Glastonbury Festival goers quizzed on housing dreams » Housing » 24dash.com

The results of a survey carried out during Glastonbury Festival is now being examined after 14 volunteers including three staff from Somerset-based Mendip Housing have spent last weekend quizzing Glastonbury Festival goers on their hopes and dreams for their housing future.

Festival organiser Michael Eavis asked local housing association Mendip Housing to help him find out from the crowds what they thought about affordable housing and what their current and future housing needs were after he decided to make affordable housing one of the themes of this years event.

Mr Eavis is campaigning to improve access to local affordable housing and wanted to put the might of Glastonbury Festival behind his quest to get more people to recognise the problems facing young people trying to get their own home.

During the festival, the band of volunteers, which also included staff from Mendip District Council and the Chartered Institute of Housing, asked more than 1,000 people a series of questions to find out what they knew about affordable housing, what kind of housing they wanted to live in and the obstacles that might prevent them from getting a home of their own. They also investigated where people would go to get advice on affordable housing as well as their thoughts on why they think not enough affordable housing is being built.

The results will feature in a special one-day conference which Mr Eavis asked Mendip Housing, the Aster Group and the Chartered Institute of Housing to organise to try to tackle some of the barriers that prevent affordable homes from being built. Housing minister Caroline Flint has been invited to speak at the conference along with Cornish MP Matthew Taylor, who has been looking into the issue of rural housing for the government. The conference takes place on Thursday July 24 2008 at the Centurion Hotel, near Bath.

Mendip Housings Community development Worker Liz Spurgeon, who was one of the volunteers, says she was impressed by peoples enthusiasm for the subject. Loads of people wanted to fill in the survey because they thought access to affordable housing was really important. It was obviously an issue that many people felt strongly about.

Michael Eavis said: The current housing crisis is just not sustainable and should be the most important concern in the whole country. I wanted to start an awareness campaign to highlight the need for many more affordable homes. All over the country, families are struggling to find a home they can afford and many youngsters have to leave where they grew up because they cant afford to live there when they come to setting up their own home.

The average house price in Mendip last year was £200,148 yet the average income is £18,585, about a third of what local people need to earn to get a mortgage to buy the average house. This is a familiar story across the country, said Alan Brunt, managing director of Mendip Housing, a member of the Aster Group.

We desperately need to find ways to bridge the gap between peoples dwindling ability to buy, which makes affordable rented homes even more crucial, and homeowners desires to maintain the status quo which can prevent much needed homes from being built. We have to find ways to encourage a climate of commitment on the ground to make sure affordable homes get built in communities that desperately need them. We hope this conference will help towards this goal.

To find out more about the conference visit www.cih.org/events