_Coming home: reflections on the Archbishops Commission’s report

Above: Charles Dugdale

An affordability crisis

I had the privilege of being involved with the report behind the scenes and working with the Commissioners appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. It was a truly enlightening experience in many ways and refreshing to see intelligent people take a genuinely ‘first principles’ look at the housing crisis without any agenda other than to be a force for good.

The Commissioners drew a conclusion that I share, which is that we need to redefine the housing crisis. It is not simply about the number of homes available, but moreover about the affordability of those homes. Be in no doubt what the problem is – an affordability crisis.

It is only once this is redefined that we realise that the Government’s response to the crisis is potentially misdirected. Almost all of the Government’s current housebuilding initiatives seek to unblock the construction of new homes with the expectation that – as in other free markets – additional supply will reduce prices.

This doesn’t work because housebuilders build to demand. If there is lower demand they simply slow the pace of delivery. Under their own volition they will not build more than they can sell and, unsurprisingly, they have got very good at building at a pace that sustains pricing. To insist that housebuilders oversupply a market would be akin to asking a company to sacrifice profit, which would be unacceptable to shareholders.

Acknowledging that the affordability crisis doesn’t (yet) justify unpicking the fundamental driver of capitalism – the profit motive – the Archbishops’ Commissioners realised that the Church has a responsibility to step up to the challenge of providing genuinely affordable housing. As a major landowner of approximately 200,000, acres, the Church has the footprint to make a difference and to set an example.

The ‘Coming Home’ report recognises that the Church has a responsibility in its own mission, its values and perhaps (most powerfully) in the ethic of stewardship:

“The earth needs to be protected not just to leave a legacy to our children, but because it is good and it is not ours – it is held in trust. This is a fundamental pillar of a Christian understanding of land and the houses built on that land – that in the deepest sense they are not ours but God’s, and we have been given the responsibility to care for them.

As a result, housing must pay attention to the protection and sustainability of the earth, so that the built environment is in harmony with the natural environment.

We need to think of ourselves as stewards, not rulers of the natural world and of the properties we own or let out for rent. Housing policy needs to work with the grain of creation, to safeguard and not do violence to the earth that remains God’s, yet which he has given to us as our home.”

Above: Charles Dugdale discussing stewardship principles at Welborne Garden Village

Stewardship

The ethic of stewardship is taking care of something, and the public sector has the job to take care of society. In this sense, the challenge that ‘Coming Home’ sets the Church is also aimed squarely at the public sector. When we realise the public sector’s responsibility to effect change and address the affordability crisis, it becomes all the more surprising that this point is being lost in the political narrative.

Charlie Arbuthnot, the Chair of the Commissioners, wrote a moving and compelling epilogue from the future, reflecting on all the positive change that occurred over the twenty years that followed 2021: “This change was triggered by a number of major pieces of work, written at much the same time, that drew our attention to principles of stewardship, of building communities rather than simply units of housing, of making ’affordable’ mean ’affordable’. Indeed, it is puzzling now to think that the need for stewardship and community was ever contested as the economic and environmental benefits of healthy communities and good building practices are now so well documented.”

This was Charlie’s way of saying that this is not the first time people have spoken up and clearly laid out exactly what needs to happen in order to solve the current crisis.

He is of course referring, amongst other things, to the Government’s own Commission on the matter – the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission – which recommended that a stewardship delivery model should be unlocked across the public and private sectors. Rarely has so much time and thinking gone into a recommendation, and yet it has, to date, been deprioritised in favour of planning reform.

Social value and viability

‘Coming Home’ concludes that it is probably not possible to address the affordability crisis without some sacrifice. It is not possible to give or share without some personal loss, and so it is for those with a mission – the Church and the public sector – to establish the legislative framework to allow for some sacrifice

It asks that “All public land should be used to maximise its long-term social, environmental and economic value, not simply be sold for the highest price. Each acre that contributes its potential social value reduces the need for public subsidy to create much needed affordable homes.”

In its simplest interpretation, this sounds very much like a sacrifice that demands a reform of Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 so that the public sector can lawfully justify disposals at an undervalue beyond the existing cap of £2 million relating to social, environmental and economic value. Whilst this amount feels disproportionate to any large-scale development, the Coming Home report makes the very important distinction between value and social value.

We can now assess social value in ways that we couldn’t have contemplated only a few years ago. New international accountancy principles have emerged that allow us all to assess social value and provides a mechanism to completely rethink how we assess ‘best consideration’.

This opens up all kinds of questions about the roles and responsibilities of the public sector and its ability to further enhance its potential as a force for good in all aspects – not least addressing the affordability crisis. Incorporating social value in a viability context could help solve this.

And it is quite right that it should. After all, viability derives from the French ‘vie’ or Latin ‘vita’ meaning life, and so viable can be defined as ‘capable of life’, or ‘able to exist’. This gives it an existential component that is often forgotten about. An assessment of viability should therefore appraise the societal benefit, or social value.

Imagine what a viability assessment on public sector owned land might look like if it attributed a social value to every component. Would an ‘affordable’ dwelling be ascribed a greater value than a ‘private’ dwelling?

Kitemark

‘Coming Home’, as its title suggests, seeks to discover what it means to have a home. The report defines a home as “a place that enables us to live in harmony with the natural environment; it is a place we feel safe and secure; it enables us to put down roots and feel we belong to a particular location and a wider community; home is a place that brings pleasure, a place to which we delight in coming home.”

This is a complex equation and cannot be realised through the numbers game that is currently being played. Creating homes has many facets; the ‘Coming Home’ report suggests that these facets can be realised through compliance with the ‘Kitemark’, which is being developed by the Stewardship Initiative.

The Kitemark is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It can be reshaped to reflect the specific values of a company, or landowner, local government, or for a specific project. Whether you want to call it a Kitemark or a Charter does not matter; it is a set of measurable standards that an entity can hold itself accountable to.

An example of this can be found in Appendix 2 of ‘Coming Home’ where you will find a draft Charter for good development under five headings: Sustainable, Safe, Stable, Sociable and Satisfying.

Conclusion

‘Coming Home’ took a first principles look at the housing crisis and made some sensible and logical conclusions.  It realised that we will solve nothing by building the wrong homes in the wrong places.

Landowners need to think of themselves as stewards and make long-term plans that include delivering truly affordable homes. This will be made all the easier if the landscape presented by the public sector is one that embraces social value and associated accounting principles.

The name ‘Coming Home’ also evokes returning to ‘Home Sweet Home’ and encourages us all to humanise housing delivery and approach it with a sense of emotion.  This is a gentle reminder of the nuances and complexities involved in creating homes and ‘Coming Home’ points to the Stewardship Kitemark as a potential means to address this challenge.

This article first appeared in The ACES Terrier magazine and is reproduced with permission.

Charles Dugdale Head of Development Partnerships at the global property consultancy Knight Frank. He specialises in the delivery of large-scale development projects across the UK with a particular emphasis on long-term value creation and community value. His overarching ambition is to get Britain building homes that people are proud to live in.