Are new builds the slums of the future?

HE may be better known for his clothing design under the Red or Dead label, but for the past few years Wayne Hemingway has been turning his brain to a bigger problem - the state of the nation's housing.

It may not seem as glamorous as the glitzy world of fashion, but Wayne is adamant that his new vocation is just as important - and as sexy - as shirts and shoes.

He says: "As you get older other things interest you. I think I'd have been a bit disappointed in myself as a creative person if, as I was approaching 40, the thing that rocked my world was frocks and blouses.

"I think if you've got a creative mind there's all sorts of things you want to improve, that's the way your mind works."

Wayne, who used his company's website as a sounding-off board for his campaigns, has previously compared British housing estates to prisons - adding that at least prisoners are provided with facilities to allow them to get outside and move around.

Many homeowners, on the other hand, have only a "10 metre walk from car to their front door" for exercise, something which Wayne believes is a major cause of the obesity epidemic currently striking Britain.

The designer, who was brought up in Blackburn, espoused his theories at the Our Homes, Our Future - Creating the Vision conference, recently held at the Reebok Stadium.

At the conference for housing professionals including local authorities, developers and consultants discussed the future of housing and sustainable development in the North-west, incorporating elements such as sustainable communities, design, regeneration and affordability.

After the conference, Councillor Akhtar Zaman, executive member for regeneration at Bolton Council said: "Housing cannot operate in isolation and is one of many interlinked services that impact on communities and individuals' lives. This conference has allowed housing professionals across the North-west to share ideas about how we can shape the places in which we live and work in the future."

Wayne believes that without serious thought about the state of our housing, communities will collapse and Britain will find itself in a huge mess.

Talking about his speech before he took to the podium, Wayne said: "A lot of it is about how housing, and the places that we grow up and we live, have a lasting impact on your life, so it's about time we as a nation start to do a better job.

"We are the housing pariahs of Europe, without a doubt."

That comment is the one which has grabbed headlines, but Wayne believes that we are creating the slums of the future, and that he has a valid argument to back it up.

He says: "There have been a lot of reports over the past few years showing that up to 30 per cent of housing that gets planning permission actually shouldn't have done.

"When you travel internationally you see that it's not only about the housing it's also about the places: the public transport, places for children to play, places for adults to socialise - we're rubbish at it.

"I think if we don't change we will get social disintegration - it's quite a hard-hitting message.

"The country's doing a lot better in terms of health and education, but the housing situation is getting worse - we're building worse houses. We wouldn't still get education in Victorian schools or be treated in Victorian hospitals, but we prefer to live in Victorian houses because they're better. People often prefer to live on an old Victorian street than live in a new-build house."

Wayne also believes that private spaces, gardens, and a sense of pride in ownership are far more important to homebuyers than a new kitchen or a fancy bathroom. And he believes that it is time the country's leaders acted to prevent Britain's housing sliding further into mediocrity.

He says: "The Government, local authorities, housebuilders and all other partners must work together to create places for communities, where people can feel that they belong.

"The main thing is that we can't expect the housebuilder to do it all because they're public limited companies and their job is to deliver. People all blame the housebuilders, but it's not just them."

The solution, he believes, lies in adopting a more European attitude towards our planning departments.

"The job of the planning system is to ensure that housebuilders deliver something decent, and I think the planning system has failed miserably for a number of reasons.

"Firstly, it's under-resourced, secondly there is a lack of people actually seeing planning as a great career. And it is a great career - you have a massive influence on people's lives.

"If you ask young people what they want to be, they'd choose to be a designer even though in the process the planner has more power than the designer.

"In Europe, to go into planning is seen as something quite heroic - you're well paid, you're an important part of society - it's a sexy thing to do. That's one of the major things we have to change, we have to get creative people into planning."