To think England is too crowded

[toadworthy]

In my town on the South coast it really is chaos and getting worse all the time. Roads are a nightmare. There are never enough school places despite doubling the entry in all primaries. Soaring rents. Building sites all over.

AIBU to mind?
What's it like where you are?

Sapphire, of course I want people to be housed too. But not on my fields.! I think my problem is that I love my area in an emotional way and I see it being trashed forever for no good reason. And the new houses are not even affordable. It's not social housing for refugees.

London is cracking at the seams. I've lost count of the number of tubes that go past in the morning before I can finally shoe-horn myself in. It's actually quicker to walk and risk getting maimed by the cyclists.

If this level of immigration continues the existing infrastructure needs some serious investment.

The population density list up thread is misleading because it's the UK not England. Obvs Scotland and NI are still pretty wild.

of course I want people to be housed too. But not on my fields.!...I see it being trashed forever for no good reason.

Housing people is 'no good reason'? Right then.

I'm interested: if 'refugees' are not coming to live in these new houses in your town, why are you blaming them for the overcrowding?

restlesstraveller, your sneering and dismissive tone is so grating and patronising. typical of the weak establishment/liberal mess to take that tone though

Agree

Worldly123..I think the poster you're referring to is just being deliberately goading, I just move on

agree even more

London isn't crowded, less population than 60 years ago.

Nowhere is crowded statistically apart from a few small pockets where infrastructure not quite kept pace with development - due to good reasons like more jobs being created.

More British citizens leave the country than migrants arrive.

4% of UK is built on.

We're almost at full employment.

apart from a few small pockets where infrastructure not quite kept pace with development

oh dear

Maybe I should consider a move before I die of grumpiness and Ukipitis. The Dales sound fab.

The UK has a population density of 262 people per square kilometer, (2011 figures) compared to 228 for Germany, 123 for Poland and 118 for France (2013 figures.) England, however, contains 53 million people or 84% of the population of the UK giving a figure of 406 people per square kilometer. Quite a bit more than Germany.

The country isn't croweded, it is just poorly dispersed. Encouraging industry and business across the country to allow people to move for work would lessen the pressure on hotspots.

I wonder which town in the south coast the OP is in as well.

I'm on the south coast. We don't have a school place issue. You can get in the outstanding primary school down the road out of catchment. (People get in as their second or third choices). There's a good one in the area that I know a child got in with a late application. A secondary nearby is in consultation because of a dwindling roll.

The roads are congested however. But I think it has always been.

toadworthy
"Sapphire, of course I want people to be housed too. But not on my fields.!"

There are about £12billion of empty property in the North West, and about £12billion of purposefully empty property in London. Sure this is repeated elsewhere, including the south coast. We need to do something about money coming in to the country to buy properties to keep them empty as a safe and convenient way of laundering money / avoiding tax. This has nothing to do with immigration.

I don't know what's wrong with Britain. Most of the demographic pressures we now see in our area could be alleviated through some very simple solutions.

For example, reopening one of our local railway stations would take pressure off the housing market into two other areas that are close to current working stations. The closed station is on the very same line. The land and access is still there. All they need to do is put a concrete platform there and a ticket machine.

Do you know how long discussions have been going on to reopen this station? Twenty years! Twenty bloody years!

I can't have thinking if we were Germany, that station would have reopened back in 1995.

The UK is a net exporter of people, more British people leave the UK every year than immigrants enter it, so immigrants have bog all to do with places being overcrowded. Its more to do with migration within the UK to the most popular places often for work reasons.

Sapphire. I'm not blaming refugees for the overcrowding because there aren't any here. The new arrivals are economic migrants from Europe (lovely people) and people moving down from London (ok people). Nowt wrong with any of them. It's just the big numbers and the suddenness of it all.

I said nowt because I am practicing fitting in up north.

Ah, I see.

So, if they're not moving into this new not-affordable housing, who is? And with whom is your beef?

When I was growing up, the part of England I lived in always seemed crowded to me in terms of the density of housing and high levels of traffic. I lived in a suburban built-up area with no countryside or nice parks within walking distance. It's true that England is densely populated compared to many other countries, but the population is not evenly spread out; I wouldn't describe Northumberland as overcrowded, for example. And even though I live in a relatively densely populated area, you can still sometimes go for a country walk and hardly see anyone else.

LaurieFairyCake - where did you get the figure for that more British citizens leave the country than migrants arrive? According to the ONS, immigration continues to exceed emigration.

Laurie

London is definitely crowded, but I don't think it is overcrowded. I think the population is now at an all-time high, but so are transport options. Business areas are now spread out across the city rather than been concentrated in the west end and City.
But it is definitely a crowded city. As are most other major world financial centres and capital cities

werkz

I really like your opening up of trains idea.

The problem imo is that we haven't kept pace with the infrastructure needed for the new arrivals. In a town in Lincolnshire the population rose by 13000 officially probably more in reality but the hospital hasn't got any bigger or more GP's in fact local surgeries are struggling to recruit GP's or dentists and school places can't keep up. This may not be a problem nationwide but is causing local problems. So the country isn't full but isn't coping due to poor planning from central govt.

14375 people per square km?

I feel claustrophobic just reading that, and I quite like the noise and bustle of cities. That is an awful lot of people, it can't be easy to live in such close proximity to so many other people. I mean, people have to, and they do, but there is a lot to be said for a feeling of space.

The UK is a net exporter of people, more British people leave the UK every year than immigrants enter it,

What is your source for this statement? The ONS data show that immigration continues to exceed emigration (total net migration to the UK in the year ending December 2015 is estimated at 333,000). Link

I'm not anti-immigration but I think it's important to get facts correct and not just make things up.