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Malthouse doubles down on Building Beautiful Commission after Scruton comments
Kit Malthouse has described constructing “beautiful buildings” to persuade the British public to accept housing in their hometowns as his “biggest challenge by far” as housing minister.
Mr Malthouse and housing secretary James Brokenshire have made building aesthetics a priority in government, launching a ‘Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission’ to promote “the importance of design and style” in new housing developments.
The commission quickly ran into controversy after it emerged that Sir Roger Scruton, the chair and a conservative philosopher, has previously made offensive comments on a number of topics including homosexuality.
Last week, the Architects’ Journal reported that Sir Roger had responded to a question about whether the commission is a “distraction” from solving real housing issues by saying: “I sometimes feel it is. I’m here in order to make it look like something is being done.”
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But Mr Malthouse said: “My biggest challenge by far as housing minister will be convincing the British people that the land needed to solve the national housing crisis lies in their suburbs, villages, cities and towns.
“The only way we stand a chance of winning their support for this output is if they like what we build – beautiful buildings gather support; blank ubiquity garners protest and resentment.
“If you get the design right – the scale, the context, the fitness – communities will feel enhanced and respected and will lay down their petitions and placards.”
The housing minister’s comments were printed as the foreword to a collection of essays published today by pro-Conservative thinktank Policy Exchange about beauty in housebuilding.
Listen to a podcast on the Building Beautiful Commission:
Contributors include Sir Roger; Ben Derbyshire, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects; Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith; and Labour MP Jon Cruddas.
Mr Malthouse’s foreword added: “Beauty may well be in the eye of the beholder but taste, what the public likes, is more objectively measurable.
“And it is surely the taste, not only of the occupants of new homes, but of those who live near them and have to accept them, to which we should pay more attention.
“Our new commission will urge developers to make room for beauty and to let architects rip, for only they can save us from the blankness.”
A poll of people from London and the South East who feel too many homes are being built in the region, conducted for Policy Exchange by Deltapoll, found that 76% felt new homes should fit in with their surroundings and 54% said they would like to see traditional terraces with tree-lined streets built in the future.
Dean Godson, director of Policy Exchange, said: “We know from our research and polling that local support for development increases across all income groups when beauty is made a priority and these essays show how it can be done.
“Placing beauty at the heart of housing policy is the biggest idea in a generation. Amid Brexit, this shows it’s possible to make progress on domestic priorities.”
