Many people will be poorer because of welfare ‘reforms’ such as fewer disabled people being eligible for PIP, the bedroom tax and reductions in Council Tax Benefit.
Poorer people are already more excluded than others from out-of-town malls and complexes, and rely instead on real and local shops, more than people with higher incomes with access to computers and cars. How many elderly women with shopping trolleys do you see in places like Bluewater, Meadowhall or the Trafford Centre?
Disabled people are already disproportionately poor, and are generally about to get even poorer.
Firstly, for people who rent from social landlords there is the new bedroom tax, reducing Housing Benefit by 14% if one bedroom in the home is empty, rising to 25% for any others. The loss in benefit will have to come from other living costs such as food. The Riverside social landlord charity based in Liverpool has researched how this will hit tenants in the north of England the worst, and Channel 4 has shown how disabled people often need a second bedroom for a family carer or support worker. There are also the family needs of divorced parents with visiting children.
Secondly, there are the new PIP Regulations with the harsh requirement that anyone who can walk more than 20 metres will no longer be eligible, down from the current 100 metre regulation. This will not change the number of disabled people in itself, but will make many disabled people both poorer and less able to buy their own mobility solutions.
Thirdly, for many non-elderly poor people there will be reductions in their Council Tax Benefit as a result of government changes. For urban designers, these changes will result in pressures for:
(1) more one-bedroom flats but with enough internal space for mobility (if any social house building is possible) and the dangers of social isolation that one-bedroom homes exacerbate;
(2) more High Street designs which include social and community uses and outlets where social contact does not depend on making a purchase; and
(3) for pedestrianised areas to be better designed for people who are mobility impaired and less able than ever to buy their own solution to overcoming even short distances, such as previously with an adapted car, scooter or powered wheelchair.