Flawed logic

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“…the district’s Development Requirements Study (Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners, 2011). This provided a range of scenarios for future development in the area. It found that, in order to increase the labour supply and to support new job creation in the district, a significant level of new housing was required (15,600 to support the creation of 6,500 new jobs), and that an additional 96,775sqm of employment floor space would be required to meet the anticipated needs of businesses through the Plan period.” [Draft Local Plan 3.26]

We think this is fundamentally flawed. The Council is assuming that if it builds lots of houses, employers will move to be near them and the new population. If employers really did move to be near pools of unemployed people, there would be no areas struggling with high and long-term unemployment.

In addition, let’s look at the calculation here: 15,600 new homes, each of them being multi-bedroomed and so having more than one person; just 6,500 wishful new jobs; that’s just four jobs for every ten homes. On that basis, what we would be creating here with this housing explosion is massive unemployment.