we all agree on the need for more houses but just not here !!

In our little part of surrey, they want to build on parts of the green belt. It's a relatively small amount of green belt land, but the locals are up in arms.

The town centre is, at best, average, Mostly 2 story buildings and the converted offices etc abouve the high street are largely empty.... and yet, whenever a developer comes along and suggests changing things by knocking down existing or building higher than 2 stories.... OUTRAGE all round.

They want it the same as it was 50 years ago, even though it's a different world now and those buildings are ugly, falling apart, empty and not contributing any meaningful value.

One development that was built about 10 years ago around here is, in my opinion, a great example of what can be done. It was open space, the new development is a mix of larger family homes, smaller family homes and apartments The overall estate has plenty of geen and open spaces, playgrounds for children (which feel safe) etc.

Infrastructure is a concern but our council has significantly increased the number of school places locally for both primary and secondary. I can still, largely, get appointments at our GP so I asume we have a decent NHS infrastructure - and I personally know 2 people who have been on 2 week plans for cancer and who massively benefited as a result. Roads ARE a problem and if we can't get on top of the appalling public transport, this will only get worse.

I agree that more building isn't the only solution. But telling younger people to put up and shut up isn't either. It's going to lead to increasing division.
We need to use existing stock better - incentivise downsizing, improve public transport, clamp down on Airbnb's etc.
Everyone wants "enough" housing because they want somewhere pleasant to live.

It is a growing problem but building more housing isn't the solution. Building houses requires staff, all of whom need skills and healthcare, none of which is currently satisfactory.

Everyone wants "enough" housing until reality bites and the realise the have a 400k mortgage on a 10 year-old house, when the same house in a brand new condition 30 seconds down the road is for sale for 200k and they realise they can never retire or move and that they will be working their whole life to pay off negative equity and will be permanently in a worse cost of living crisis than the next generation. There will be no inheritance to tax and with high salaries and low cost of homes, people will think "why pay a fortune to go to uni and train for a stressful job when I can work minimum wage and still buy a nice house?"

It may be temporary, but it's a huge, growing, problem for young adults. They're just not going to sit idly by being told to put up with it by people who have houses. We need actual solutions for now.

And it's all quite a temporary problem - between birth rate declines and climate change, many properties will be flooded or standing empty in 50 years.

I'm not saying there isn't a problem now but there is no long term strategy which is wh there will be another thread like this in 50 years.

The fact is that training people is expensive, it's much cheaper to ship in ready trained people from abroad. Many employers have been doing this for years, including the NHS.

Many tradesmen are self-employed and are just not able to take on a full time apprentice. My hairdresser was saying her salon cannot make the time to train apprentices that they can't afford to employ. We recently had a lot of work done on our house and the only trainee (a young woman!) was with the electrician, and worked for quite a big company.

We need to put investment into training colleges who can do the basics, and who will work with tradesmen who will provide in work experience. It will be money well spent.

Probably because everyone is so stressed out having to both work and use childcare and pay for expensive housing that shouldn't be

They probably are but then the companies don't want to pay decent wages and they can pay under the counter to people who aren't in the system

I'm sure this happened with the Eastern Europeans in the 00s and then we were fed this lie that we didn't have enough skilled people and so it goes on and on

Only recently Starmer has announced that we need to get a grip on immigration, and has criticised the tories for their open door policy.

Its not immigration as such that is bad, but a million new people a year is just not sustainable, especially in these hard times.

Oh, please

They can have all the targets they like and they can impose housing quotas on councils, but the facts are that we don't have the skilled labour to build these houses, margins in house building are very very tight, construction companies are businesses who want to make profit.

Labour are now talking about having to bring in labour to build. More people who'll need housing and can we guarantee their skills?

Many trades are well paid, why aren't more young people taking up training? Unless we improve our workforce these problems aren't going away.

It needs to be remembered that Labours target of 1.5m houses, is exactly the same as the Conservatives, both parties seem to see housing as a way to make it looks like the economy is "growing"

I don't know what Reforms housing targets are but if the main parties don't wake up on immigration, which is the main reason we "need" all these houses - then expect to have an awful lot more Reform MPs.

IF the work landscape really will be v different, what is going to happen to all the millions of migrants that are coming here, they, unlike EU migrants, wont be going back to their country of origin.

If you're worried about migration, don't. In 20 years we'll be desperate for it.

Tbf in 20 years the work landscape will likely be very different. Due to tech and AI

I really hate the destruction of nature that comes with this.

Same

The other issue is almost half of every marriage failing and families splitting up, needing two homes. I don't have the stats but imagine that's contributing quite a bit.

Hopefully you are learning something new from this thread about a topic you don’t understand the basics of.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Oh, it's playtime!

I will stop using the word math when you start using punctuation.

Also you do realize, selling a house doesn’t take it out circulation? The houses are still there.

I am not American, so don't use the term math
And you are being disingenuous, we needed housing etc, long before the immigration 'issue'. Selling off council houses was the worst policy ever and landed all local authorities in shit

Do you struggle with math?

What part of population growth adding pressure to housing do you not understand?

Do you think immigrants bring their houses with them?

I don't think the planning rule changes have gone far enough . If they really want to get growth going they should include situations like change of use for business ideas , if there are existing buildings they should be able to be converted eg you can convert a barn if a cow lived in it but not a horse . What nonsense .
The whole housing arena in this country is fucked . Much housing is inhabitable ( listen to Martin Hewitts podcast . Cladding hasn't been resolved . Leasehold hasn't been resolved . Empty housing empty shops . It's not going to be solved by just building new poor quality houses .

I thinks its unreasonable how long planning can take on a small domestic extension let alone 300k + house s needed per annum so cannot see how Angela Raynor thinks she will achieve this

On this final point on the OP. Angela Rayner is a government minister in a government with a majority of over 150. If they want to the government can pass legislation changing the planning rules, abolishing them entirely, or skipping them for a group of new towns.

The planning rules were all created by previous government legislation and court rulings interpreting those laws. They can be changed. They're not a fixed thing.