10,100 residents in every square mile of Stamford - Is the town over crowded?

Stamford is already in the clutches of a population crisis that has now started to affect the quality of life of those living in the town.  There are simply not enough homes in Stamford to house the greater number of people wanting to live there.  The burden on public services is almost at breaking point with many parents complaining of being unable to send their child to their first choice of school or unable to register with their preferred dentist or GP.

Well that’s what the papers would say.  But let’s look at real numbers, and in particular my specialist subject of the Rutland and Stamford property market, and today I’m looking at the housing issue in Stamford.

To start with, the UK has roughly 1,065 people per square mile – the second highest in Europe. The total area of Stamford itself is 1.949 square miles and there are 19,700 Stamford residents, meaning …

With 10,100 people live in each square mile of Stamford, it’s no wonder the town appears to be bursting at the seams!

 

… but yet again, newspapers, politicians and property market bloggers quote big numbers to sell more newspapers, get elected or get people to read their blog (I recognise the irony!).  A square mile is enormous, so the numbers look correspondingly large (and headline grabbing).  Most people reading this will know what an ‘acre’ is, but for those readers who don’t, it is an imperial unit of measurement for land and it is approximately 63 metres square.

In Stamford, only 14.40 people live in every acre of Stamford … not as headline grabbing, but a lot closer to home and relative to everyday life, and if I am being honest, a figure that doesn’t seem too bad.

Yet, the issue at hand is simply that we need more homes building.  In 2007, Tony Blair set a target that 240,000 homes a year needed to be built to keep up with the population growth, whilst the Tory’s new target since 2010 was a more modest 200,000 a year.  However, since 2010, as a country, we have only been building between 140,000 and 150,000 houses a year.  So where are we going to build these homes, because we have no space! Or do we?

Well, let me tell you this fascinating piece of information I found out recently in an official Government report.  Looking specifically at England (as it is the most densely populated country of the Union), all the 20 million English homes cover only 1.1% of its land mass. That is not a typo, only 1.1% of land in England is covered by residential property. In more detail, of all the land in the country…

 

·         Residential Houses and Flats 1.1%

·         Gardens 4.3%

·         Shops and Offices 0.7%

·         Highways (Roads and Paths) 2.3%

·         Railways 0.1%

·         Water (Rivers /Reservoirs) 2.6%

·         Industry, Military and other uses 1.4%

·         .. leaving 88.5% as Open Countryside (and if you think about it, add to that the gardens, which are green spaces, and the country is 92.8% greenspace)

 

As a country, we have plenty of space to build more homes for the younger generation and the 5 million more homes needed in the next 20 years would use only 0.25% of the country’s land.

 
Now I am not advocating building massive housing estates and 20-storey concrete and glass apartment blocks next to local beauty spots such as Burghley Park or nearby Rutland Water, but with some clever planning and ‘joined up thinking’, we really do need to think outside the box when it comes to how we are going to build and house our children and our children’s children in the coming 50 years in Stamford.

For advice on buying, selling, renting and managing your homes and property investments please call UPP Property Agents on 01572 725 825 or email david@upp-property.co.uk