Growth Versus Green

Building the Models for a Balanced Britain

At the same time the UK’s countryside, so necessary as the demand for home grown produce and biofuel intensifies, will continue to be swallowed up by construction of the extra housing required

Britain is already densely populated by international standards, with 430 people per square kilometre, nearly double Germany's population density (227 people per square kilometre) and more than triple that of France (117 people per square kilometre). The challenge is even more pronounced in London, which is 18 times more crowded than the rest of the UK. This highlights an urgent need to decentralise and encourage population movement away from the capital. However, as London remains the financial hub of the country, establishing fast and reliable transport links to and from the city is crucial to ensure decentralisation minimises disruption while maintaining economic connectivity.

The social impact of overcrowding, particularly in London, disproportionately affects young people. A study commissioned by the National Housing Federation (NHF) reveals that 3.6 million people live in overcrowded homes, 2.5 million cannot afford their housing, another 2.5 million are forced to live with parents or relatives against their wishes, and nearly 1.4 million reside in substandard conditions. The report concludes that the lives of one in eight people in England are now negatively impacted by years of skyrocketing housing prices and missed building targets.

Even the new government’s housing targets, according to the Journal of Housing Economics as far back as July 2019, will barely scratch the surface of our housing crisis. Projections from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) indicate that one home would need to be built every six minutes, around the clock, just to keep pace with current levels of net immigration to England. 

It is worth reflecting that in 2019, the housing crisis was a looming shadow; in 2026, it is a structural ceiling on our national growth. We are no longer just fighting for affordability, but for the basic physical space required to sustain a modern workforce.  The pandemic-era hope that remote work would naturally level up the country by allowing workers to flee the capital has met a complicated reality. By 2026, we see a stark hybrid divide, while over 40% of the UK workforce now operates in a remote or hybrid capacity, this is heavily concentrated in high-income, knowledge-based sectors. For many, this has not led to a move to the countryside, but rather a shift to super-commuting from the outer suburbs, keeping the economic pressure firmly locked within the London orbit while doing little to ease the housing demand in provincial hubs.

So, the challenge is to meet the desire for a global, expanding economy, with free movement of labour, while maintaining our commitment to be carbon zero by 2050. The impact of this is going to be huge and many, large sacrifices are going to have to be made. There are arguments to slash net immigration to ease the pressure on housing and other infrastructure but even this would still require new infrastructure to ease the social and environmental pressures on our capital and encourage investment in our provincial cities.

This is too big a topic for one blog and so, I hope to explore the options moving forward. One thing I do know is that environmental calculations, like all statistics, are not always as they seem and that sometimes a short term carbon hit can prove hugely beneficial in the longer term, not only for the environment but also to ease the social impact of overcrowding. The UK is far too London centric but making it less so requires investment in our transport network and that will come at a short to medium term cost, both financial and environmental. 

What we must do is build robust models, around a commonly agreed standard, that can accurately and credibly predict the longer-term impacts both positive and negative.