House building is out of control

Thats not really true though, unless you only count the bit of land the house sits on.

Theres a huge new development being built in my town. The actual houses only take up a small amount of the land. The rest is roads, pavements, driveways and gardens. Yes, gardens can be mini wildlife sanctuaries, (or decking and fake grass), but the entire area the development covers can certainly no longer be considered countryside, even if the footprint of the houses is small.

That was supposed to be in reply to MasterBeth querying whether England is indeed the most densely populated country in Europe.

I agree it's important to get the facts correct. Whether England or The Netherlands comes out as more densely populated depends on whether you include the bodies of water.

Either way, I dont think it negates my point that we already have a lot of people in a small country! For comparison, our nearest neighbours come in at Ireland, 73, France 124

There are over 5 million properties at risk of flooding. The Environment Agency has said that if current building trends continue then this number will double in the next 50 years.

Even areas which have never previously flooded are at risk if the water which would previously collect on the floodplain is forced further downstream.

Insurance companies don’t like paying out money. They assess the likelihood of having to part with cash and price their premiums accordingly.

Houses built on a floodplain have a very high likelihood of flooding. Insurance companies offer extortionate quotes to reflect the risk and deter people from taking out policies where the insurance company may end up losing money.

This means traditional types of house insurance have become unaffordable for many people living in high risk properties.

Having no house insurance is risky in itself.

The government realised this was ticking time bomb and in 2016 introduced the Flood Re-Insurance Scheme. This is a joint endeavour between the government and the insurance industry to offer affordable home insurance to people living in houses at risk of flooding.

Offering this costs the insurance companies money, and that means lower profits for their shareholders. They don’t like this.

Have you noticed your house insurance has increased in the last few years? Insurers have upped the cost of cover to offset the increase in payouts.

Build on floodplains and we all pay the price.

The NFU were on this morning talking about importance of food security.

It is going to get more important for countries as you say

Yes it's terrible. Ugly solar and wind farms rather than the proud beauty of a coal burning power station.

India has exported large amounts of rice to Africa for many years. So much, in fact, that 70% of Senegal’s imported rice comes from India alone.

Globally India is the world’s biggest exporter of rice, accounting for nearly 40% of international trades. It produces so much rice that it is able to afford to subsidise domestic supplies to the poor.

In July India, facing rising food prices, high inflation and expecting lower crop yields due to adverse weather, banned the export of the cheaper types of rice.
The more expensive types of rice which are generally grown specifically to be sold abroad continued to be exported.

Due to the volume of Indian rice being withheld from the global market, prices shot up. African countries were at a disadvantage in the bidding war.

As the cost of rice increased it pushed up demand for other cheaper crops. In turn this led to those becoming more expensive.

Countries which relied on Indian rice to feed their populations found themselves in a precarious food supply situation. People were going hungry.

Pressure was put on the Indian governemnt to honour its trade agreements for the export of cheap rice.

The Indian government said it had a moral duty to provide food security for its citizens first.

Who is in the right - India or the countries who buy Indian rice?

Relying on mainly imported food to feed your population is risky.

A country can only import food if the exporter is willing to supply it.

Op I'm in south east and it's insane.
We have absolutely ghetto monumental style flats going up. Every bit of green space is being built on, green belt challenges are everywhere.

I can't bare it. I, can't remember housing issues until 15 ish years ago?? It's Maddness

It's depressing, as is the people being put in them that shouldn't be. It wouldn't be so bad if these otherwise lovely rural areas were expanding to being equally lovely towns with families and couples prospering in them but they're a dumping ground for the people the government have to house somewhere. An example came up recently where a brand new estate was built, one of my colleagues has saved up for about 12 years to live in what's meant to be a new build on the edge of a rural village and bought one of the houses on it. Not only had he saved and scraped by but worked hard, made big sacrifices including only having one child as he and his partner couldn't afford another. A prolific burglar, previously named and shamed in the paper gets housed in the property next to him upon being released from prison. Doesn't look after the property at all, dog was left in it in a heatwave barking until police came looking for him for offending again, find the dog and help it and eventually it's apparent that he's gone back to prison and now the completely trashed property is empty. Not only do new builds not go to people who deserve them and will take care of them in all cases, they are totally abused but there will be some leftist idiot out there somewhere who probably thought a man like that should be allowed to integrate back into society and being moved to the outskirts of a rural village would do him good. It just attracted a load of wrongens that he associates with. This will keep happening though because working hard and being an upstanding member of society no longer means you're likely to get a nice home or if you do, a nice area and nice neighbours aren't garunteed. I am moving and couldn't consider a new build because of the risk of who may be put next to me.

They're building houses on land that is currently flooded just outside the town where I live. Like proper deep floods across the entire fields. There's loads of places they could build in town which would be so much better practically but then they wouldn't get to give it a bougie name and a higher price tag!

We can add infrastructure. And much of our current housing is built on previous marshland.
Developers build where they do because it is cheaper, not because that is all that is possible.

Trouble is that housing isn’t spread equally over the country. The new homes will be built where it’s already built up. Lots of land isn’t suitable for building on anyway such as moors, mountains, marshland, etc. Lots of potential building land doesn’t have inftastructure such as water, power, sewage etc.

Exactly!

@greengreengrass25 I agree. I think we should build houses on golf courses.

Plus housing for ever increasing numbers of uni students. And housing for youngsters who have to leave their home towns for work where they could have lived at home if there was work in their home towns.

Curious to know roughly where this but obviously understand if you don't want to say.

Come to my village. Two new housing estates have been built here, both only have 50% of the houses sold after two years but planning permission has just been granted for a further 200 homes to be built, what is the sense in that?

Yes you are right but it's still good to be able to have some agriculture in the UK

Just chatting with one of my old neighbours (rough outer London burb) - there is now a planning application for flats on the high street. This is good news especially as we had recently had a battle to stop flats being built in the park!

We always have to import food. It took enormous effort to grow enough food during the world war two for the population, it would not be possible with our current population.

But then we have to import food and this could lead to more problems

High streets tend to be privately owned. The council can not just build houses there. And where shops are converted into houses as has happened where I live, they are only ever rented to desperate people as no one wants to live there.

I hate it too. Beautiful countryside destroyed.

Those nice homes being built on nice fields are NOT social housing (they will add some flats and 3 2 beds to rent to meet quotas) round here - where we have new builds springing up like weeds, they are 4 or 5 bed 'executive detached' homes - not council/HA stock. They come with no new school, no new doctors, no new roads - just add to the stress and difficulties - nothing to do with 'immigration' more aspiring middle class types moving out of fancier areas to buy nice houses and then take school places!

I'd be happy if it was all council housing, for people here, whos kids already attend schools here, see GP's here and just need a place, or immigrants with no other choice - but this is being driven by people who want a 'posh' house

It's also fucking the housing market because any local people looking to move there have to add £50k+ onto the house they are selling to move - so prices have gone mad.

Build by all means but build for those who NEED

It’s not just the countryside. London councils are building on green spaces rather than redeveloping old high streets and other sites. And they are doing it through the back door. One London council has put in shipping container houses for homeless people, but once the green space is concreted over and usef for a couple of years it will then have “permitted development “ so the council can sell it off to developers. Which of course they could never do as a green field site. So much for Labours green credentials