Interview: Essex University Professor speaks on housing and the General Election

We spoke to the University of Essex’s Professor John Bartle about housing, renting, and other developments from the 2024 General Election campaign.

Professor John Bartle has extensively researched voting behaviour and General Elections since 1945.

I tell Mr Bartle about the latest statistic based on ONS data, that on the median salary the average renter in Colchester spends 44 per cent of their income on rent.

I also discuss the BBC’s in-depth think piece by Professor Maria Sobolewska about whether renters are the next 'electoral coalition'.

Mr Bartle said that “one of the curious things” about this election was the “relatively low importance of housing in the campaign debate."

He said: “The most important reason is all the solutions to the housing issue are really long term in nature.

“There's no immediate fix, the only solution ultimately to the UK’s housing problems is to build more supply and building more supply takes a lot of time and resources."

Professor - Professor John Bartle from the University of Essex (Image: University of Essex)

Mr Bartle added that Labour was keen to show their “economic competence” when campaigning so have “really downplayed their housing policy” even if they “might be the natural party for renters".

Mr Bartle said it was “very noticeable” that housing did not feature in any of Labour’s six pledges and said that additional commitments such as improving houses’ energy efficiency would have a “marginal benefit”.

He added: “You may be personally very committed to improving the lot of people who are renting, but then it’s the cold hard calculation, which is ‘we can’t campaign on everything.’

Prof Sobolewska said that Colchester is one of the Conservative held seats outside London that has “more than 20 per cent” of private renters - which are now being targeted by Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.

Mr Bartle said that overall centre-left voters, who plan to vote for Labour, are not “biddable” in general elections where issues are “bundled up together”, adding: “There are differences, they are not the same, but they are not sufficiently distinctive from each other to pull away voters from the party they would otherwise vote for."

Demand - Experts at Iceni Projects have revealed Colchester will need to build 1,043 homes per year instead of the previously expected 920 to meet demand (Image: Newsquest)

There are 620,000 more adult children living with their parents than a decade ago according to census data and the average age for a UK adult to a buy a home in 2024 is 36 – four years more than in 2004.

When asked if this widening age range for renters would boost Labour’s numbers for future, Mr Bartle said historically, it is a “good generalisation” that people who are young vote Labour.

Mr Bartle said as a “boring social democrat” that he might he "hate" to say it but there could also be a chance of younger voters being attracted to newer populist parties.

He said: “Those parties for example, will often point to immigrants and say they’re the reason you can’t get a house”.

“At the moment it seems ludicrous to expect young people to respond to these sorts of appeals, but in places like Hungary, France, and in Germany, populist parties that make that nativist and localist pitches are performing much better in elections.”

Perspective - Professor Maria Sobolewska questioned if there was a 'Renter Ruth' type of voter who would be influential in this election (Image: University of Manchester)

Mr Bartle also discussed his time chairing the hustings at the University of Essex where he chose a question about the trade-off in Colchester between the defence of the environment and housing.

Mr Bartle said: “All the candidates ummed and ahhed and recognised and said ‘it’s a very important question, thank you for asking’.

“But in the short run, at least it is very difficult to come to a solution."

Mr Bartle said “beyond fairly bland statements” about making sure landlords rent rooms out that it wasn’t clear to him how the candidates would deal with housing issues.

Mr Bartle said as well as the Wick, that there is the “continual fear” in Lexden about developers building on hilly fields “where it is very expensive with easy access to the A12”.

He also said that it was a matter of calculation for all parties to weigh the interest of the relatively small group of renters “may not coincide” with the interests of the relatively larger group of over 60s who own homes.

Every election calls are made for a new voting system, proportional representation, to replace the current First Past the Post.

Mr Bartle said that this election would be different and said: “The reason why the argument for PR will be because there’ll be a large portion of UK reform voters who are underrepresented.

“I think there'll be a large portion of conservative voters are going to be badly represented for the first time ever if their seat share really goes down as far as people think."

Mr Bartle also revealed he changed his mind about PR voting after the 2005 Election which saw Labour win a modest landslide after receiving 35 per cent of the vote.

Mr Bartle said that the key swing group this election are the former Conservatives voters– a socioeconomic group who are bigger and more complex than journalistic terms such as the Essex Mondeo man or in this election the quietly suggested ‘Renter Ruth’.

Mr Bartle said: “These little vignettes that they have a little bit of truth about them but often they avoid the larger picture.

“Mostly when political parties perform poorly, it's because they've lost support across the board."

To conclude when asked about plans and excitement as a political expert for election night on Thursday Mr Bartle said: “I'm not quite as excited in 1997.

“I was working at the BBC, I was in the blue shirt, sitting behind [David] Dimbleby all night and all day, and that was really exciting”.

Standing in Colchester in the upcoming General Election is James Cracknell (Con), Pam Cox (Lab), Martin Goss (Lib Dem), Terrence Longstaff (Reform UK), James Rolfe (Climate Party) and Sara Ruth (Grn).