'Nimbys' or 'Yimbys?' Building a consensus on new homes

Of course the cricket club, which has played at its current ground since 1866, was there long before the new housing estate that now overlooks it. That didn’t stop the good people of Greener Drive complaining about the noise of leather ball on willow bat, as they are entitled to do.

It’s just one example where residents, often living on newish housing estates, are coming into conflict with existing uses or functions, whether they be cricket fields, abattoirs, race car circuits or airfields.

Earlier this year Prime Minister Theresa May gave her backing to radical plans to build up to 300,000 new homes a year in order to solve the UK’s housing crisis.

The move by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid brought with it a threat that town halls could be forced to build more homes or have targets imposed on them. It also opened up the prospect of more disputes of the kind regularly reported on by The Northern Echo.

“The presumption in the planning system is now always in favour of the developer and that makes it difficult if we want to control where housing in particular is going to go,” says Sue Jeffrey, the leader of Redcar and Cleveland Council.

“It is the responsibility of the council to try and ensure there is a balance in the decisions they make between the enjoyment of existing residents and the needs of others. That is what makes many decisions so difficult at the end of the day.

“Nobody likes noise or disruption next to their home and we always do our best to ensure that doesn’t happen. The planning system is there to take people’s views into account so that the best decisions can be made. However there will always be tension between the existing and the new as places become more popular and require more housing.”

County Councillor Carl Les, the leader of North Yorkshire County Council, says that with the country growing in size there are more applications coming forward for housing, while at the same time businesses want to carry on developing as well.

“One of the problems developers have is that they can only build on land that they are able to buy,” he says.

“The design of newer estates has improved greatly in recent years, but I do wonder why there isn’t more screening between new developments and existing developments. They could be a bit more creative about where they put landscaping and open space.”

Cllr Les says he does not believe that people are becoming more naturally inclined to Nimbyism in our towns and cities.

But he says perhaps they have just become much more savvy about what is going on around them in terms of campaigns that have been successfully mounted against developments or changes of use, particularly in these days of social media.

One man who knows a lot about controversial planning applications is planning consultant Steve Hesmondhalgh, whose company bought an abattoir in Boosbeck, east Cleveland, which had been bitterly complained about by local residents because of the smell.

“A lot of people complained very vociferously about the abattoir and when we put in a planning application to knock it down and build houses they then objected to the planning application and said they’d rather have an abattoir.

“You cannot win with some people.

“You can talk about the Nimby approach, but there is now a bit of a growing movement for ‘Yimbys’, which is ‘Yes in my back yard’ and people recognising the greater good of developments, rather than resisting for the sake of it.”

He says it is inevitable that an increasing requirement for housing land means building on sites that might otherwise have not been suitable in years gone by.

“When somebody buys a property they should be aware of what’s going on around them. If things are already there and have been operating for many years and a housing scheme is approved nearby then it is ‘buyer aware’,” he says.

“I don’t have much sympathy, it is unreasonable for people in those instances to then come along and start complaining.”