NIC's Chief Executive, Phil Graham on video
We are now releasing the video of Phil Graham, the NIC's Chief Executive who spoke at our May forum 'The Making of the Modern City' for members of our community who prefer the visual medium of video over the previously posted podcast.
Phil spoke passionately about the need for joined up infrastructure and housing strategy nationwide, but particularly in relation to the "Camkox" corridor - as the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge Arc is sometimes referred to. He said that the biggest threat to the success of this knowledge industry-rich region of the UK is not lack of a sustainable transport infrastructure but rather a severe shortage of affordable homes.
Oxford City Council's previous Director of Housing, David Edwards, spoke eloquently at Future Cities Forum 4 in 2017, said that the leading university city cannot supply affordable homes for many of the teaching and research staff. David stressed - on a panel with Deloitte's Head of Planning John Adams and architect Alison Brooks - that this was the result of a lack of land designated for new housing and very high prices for the existing stock.
David Edwards gave our audience his example of central government backing the building of new homes on a disused airfield over fifteen miles from the city with indifferent transport links, but the planning system blocking housing development on an ideal city fringe site adjacent to a railway junction and a business park.
Our next forum this July will look at how data can help plan good housing, infrastructure and city design.
Watch Phil Graham speak in the video above.