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St
Albans is in crisis, with property prices already high - and rising
- there simply isn't enough affordable housing to go round.
However,
one new scheme based near the St Albans hospital hopes to relieve
some of the problems the small but popular city currently experiences.
London
Strategic housing have built 14 new three and four bedroom houses
and have refurbished 61 existing homes all available exclusively
for key workers.
Kerry
Pollard MP for St Albans was on hand to help unveil the new properties
and also took time out of a busy schedule to speak about the housing
situation in his constituency.
What
do you think of this new key Worker housing in St Albans?
This
is fantastic, it's beyond my wildest dreams to be truthful. The
nurses accommodation was here before was really crappy in comparison
to what is available now.
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| The
new houses in Lavender Crescent |
These
new houses are spacious, tailor made and individually designed for
people to live in singly if they wish or commonly as well.
They
have all their own facilities including telephone lines and computer
facilities and they are affordable at around £240 per month
in rent.
This
will still leave the key workers with a good whack of their salary
to live decently and not be scrimping all the time. It will be the
first rung on the ladder for many of them.
What
needs to be done to make sure more key worker accommodation is built?
I think
that for every piece of land that becomes available, whether it
is brown field or allocated green field site, a proportion of key
worker housing must be provided. I think that it is inevitable now
because we have identified that we can't keep our vital key services
running because we can't recruit.
We
can't recruit because of the housing cost. It is only the housing
cost - no more than that. Salaries can't be raised at such a level
to cope, it's nonsensical.
The
average house price in St Albans is now £300K and you would
need to be on a salary of about £65K to be able to afford
to buy somewhere, it's crazy!
What
needs to be done to alleviate the housing crisis for other young
people in St Albans?
We
need to build many more houses, I know there are those people who
say we are trying to concrete over the south east but that is not
the case at all. What we have got to do is to build houses that
people can afford to live in. Ideally build more two up, two down
properties and also terraced houses like people use to live in years
ago.
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| Refurbished
houses in Lavender Crescent |
We
need to move away from the five bedroom, two jacuzzi, four garage
houses that take up loads of land, when on the same space we could
be building three or four modest size houses which then become affordable.
I
meet in the House of Commons every six months for round table discussions
with developers, housing planners and housing professionals. The
message I give constantly and have done for the last five years
is smaller units, pack them in tightly so that people can afford
it.
What
about young professionals who are not key workers but are still
living at home with their parents?
The
average age for first time buyers in St Albans is 33 years old,
five years ago it was 27 years old.
These
people are still living at home up to the age of 33, they have money
to spend because generally they have good careers earning between
£25k and 35K but this is still not enough to get on the first
rung of the ladder.
That
is why it is important to have schemes like this and schemes where
they offer shared equity housing.
I've
got seven children and my youngest son has moved into an Aldwyck
part rented scheme in Harpenden with his partner. It is only a small
two bedroom property but it is their own and they are so proud.
They both have good jobs but don't earn substantial wages and could
not afford anything in St Albans, but they can just about afford
this scheme.
Looking
to the future, surely there will come a time where there's simply
not enough housing for the entire population, what will happen then?
We
will never ever solve the problem totally. It has been tried before
by building houses in the north of the country and trying to encourage
people to move up there. But if the jobs are not in place and vital
bits of the economy are missing then people won't want to move there,
even though their quality of life would be far greater.
My
number four son lives in Newcastle and has just bought a three bedroom
semi detached house for £56K. He has a foreign holiday every
year and he and his partner have a good quality of life and that's
just the due to living in the North East. But if he was still working
here in St Albans he would have to be living at home in my house.
One
of the things that the government are trying to do is move parts
of the civil service away from the South East. This has got to be
a good idea and the way forward and with modern technology for goodness
sake why can't we do that!?
Are
you a nurse, healthcare worker, teacher, train driver, bus driver,
fire fighter, etc? If so, you could be eligible for accomodation
with affordable rent.
| Katy,
St Albans |
Friday,
30-Jul-2004 09:29:20 BST |
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| How
exactly do they become affordable? You could probably build
an estate of sheds in St Albans and they'd go for £100k
each. Well - that's an exaggeration but you know what I mean.
In this area, 'packing them in tightly' doesn't make them affordable.
It doesn't work like that round here. |
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