This page was updated in January 2021
And how many people will occupy them?
A map on p.21 of the 5th Studio Report41 shows a series of pie charts representing proposed new houses by region across the Arc (below).
The three segments of each pie chart are shown in pink for current known planned developments (essentially Local Plan houses to the mid 2030s); in blue for houses for what the map legend calls ‘land constrained markets’ (essentially London commuters) and in dark orange/red for the transformational scenario envisaged for the expressway proposals.
The regions shown on the map, for all except Oxfordshire, are not the ceremonial counties but include districts from several different counties. Next to Oxfordshire (shown entirely and correctly) are two regions, one towards the North (Daventry, Northampton, Wellingborough and South Northamptonshire) and one towards the South (Bucks’ Aylesbury Value and Milton Keynes UA; and Beds’ Bedford UA, Central Bedford UA and Luton UA). Finally the region to the right includes Huntingdonshire, South and East Cambridgeshire, North and East Hertfordshire and Stevenage.
In all three regions in the West of the Arc, the transformational houses exceed the other two categories combined. This category plus the ‘London’ commuter’ category vastly exceeds the Local Plan houses across the entire Arc.
These total numbers of new houses represent a 105% increase on current total housing stock in Oxfordshire; a 66% increase in the region that includes parts of Buckinghamshire; a 74% increase in the region including parts of Northamptonshire and an 81% increase in the region including parts of Cambridgeshire (increases in comparison with the house totals for 2017).
The total of all houses across the Arc in this map is 1,021,000, i.e. the transformational plus London commuters scenario identified at the start of the 5th Studio Report.
One curious feature of this map is that the total population in that one million plus homes is given as only 1,915,000 people, an average of 1.9 people per household (pph), far below the current UK average of 2.4 pph, a figure that has stayed the same for at least the last decade.
At the current national average occupancy rate the total increase in population across the Arc by 2050 would be nearer 2.5 million than the Report’s 1.9 million, a difference equal to the entire population of Oxfordshire in 2000. Undoubtedly in the future, as the population ages, and as more, younger people live separately, more single occupancy houses will be needed. But the very high prices of houses in the South are likely to slow the rate at which average household size falls.
Subsequent to the 5th Studio Report in which the above map appeared, the Ox-Cam Arc area was ‘re-defined’ by the Government as the five ceremonial counties of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. It is not clear how the aspirational one million new houses target will be distributed among this redefined Arc area.