Housing in York, A letter to York Council, 12 February 2025

Councillor,

Young people cannot afford to buy homes.

In England, the average house costs over eight times the average salary but, in the 1970’s, it was three and a half times. Now, young people cannot afford to buy homes.

In York, the Council have some affordable homes which are “an option for people who can’t afford to rent or buy a property on the open market”. Typical prices for these “range from £70,000 for a 1-bed flat to £125,000 for a 4-bed house, but prices can vary for individual sites.”

Today in York, houses for sale start at £115,000 for a 1-bed flat [1] and £450,000 for a 3-bed house. So “affordable homes” are significantly cheaper. However, these can only be bought by eligible buyers. To be eligible you must be poor but not too poor [2]. There are restrictions on the resale of afforable homes. They must be:

• sold at the same discount percentage at which they were bought
• sold to someone who is unable to afford a home on the open market.

Although obviously helpful to some who qualify, these restriction bring a worry to home owenership. On resale, there will be less potential buyers, which raise a fear of difficulties when affordable home owners want to move on.

Opportuntities for York to supply enough afforable homes are currently limited by planning rules and the pattern of land ownership. Many more homes that are affordable are needed. If these were available, it would remove the requirement for the “poor but not too poor” test and the off-putting restrictions on resale.

Housing in York and London

In 2019, the York Local Plan had planned for an average of 790 new dwellings per year to be built up to the year 2038. This was based on a consultant’s report to estimate housing needs based on expected natural population growth. This assessment did not fully take into account migration from the South East.

York is an attractive place to live. For over a decade there have been surveys concluding that York is “ranked amongst the best cities in the UK in which to live and work“. Hence, York House Prices are 45% higher than those of those in its region, Yorkshire and the Humber. Yorkmix has reported a conclusion by CV Library: “When it comes to the north of England, nowhere is happier than York.”

Because York is attractive, it is a destination for those who leave places with even higher house prices. Prices in Camden, North London are two and a half times those in York. While many may be happy in London, selling up in Camden to move to York releases hundreds of thousands of pounds of housing equity.

A report by Ove Arup in 2013 recognised that incomers from London and the South East will move to York because of lower house prices and “the city may become more attractive for high skill groups, perhaps relocating from the higher house price areas of London and the South East.”

London has not got space to build enough new homes to affect the price of housing. It is much, much denser than the area surrounding York [3], where there is room for several hundreds of thousands of new homes.

New housing, cars and climate change

The website carbon.place shows how the afffluent outer suburbs of York, such as Copmanthorpe and Bishopthorpe, have very large carbon emissions. These are many times the emissions per person in the middle of York.

A characteristic of outer suburbs is high car ownership. Car ownership generates high carbon emissions. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has concluded:

“In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation.”

The Committee noted that a switch to electric vehicles did not solve the problem because of the emissions making them and sourcing necessary minerals. They looked to a reduction in car ownership.

This should mean planning for neighbourhoods with low car ownership – or even car free. Such neighbourhoods will need local services, such as shops, cafes, doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries, good public trasport, walkways and cycleways. Car free housing makes these services viable through local demand – a high car ownership means shops and other local services disapear. Car free neighbourhoods could also reclaim streets as the pleasant neighbourhood spaces that they once were.

New car free housing would bring a two tier housing market. This has one (temporary) advantage. Building many new car free neighbourhoods would not cause a substantiall fall in the value of existing houses, which would not loose the rights to park their cars. Car free housing would have houses that were much less expensive because people with cars would not bid for them.

These ideas are included in my suggestions in A car free plan for Greater York. This is a plan to bring an extra million residents to the area within 20 kilometres of the centre of York.

Do look.

Notes

[1] Ignoring “retirement properties” and “shared ownership”.

[2] Eligible buyers must beable to show that:

• you cannot afford to buy a house at the full market price
• you can get a mortgage
• you have sufficient savings for a deposit and legal fees

You will not be considered if:

• you can afford to purchase on the open market
• your annual income is under £15,000 (unless you have substantial savings)
• you have a bad credit history

[3] See A note for the Lyons Housing Review, May 2014

The population density of the London Region is 51.1 persons/ hectare.

In Yorkshre and the Humber it is 3.5 people/hectare