This first appeared inn the June 2026 Birdwatching Magazine
A ludicrous percentage of new housing is still being built on floodplains. An even more ridiculous percentage is being built on greenfield sites on the edge of southeast towns and villages. Most are two-story boxes with small rooms, thin walls and poor insulation, that are connected to the worst forms of power generation. In England there is not even the ameliorating factor of a compulsory swift brick.
Of course, we need more homes because there are many people who are in unsuitable or overcrowded houses, couch-surfing or with no shelter at all. The current way of addressing that issue is completely wrong-headed. Bad for people and bad for the planet. Single people, elderly couples and large families find nothing suitable is being built for them at all.
In much of the world, humans are increasingly urban. Cities and towns attract people at the expense of the countryside. But in the majority of those places, virgin land is not being encroached upon because they realise, the obvious, that the only way is up!
The UK experience with high-rise accommodation is poor. 1960s high-rise buildings were badly constructed with little thought given to communal facilities and infrastructure. Just as now, infrastructure is an afterthought at best in most new housing estates. Since then, the disaster of unnecessary and dangerous external cladding has made us turn even further away from obvious solutions.
However, there are much better solutions in some places, and it’s not rocket science. Homes are constructed in a vertical way, but with the notion of community built in. French blocks have concierges. In New York, there are caretakers, and in posh blocks in Toronto, there are both and doormen like classy hotels.
The right size, relatively low-rise building can be built more cheaply and use less materials than individual houses. Having a shared staff member in each pays for itself in lower maintenance costs, lack of vandalism, and the lack of the need for social service interventions. There is no reason why public housing cannot be as good as private buildings. Leaseholders share the cost of communal facilities, staffing or maintenance, and rent can pay for exactly the same.
Combining this strategy with the use of brown field sites and refurbishment of existing properties could put an end to building bad homes in bad places.
It’s starkly obvious that we need a new strategy for dealing with floods. The reintroduction of beavers is only an initial band-aid. Allowing flood meadows to re-flood annually was an agriculture management tool historically, why not again? The UK is the most nature depleted country in Europe. Selfishly, humans need wild places, not just for the sake of wild animals and native plants.
It makes no sense to build on agricultural land, which should be feeding us. We could become much more self-sufficient in food if we grew animal cells in vats and crops and give nature a chance to reclaim some of what we have unnecessarily taken away.
As for tall buildings, even in my corner of Kiss Me Quick hats and Bucket and Spade land, we have a couple of tower blocks, one of which has resident peregrines. Towers do not have to be natural deserts, but could have plant covered balconies and bird feeders. Singapore is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet AND one of the greenest! Urban need not mean desert-like. From China to Italy there are tower blocks with trees and every roof could be a garden! Build up and there’s room for green spaces and urban wildlife too.
