An Evidence Base to support Cobalt Housing's Growth Strategy University of Liverpool March 2019 Professor Alex Lord, Professor Peter Batey, Mr Malachy Buck, Dr Fran Darlington-Pollock, Dr Sebastian Dembski, Dr Richard Dunning, Dr Thomas Moore, Professor Alex Singleton and Dr John Sturzaker AN EVIDENCE BASE TO SUPPORT THE COBALT GROWTH STRATEGY About the Centre for Sustainable and About the Authors Resilient Cities Professor Alexander Lord is the Lever Chair of Town The Centre for Sustainable and Resilient Cities (SaRC) and Regional Planning in the Department of Geography brings together academics from across the University of and Planning at the University of Liverpool. He works on Liverpool to work collaboratively on the global challenge the economic effects of urban and environmental planning to make our cities more sustainable and resilient, in the and has conducted research for a wide range of funders face of climate change, resource depletion, population including an Economic and Social Research Council ‘Urban growth, urbanisation and migration. Transformations’ award on the behavioural economics of real estate markets. Alex has also conducted research for To develop solutions to these issues, two things are the Royal Town Planning Institute on the potential value essential – firstly, that academics from different disciplines of planning as a formal animator of development as well cooperate to think outside the ‘disciplinary silos’ that often as leading the consortium of universities (Cambridge, constrain us; and secondly, we have to work with partners LSE, Oxford, Sheffield) which completed Valuing from other sectors. Planning Obligations 2016/17 for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. From 2019 onwards SaRC includes over 40 research active experts covering Alex will lead a £1.5 multi-institution, trans-national topics such as population modelling, housing economics, project funded by the Economic and Social Research urban design, environmental assessment, development Council and the Natural Science Foundation China on economics, planning practice, architecture, regional Land Value Capture. governance and local economic development. Dr. Richard Dunning trained and worked as a surveyor SaRC is able to bring together new configurations of before completing a PhD in housing economics. He is researchers responding to particular demands in a timely the Vice Chair of the Housing Studies Association, the organic structure to analyse and advise cities and city learned society for housing research in the UK. Richard regions, whether locally, nationally or internationally. We has worked on Strategic Housing Market Assessments search for ways to implement changes to how those cities for local authorities, undertaken housing need modelling and regions function to make them more sustainable and at the national scale for Shelter Scotland, completed resilient; and use our best science and social science housing and planning research for the Ministry of Housing, expertise to meet the future challenges to cities from Communities and Local Government, the Residential climate change and resource depletion. Landlords Association, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He has published research on the impact of segmentation in human behaviour on housing markets. Dr. Thomas Moore is a Lecturer in Planning at the University of Liverpool. He is an experienced qualitative researcher with specialisms in housing policy and practice. He has led or undertaken research for a range of funders, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Department for Communities and Local Government, Scottish Government, British Academy, and the ESRC. Tom is also a Co-Investigator of the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) and an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Housing Policy. Dr. John Sturzaker has had a varied career as a planner in both practice and research and aims to bring both areas closer together. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Civic Design and Discipline Lead for Planning at the University of Liverpool. His teaching and research interests include community planning, planning & housing and sustainable urban development. He has published work in these areas including Green Belts: Past, Present, Future?, published by Routledge in 2017; and City Governance and Planning Reform – Spatial Rescaling from the National to the Community Level, to be published by Policy Press in 2019. ABOUT THE AUTHORS | 3 Professor Peter Batey is Emeritus Professor of Planning About the University of Liverpool at Liverpool University. A graduate in geography and planning with a PhD in regional science, he has an The University of Liverpool has, since 1881, worked for international reputation as a planning analyst who the advancement of learning and ennoblement of life. specializes in designing and applying analytical techniques This remains our mission today and will give focus to all to spatial data. Much of his empirical work has been our efforts in the coming years as we strive to achieve our carried out here in the North West and at various times in ambitions and aspirations, tackle the grand challenges the past he was responsible for establishing and leading of the age and make our vision a reality. the Urban Research and Policy Evaluation Regional Research Laboratory, based at Liverpool University; and As a connected, global University with multiple physical the Merseyside Social Inclusion Observatory. His current and virtual campuses – Liverpool, London, Suzhou, research is on the links between spatial planning and Singapore and online – our worldwide influence and regional science. Peter was recently elected as President impact is unrivalled in higher education. of the Regional Science Academy, an international think- tank for the inter-disciplinary field of regional science. The University is an inclusive institution, committed to the provision of opportunity for those with the capacity Professor Alex Singleton is Professor of Geographic to benefit as individuals but also as members of a wider Information Science at the University of Liverpool, Deputy community dedicated to a sustainable and just society. Director of the ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) and Director of the ESRC Data Analytics & Society CDT. His research is concerned with how the complexities of individual behaviours, attitudes and contexts manifest spatially, and can be represented and understood though a framework of geographic data science. His work encompasses geodemographic methods, machine learning, geographic information science and quantitative human geography. Dr. Sebastian Dembski is a Lecturer in Planning, specialising in urban transformation processes and city regions. He is currently working on the changing population dynamics within city regions, resulting in reurbanisation of the urban cores, and the planning challenges this poses for the urban core and the periphery. Sebastian is a recognised expert on Dutch and German planning and comparative planning studies in general. His research has been published in leading academic journals, but also engages with planning practice. Dr. Fran Darlington-Pollock is a Lecturer in Population Geography at the University of Liverpool, with a particular interest in marginalised populations and transitions over the life course. This is operationalised in different ways, spanning Fran’s on-going and developing research on migration/residential mobility and ethnicity; migration and health; vulnerable populations, cities and housing; age-segregation; and finally, people, places and inequalities in dementia care. Mr. Malachy Buck is a PhD researcher and Graduate Teaching Associate in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Liverpool. His research focuses on the nexus between environmental science, development activity and value. AN EVIDENCE BASE TO SUPPORT THE COBALT GROWTH STRATEGY Contents About the Centre for Sustainable and Resilient Cities 2 About the Authors 2 About the University of Liverpool 3 List of figures, illustrations and tables 7 Acknowledgements 8 Executive Summary 9 1.0 Introduction 11 About the study 11 Policy context 12 Report structure 13 PART ONE: THE CASE FOR A GROWTH STRATEGY 14 2.0 Defining the study area 14 Neighbourhood Profiles - Croxteth North 16 Neighbourhood Profiles - Croxteth South 16 Neighbourhood Profiles - Stonedale 17 Neighbourhood Profiles - Norris Green East 17 Neighbourhood Profiles - Norris Green West 18 Neighbourhood Profiles - Norris Green North 18 Neighbourhood Profiles - Norris Green South 19 Neighbourhood Profiles - Fazakerley 19 3.0 Understanding the geography of deprivation 20 Longer Term Deprivation Trends 20 Recent Short Term Trend Data 21 4.0 The population of Croxteth, Fazakerley and Norris Green 24 5.0 Migration and social mobility 27 6.0 The housing stock and the determinants of demand 31 7.0 Cobalt homes within the wider housing market 34 CONTENTS | 5 PART TWO - WHAT TO DO NEXT? 38 8.0 Spatial options and the Cobalt Growth Strategy 38 Option A: An opportunity orientated approach 38 Option B: A needs-orientated approach 38 Diversifying tenure and type in the housing supply 38 9.0 Diversifying the housing supply: developing ‘life course housing’ 39 Box 9.1: Japan: the world-leader in life course housing 41 10.0 Why move? Why not? The behavioural economics of life course housing 42 The complexity of housing decisions 43 Why housing needs behavioural economics 43 What can Cobalt