policy 
for the National Housing Federation and Mark 
Easton, the BBC home affairs editor. Once again, 
when I stood up and told the story, people laughed.
Unfortunately, the reality of living in an airing 
cupboard isn't as funny as it sounds. It's a lack 
of windows, a complete dearth of personal 
privacy, a secret that you don't tell your 
co-workers. It's no access to electrical outlets. 
It's washing your tights in the bathroom sink and 
then drying them with a hairdryer in the hallway 
before work. It's curling up into the foetal 
position under a blanket beside the boiler, 
hearing it click loudly on and off every morning 
at 4am beside your head. It's humiliation and loneliness.
My co-editor, 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/http://www.theguardian.com/profile/rhiannon-lucy-cosslett>Rhiannon, 
who offered up the cupboard in question, did so 
out of kindness because I had just found myself a 
job and had nowhere to stay. All of our recently 
graduated friends were either bouncing from place 
to place as the "hidden homeless", or crammed 
into rented accommodation that had long had its 
communal areas reduced to galley kitchens. That 
meant no lounge, no sofa to kip on for friends in 
need, and certainly no spare bedrooms. I 
considered myself lucky to get a cupboard for the 
five weeks it took me to receive my first pay 
cheque, just enough to put down a rental deposit 
on a bedroom in a dilapidated shared house with 
strangers. That's where I continue to live.
This isn't what I consider a sob story, but a 
success story. My current accommodation is far 
superior to a large chunk of my friends'. I have 
my own room in a place where our landlord has 
maintained communal areas rather than turning 
them into more bedrooms. Seventy per cent of my 
salary goes on rent, which is normal among my 
peers – but I'm well aware that this situation isn't right.
As I sat at the BBC debate, which will be aired 
on 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046rbm7>Radio 
4 on Wednesday at 8pm, I was told repeatedly by 
Blakeway, 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/http://metro.co.uk/2012/04/10/boris-johnson-accused-of-cronyism-as-100000-earners-rocket-383413/>Boris 
Johnson's housing sidekick, that my problems 
would have been solved if businesses gave their 
employees loans for rental deposits in the way 
that they do for season tickets on trains. Of 
course, that would have liberated me from the 
airing cupboard, but it wouldn't have solved the 
present situation. He also suggested that shared 
ownership was the way forward, even though no 
young person I have spoken to finds that an 
attractive option. Fischer said I was a victim of 
a society that is "obsessed with home ownership", 
and that maybe I should accept my lot while 
lining the pockets of the richest in society.
The fact that such a distinguished panel were 
hopelessly out of touch with the reality of 
housing left me deflated. I was expecting to hear 
practical solutions to the housing crisis, and a 
drive to burst the bubble. Instead, excessive 
pandering to landlords and an insistence that my 
experience was anomalous seemed to dominate. But 
the fact remains that my experience is the norm for people my age.
The only person who did speak passionately and 
sensibly about the issue was the designer 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/http://www.theguardian.com/profile/wayne-hemingway>Wayne 
Hemingway. He mentioned the psychological 
benefits of being able to decorate your home, of 
being able to choose your own furnishings, of 
choosing the other people you live with. It was 
the only acknowledgement I heard all night that 
the statistics about my generation had human faces behind them.
Around the time I spent in the cupboard, I went 
to a party in an abandoned mansion that was being 
cleared of its squatter inhabitants. I walked 
along a road I never could have guessed existed, 
comprised of palatial property after palatial 
property, many of which stood empty. Then I went 
back to my home which had been officially 
declared uninhabitable months before, the one 
without heating or a bathroom. The panel debating 
housing would have it that neither those empty 
mansions nor the illegal flat that I lived in 
exist. But I know they do, because I've been there.
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