Building Hope: A Crisis Response to Homelessness

At the end of 2024 London boroughs were spending £4m each and every day on housing families in temporary accommodation—nearly £1.5bn every year. One in 23 of London’s children are growing up homeless, many in substandard converted offices, mouldy privately-rented flats, or overcrowded hotel rooms without private kitchens. Many young adults have spent their entire primary and secondary education living in precarious circumstances, their student rooms now providing the most stable accommodation they can remember.

Aside from the extraordinary financial implications of the worsening housing crisis, the human cost is profound. At a time when public finances are under a greater strain than they have been in generations, scandalous sums of money are cascading into the pockets of private landlords and hoteliers. Inadequate and unsafe housing leads to poor health outcomes, putting a strain on an already overstretched NHS—but the real tragedy is the lives that are diminished, the opportunities thwarted, and the potential of future generations squandered. The homelessness crisis is a national emergency and a stain on our country. We must take bold steps to confront it.

During the COVID 19 pandemic, the country mobilised to build a series of temporary hospitals at speed. The government adopted emergency measures that allowed the bypassing of conventional planning processes so that health needs could be prioritised. The public and private sector came together to quickly design, install and operate the so-called Nightingale Hospitals under emergency amendments to the Town & Country Planning Act which granted specified healthcare bodies permitted development powers to construct or convert buildings for a range of uses including hospitals, mortuaries and testing units, whilst avoiding the need for expensive, time-consuming planning applications. It was a remarkable response.

A similarly ambitious approach is now required to address the housing crisis. The public emergency of substandard temporary accommodation deserves to be treated with the same urgency as the pandemic. In the end the Nightingale Hospitals were not required—the housing emergency is real and present, and has similarly profound long-term implications.

Permitted development rights should be extended to allow the installation of temporary accommodation on vacant plots of land in appropriate locations, with a time limit of no more than five years before permanent development or its return to a pristine state. Naturally, safeguards must be included to ensure that the homes are of a sufficient standard: compliance with Building Regulations to ensure thermal comfort, accessibility and safety; and broad compliance with Nationally Described Space Standards, although perhaps a concession should be made to allow dwellings 85% of the total required area to optimise the use of land.

Homes delivered under this method should have easy access to the public transport network, and so located no more than 800m from a station; also close to local amenities such as high streets and social infrastructure. To avoid large numbers of people in need being placed in areas already suffering from high levels of deprivation, an impact assessment should be carried out to understand how these temporary homes might affect the wellbeing of existing residents. These powers could also include an upper limit on the number of bed spaces within a single location: 250 would seem reasonable. Dimensional parameters should also be established: a similar Class TA Permitted Development Right already allows the Crown to erect certain structures within closed defence sites provided that they are below a height threshold and a sufficient distance from neighbouring homes.

Importantly, the homes should be demountable and capable of being relocated elsewhere with ease. This will ensure that a five-year lifespan is achievable and that the homes are designed and manufactured with appropriate quality and robustness. This would provide a boost to the UK’s beleaguered modular manufacturing industry too.

Consideration should also be given to the siting of new accommodation, with the provision of external amenity space and play equipment ensuring that these temporary developments meet the needs of the children and young people who will live there.

There is no reason whatsoever that the quality of these homes should be in any way compromised: there would be little sense in moving families from precarious lodgings to overcrowded and substandard accommodation elsewhere.

There are thousands of hectares of vacant land that could be temporarily repurposed for this use: surface car parks next to suburban train stations, disused golf courses, council estates awaiting regeneration and brownfield land awaiting permanent development which is delayed due to uncertainty over viability or forming part of a later phase of regeneration.

In the case of the homelessness crisis, it is likely that councils will be the ones applying to themselves for permission, but given the nature of the emergency it cannot be allowed that unnecessary interference from external interests can delay or otherwise frustrate the construction of these dwellings, provided that they meet the pre-determined criteria sketched out above. Limited and specific permitted development rules would help achieve this.

Work already undertaken in this area has demonstrated that it is possible to install temporary homes at between half and two-thirds of the cost of conventional affordable housing, and the relocatable nature of the modules enables the homes to be either repurposed elsewhere as permanent homes or to continue their life providing emergency accommodation for those in need. Councils across the country have already demonstrated how, with the appropriate supply chain and procurement processes in place, public sector temporary housing can be comfortable, safe and cost-effective. We should learn from these lessons and apply them at scale. The potential cost savings to the public purse are also vast: the typical payback for a temporary dwelling can be as little as a year.

We owe it to our fellow citizens who are not adequately housed to provide them with a safe and secure home in which to raise their children. Their needs should take precedence over those who already benefit from a place to live. Time-limited permitted development powers could provide a way.

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