Britain Confronts Not-in-My-Backyard Attitude

Some people in Westcott fear Jill Flower’s 16th-century home will be damaged by passing construction vehicles.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

WESTCOTT, England — When Taylor Wimpey, one of the largest residential construction companies in Britain, proposed building 34 homes in an empty field in Westcott, 30 miles southwest of London, it was doing just what Britain’s leaders were calling for: attempting to alleviate a severe housing shortage, which politicians consider a key factor in the country’s soaring real estate costs.

But nearly five years after Taylor Wimpey sought permission, there are still no houses in the Westcott field.

The local planning authority refused the initial 34-house proposal, raising a welter of concerns — including calls for the installation of sensitive external lighting so as to not disturb the nocturnal activities of bats. There was also a requirement for an exploratory dig to ensure that a ditch was not, as some believed it might be, a repository for medieval treasures.

And in the years since Taylor Wimpey first unrolled its blueprints, Britain’s housing crisis has grown worse.

George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, recently said that the shortage was pushing home prices higher — up more than 25 percent in the past year in London and 12 percent in Britain overall, data show. That, he said, was causing too many people to take on too much debt and posing perhaps the greatest threat to the country’s strong economic recovery.

But the local government in Westcott, like many around England, sees its own set of threats.

These include concerns about increased traffic, among the primary reasons for the refusal. The narrow country lane leading to the Taylor Wimpey site bypasses a 16th-century home that has Grade II status, meaning it is considered to be of historic importance. Because the house has no foundations, there was fear it could be damaged by construction trucks rumbling past.

Local residents and other concerned parties also expressed worries — documented in 187 letters — about potential flooding, as well as the aesthetic impact of the development. Natural England, a government advisory group, has named the locale an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, worthy of preservation.

Others voiced concern about the safety of badgers, reptiles and other wildlife, and even the potential loss of a venerable chicken coop.

The impulse to resist development is by no means unique to the English countryside, of course. But national politicians, construction industry executives and people searching for homes to buy say local concerns and traditions play outsize roles in Britain’s dearth of new and affordable dwellings.

“There is a severe housing shortage in this country, and the primary culprit over the long term has been our very restrictive planning system,” said John Stewart, director of economic affairs for the Home Builders Federation, a lobbying group.

But Alex Segal, a retired lawyer who was chairman of the Westcott Meadow Action Group, formed to object to Taylor Wimpey’s plan, said there would be too steep a cost if development were allowed to run rampant.

“This is a tiny country with an ever-growing population, and if you are going to accommodate that population in the most desirable areas, you have to be honest and say that it is the end of England’s green and pleasant land,” he said, sitting in his manicured garden up the road from the proposed development site.

To finance the action group’s campaign, it raised £75,000, or $129,000, through village fairs and garden tea parties. For an event last New Year’s Eve, they hired an Elvis impersonator.

Activists and homeowners say they fear that the development push by the government of Prime Minister David Cameron will contribute to the destruction of so-called greenbelts — vast and verdant swaths around cities and in the countryside that together encompass 13 percent of England’s land, according to the Campaign to Protect Rural England, an advocacy group.

About 113,000 new homes were built in England last year, only about half or even less than the number that housing experts say is needed. Before the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, the annual peak was around 170,000 new homes.

The credit crunch played a role in slowing development, though the national government has tried to resolve that with incentive programs for banks to step up their lending to middle-income home buyers. The government also has issued reams of policies intended to streamline planning.

But local councils are naturally inclined to protect cherished green spaces and maintain the centuries-old flavor of thousands of distinct villages. So while the central government chides the councils as being out of touch — Mr. Cameron has referred to planning officials as the “enemies of enterprise” — the councils counter that to decimate those protections would threaten the lush lands they consider one of England’s greatest assets.

“I am hissingly angry that the government has an idea that the planning system is the problem,” said Valerie Paynter, founder of Save Hove, a group that campaigns for affordable housing in the coastal cities of Brighton and Hove.

Sensible planning, Ms. Paynter said, is what “is keeping this densely populated country sane.”

The stratospheric rise in London home prices has prompted politicians including Mr. Osborne and Mr. Cameron, as well as Mark J. Carney, the central bank governor, to wonder if there might be a housing bubble in the making – and if so, what should be done about it.

Hoping to deflate a potential housing bubble, the Bank of England recently put a cap on lenders, saying that no more than 15 percent of their loan portfolios can consist of mortgages in which borrowers are lent amounts that exceed 4.5 times their income. Mr. Osborne also said he would free up brownfield sites — old industrial and commercial properties — for development.

Despite those policy pronouncements, the obstacles to building new homes remain significant, according to architects, home builders and developers in communities close to London.

In many spots, including the high-demand areas of southeastern England, there are a large number of rules and regulations, including the Code for Sustainable Homes, issued by the central government and adopted by certain local councils for environmentally sustainable homes. This includes measures to increase energy efficiency and to limit water usage.

But meeting the targets can often mean installing clotheslines, even if the homes have tumble dryers, and building storage areas for bicycles, even if the residents do not own bikes or even like to cycle.

The construction site in Westcott, England, where 14 homes will be built. Developers wanted to build 34 homes, but local concerns about traffic and animal habitat led to a smaller project.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Paul Jordan, a managing director at Crowzon Builders in Surrey, southwest of London, cited other novel requirements in the code, including building habitat boxes for bugs, bats and birds.

“It seems to be applying a sledgehammer to crack a small nut,” Mr. Jordan said, noting that the same requirements are applied for either a single home or a large development.

Chris Townsend, leader of the Mole Valley District Council, which oversees the Westcott area, said the council was “committed to improving the quality of the built environment while preserving the character and integrity of our towns and villages and protecting the rural landscape.”

In 2012, Mr. Cameron’s coalition government issued the National Planning Policy Framework to try simplifying the labyrinthine planning process. Local councils are under increased pressure to identify how much housing their communities will need over a five-year period, and how that demand will be met. Where there is a deficit, appeal decisions are increasingly handed down in favor of development, says Paul Burgess, director of Lewis & Co Planning.

Some critics say the political imperative to develop houses to fuel economic growth will render the planning process moot. “That is a great concern to anyone trying to protect the greenbelt or the countryside,” said Kristina Kenworthy, director of the Cherkley Campaign, a group that has fought a plan to turn Cherkley Court, a home in Surrey formerly owned by the press baron Lord Beaverbrook, into a luxury complex with a golf course.

The local council granted permission for the luxury project, but a court found the decision unlawful. An appeals court then upheld the local council’s decision. The Cherkley Campaign has now appealed to the Supreme Court.

Back in Westcott, Taylor Wimpey did finally win approval in 2012 for a scaled-down development of 14 houses in Westcott — four of which would be deemed “affordable,” another requirement to address the out-of-reach nature of England’s house prices for many people.

The Westcott Meadow Action Group contested that pared-down development, too. But Taylor Wimpey won, again, in July 2013. Since then, the developer has been working to meet 13 preconditions, including having extensive discussions about the “palette of materials” to be used and the creation of bird nesting boxes.

Jill Flower, who lives in the 16th-century house at the foot of the drive where the development will take place, has erected concrete barriers, hoping to guard against the vibrations of trucks bringing in materials.

Sitting in her garden, with doves cooing and abundant flowers in bloom, she reflected on what lay ahead. “We came here for a quiet rural environment, and slowly this is being eaten away and turned into a suburb of Dorking,” Ms. Flower said, referring to the closest town, about a half-mile away.

Just down the road from her garden, a demolition company was on hand to clear up possible asbestos from the renovations of other houses that were once part of Ms. Flower’s property — and to remove the chicken coop, which belonged to a local resident.

“We have to move it without damaging it,” the site contractor said of the coop. “Apparently it has sentimental value.”