Dear NIMBY,

I know that name, NIMBY, starts us off on the wrong foot, but I promise that I want to talk to you not as a political opponent but as a fellow citizen — maybe even as a future neighbour.

I understand that you have solid reasons for why you object to new development; why you push back against housing targets; why the council granting planning permission sends you running to judicial review. I get that your scenic views, local walks and amenities such as parking might be affected if those houses went up, if that reservoir were built or if your station car park were given over for flats. There are generally downsides to these decisions, and the current system leaves those downsides to be felt most acutely by those who already live in the local area. I can acknowledge all of that.

In return, I need you to acknowledge what life is like outside your front door. Demographically, you’re now probably at least into your fifties. It’s likely that you own your home; you might even have paid off your mortgage. You were born when that was an achievable goal, even the norm, for millions of people. Yes, you had to work hard, but you’re now living in shady suburbia or a verdant village, owning a valuable asset that confers security and wealth upon you and your family. It’s easy for you not to realise — or turn a blind eye to — the fact that this deal no longer exists.

For us, the generations after you, the chance of homeownership has been slipping out of reach for decades. Since 1995, prices have risen from three times average earnings, to almost seven times, and up to ten times in London. In other words, they are completely unaffordable. Now, the average Londoner who rents can expect to give over 40 per cent of their income to their landlord — and that 40 per cent is rising. For many, simply finding a place to live is close to becoming an impossibility. The thought of buying somewhere in London is fantastical.

Homeowners exercise disproportionate political power

These are symptoms of a chronic housing shortage. Whilst the housing market is complicated, it’s important that you understand: the housing crisis is not. There are too few homes in this country for the number of people who want to live in them. It’s that simple. For decades we haven’t built close to enough new places for people to live in. Housing has become increasingly scarce, and that has pushed up prices. Other factors, like interest rates, affect the headline figures but not the underlying economics. The only way to fix this is to build more — at least 300,000 per year. Until we build on this kind of scale, things will keep getting worse.

The shortage I describe, I’m sad to say, has been enabled, encouraged and often engendered by NIMBYs. The political economy of the UK is such that homeowners, who have the majority of wealth, also exercise disproportionate political power — at national and local levels. Add to that our focus on a planning process that makes little effort to ensure that development is win-win, and you have the makings of a generational crisis.

I think you’ll recognise that local councils are inevitably focused on the people who already live in their areas, and that they will be most influenced by those that engage most and shout loudest. Homeowners are older and tied to one location: they’re much more eager not only to show up at the ballot box but to engage in local planning issues. The consequence of this imbalance is that in areas where thousands pay extortionate rents for substandard accommodation (but know they can never afford to buy there), councillors are politically incentivised to slow down and disrupt large new housing projects, for fear of being punished at the ballot box. They give effective powers of veto to the most NIMBY members of the local population at the expense of everybody else. As that pattern is replicated from one local authority to the next, the chances of younger people finding homes slips ever further away.

So, dear NIMBY, next time you object to a local housing scheme, can you do just one thing — for the younger generations that follow you? Can you pause for a few minutes and take the time to consider the wider consequence of your objection? Can you reflect on the fact that whilst your back yard may be preserved — free from losing a field or from gaining few more people in your local shops and on your train station platform — you will have contributed to a nationwide crisis. 

Above all, can you consider saying positively what you would support, rather than just objecting to everything? Your objection will have melded with those of homeowners in neighbouring areas and beyond, and together they will add to the already insurmountable barrier to development that exists in this country. Who stands on the other side of that barrier? People just like you, but younger and less affluent. People who are unhoused or struggling to find a place, struggling to pay sky-high rents, struggling to imagine that they may ever afford a home of their own.

I understand why people fear development

Before I go, let me just add that the same impulses driving the housing crisis also contribute to the dire state of infrastructure in this country. Coming out of a period of intense drought — where areas of the country nearly ran out of water — we’re moving straight into an energy crisis which will lead to untold suffering this winter. In the background our public transport infrastructure crumbles. Here, too, I would ask NIMBYs to take a look more thoughtfully at the consequences of their actions. Critical projects have been derailed, from onshore wind and nuclear power, to HS2 and even wind turbines planned to be built in the North Sea. Local opposition has held back investments that we desperately need to keep the country functioning. In each case we hear similar refrains: we agree in principle but this project is wrong; we should build it but not here; and so on. When this happens in every location, nothing gets built.

Let me go back to where I started: I understand why people fear development. I’ll admit that when I hear construction work from my flat, even I feel a faint NIMBY reflex. That is why the power of NIMBYism is so great, because it is rooted in an understandable, human urge to protect what we have. This instinct is, in itself, a good one. That does not mean there is no work to do in reconciling this need with others that stand in tension with it. I do hope that when you next see a local planning application, and you feel a letter of outright objection rising within you, you will stop and think about the bleak national housing picture of which your objection forms a part. What would persuade you to support building homes for your children or younger family and friends? What sort of Britain do you want to leave for them? What sort of future would you like them to have — one with a secure home as you have enjoyed, or more of what we have now?

Yours,
Freddie