‘Normal politics won’t stop it’: housing crisis dominates election in Hitchin

The green belt around Hitchin has rarely looked greener. A chlorophyll-friendly cycle of pouring rain and blazing sunshine has left the landscapes of this Hertfordshire-Bedfordshire constituency throbbing with midsummer life.

But these open fields and stands of oak are at the heart of the issue vexing so many voters here in this general election: how to crack the housing crisis.

Hitchin, a mostly rural constituency 35 minutes by rail from central London and newly formed from three previously Conservative seats, is under huge housing pressure. The green belt is being eyed up not just by developers but political parties, too.

Private rents are up 36% since the last general election five years ago, according to Zoopla. House prices are up 13% despite interest rate rises. If Labour and the Conservatives are to meet their respective pledges to build 1.5m and 1.6m new homes in the next parliament, then constituencies such as Hitchin will need to find room.

But already pressures are high. Thousands of people have moved from London since the pandemic pricing out local young people. Many alighted on the historic town of Hitchin, which now has 60 places to buy coffee and, since last September, a branch of the gift and lifestyle store Oliver Bonas – a sure sign that plenty of residents have a healthy disposable income.

Canvassing in one of the town wards this month, Alistair Strathern, the Labour candidate, spoke to seven households in one street who had recently arrived from north-east London – three from the same borough of Waltham Forest.

There’s a Brick Lane Bagel stall and a shop selling puppucinos (that’s cappuccinos for dogs). On the town square, the jewellers Gatwards might have seen sales of £1,000 pieces fall amid the cost of living crisis – but big ticket purchases over £10,000 are up. The owner is having a refurb to install a bar to cater to the high-rollers.

“The local population has to compete with the effect of gentrification caused by people moving here from London,” said Jack Taylor, 31, a charity director who is among the many struggling to buy. “Everyone born in Hitchin or Stevenage is moving farther afield as they just can’t afford it.”

Voters also get frustrated about congested roads, patchy rail services, overwhelmed GPs and stretched schools. A place that was a pressure valve for London’s housing crisis is itself starting to boil over.

In common with much of England, housebuilding has been slowing down in recent decades. In North Hertfordshire district it has almost halved in the 15 years since the global financial crisis. The average waiting time for a three-bed house for social rent in Hitchin is now nearly four years.

The London arrivals have also changed the social mix. Selling paper plates at the outdoor market, John Haykin, a Hitchin resident of 45 years, said the town had “lost a lot of community in the last five to 10 years”.

Music and food festivals in the town have an atmosphere “like a London borough”, said Tom Hardy, 34, the town centre manager.

But as the candidates – Strathern for Labour, Bim Afolami for the Conservatives and Chris Lucas for the Liberal Democrats – canvass in a tight race, few voters trust they have the answer.

Dave, 36, an insurance worker, moved to Hitchin from London so he could afford to buy a £200,000 one-bed flat. Now he wants to move in with his partner and the cost of a two-bed flat here means they must consider moving farther afield again.

“I can’t see any political party getting to grips with the housing crisis,” he said. “It seems to have a force behind it that normal politics won’t be able to stop.”

One answer could be to concrete over more fields. But after decades of identikit estates being built on farmland by volume housebuilders, opposition to “sprawl” is widespread.

On the western boundary of the constituency, North Hertfordshire district council has agreed to remove enough land from the green belt to build 2,100 homes. This Luton overspill will surround a cluster of historic rural villages, woodland, bridleways and hiking paths – what the villagers call their “green lung”.

“Rishi [Sunak] has said [he’ll protect the green belt], [Micheal] Gove has said it, but they don’t do it,” said Dave Harris, a villager. “This is a classic example. This whole process has made me despondent about UK politics.”

If it wins next week, Labour is promising to speed up planning and to take chunks out of the grey belt (environmentally poor green belt). But the mood in Hitchin suggests Keir Starmer would be wise not to ignore the risk of another shires rebellion of the kind that thwarted Boris Johnson’s 2021 attempts to ease planning controls.

On the eastern constituency border, there is disquiet where a 700-home estate is planned at Highover Farm. It will move the boundary of Hitchin town to within a few hundred metres of nearby Letchworth.

“You might as well build a cathedral and call it a city,” said Liz, 63, a nurse who lives next door to the planned estate. She fears the family homes won’t help the young people priced out of Hitchin or those in need of social housing and will be sold to people out of the area.

Trust that new housing developments will be accompanied by better roads, enough schools and GP surgeries is shot.

The Priory school, the town’s 1,200-pupil comprehensive, is already losing three teachers this year who won’t be replaced and some classes have up to 32 pupils, says the headteacher, Geraint Edwards.

Special educational needs provision in the area is under huge pressure. And then there is the constant headache of the service on the rail link to London, with almost a third of trains operated by Govia Thameslink running late.

Labour’s big idea is new towns, which, if delivered, would be the first since the 1970s. The idea has support in Hitchin, not least as Ebenezer Howard’s original 1903 garden city of Letchworth lies just over the constituency border. The policy at least holds out the promise of confined rather than sprawling housebuilding.

But the hard question is where? Asked in between door knocks if he would accept a new town in the constituency, Strathern said only that his party would “come forward with a really sensible framework for engaging communities, not just here, but right across the country, on where the best places for new towns would be”.

Afolami, the Conservative candidate and Treasury minister who held the now defunct Hitchin and Harpenden seat, said voters were right to be “really unhappy with how poorly managed, in terms of local infrastructure, the housing has been”. This was an “indictment of how the council have done things” but he conceded it was also legitimate to “criticise the Conservative government over the last 13 years for not wielding a heavier stick on how councils and developers interact and making sure the infrastructure comes in first”.

New towns, he said, were “obviously a good idea” but “the difficulty is where they go”.

And to complete the noncommittal picture, the Lib Dem candidate, Lucas, was supportive “in principle” but said: “You can’t just magic up a place for new towns.”

No one seems to want to grasp the nettle before polling day.

And even when new houses are built, there are problems. Strathern has been campaigning on the Campton Fields estate, built recently in the north of the constituency. Freeholders have been dismayed at facing a combined £34,000 annual charges from private firms to manage the roads, pavements and play areas because they have not been adopted yet by the council. Weeds sprout from the pavements. It is a bizarre situation that Strathern calls “fleecehold”.

But building is not the only solution. At Letchworth Citizens Advice, a renter named Stuart, 35, could be found pleading for emergency cash for food after falling £3,400 in rent arrears.

His debts were caused by zero-hours contracts in warehouses and manufacturing companies. Employers keep laying him off after a few months so he doesn’t accrue employment rights, leading to periods without wages.

The number of people with housing problems seeking help at the bureau is up 62% on last year. Insecure work is a common issue.

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In this relatively affluent constituency with higher than average levels of employment, wages and higher education, you hear concerns about Labour’s “vindictive” plan to levy VAT on private schools. There are calls for more defence spending than Labour is offering. Sample responses to Starmer include: “not strong enough”, “a good man”, “a nothing person”. It could be close on 4 July.

Taken overall, the mood is one of antipathy towards the Conservatives but only lukewarm enthusiasm for Labour. Whoever wins will find much to do in Hitchin.