Concerned about Labour’s plans to build more houses

[Dongdingdong]

First of all - I’m in broad support of Labour’s manifesto and am very happy to hear that they want to build hundreds of thousands of council houses if they win the election.

BUT I’m concerned about WHERE these homes will be built. I don’t want to see wildlife destroyed and swathes of green land concreted over and covered in ugly roads and houses.

If Corbyn commits to building these homes on brownfield sites within towns, cities and industrial sites then I will 100% support that and then some.

But they shouldn’t be built at the expense of the environment.

AIBU?

Sorry, I didn't mean that there are no families who are currently in temporary accommodation, but I believe the numbers are used for political dividends and to facilitate further building.

But that doesn't apply when the market is saturated with huge houses that people can't afford. They need to be normal, 3 bedroomed houses that are being built.

@spacepyramid
Affordable housing (council/social, which is what is being discussed here) is always a mix with the majority being smaller. They obviously need some larger homes for larger families.

Market housing reflects what the council has specified and what the market needs/wants at that point in time, in that particular area. The large properties are selling so are needed/wanted by people who can afford to buy them.

My point was that if supply increased the costs over all would go down for both larger and smaller houses. Mortgages would be easier to obtain and afford, in line with average salaries.

@maryberryslayers ok excellent, we'll keep building!

Now, how do you propose to feed all those families in all those houses, given that you've just built over too much agricultural land?

The simple fact of the matter is that there are too many people on this planet and we cannot sustain ourselves. The answer is not to become more bloated and carry on killing the only thing which sustains our existence, but to begin cutting back. Which means better use of the resources we've already taken, NOT grabbing for more.

Well, some of the empty properties could be used rather than them just bloody rotting. Now that's disgraceful.
I've heard the arguments that it would cost more to restore and repair than to build new ones, but surely they are there already and would mean less new building.
Then instead of trying to force travellers into houses they could leave us alone to travel, provide sites for those who want them, house those who wanted it.
They should put me in charge of housing, I'd sort it

Another’s issue is the amount of homes with just one person living in them. Amongst my immediate family I can think of four people occupying houses of up to three bedrooms alone.

Below is taken from a BBC news report quoting from the office of national statistics.

One of the biggest changes in household composition over the past few decades was the increase in the number of one person households, it said. It rose from 1.7m in 1961 to more than 7m in 2009.

That is a massive societal change, much of it for the better but a huge change nonetheless.

You are most definitely not being unreasonable.

I am 60 - probably too old to be taken very seriously by the good women of MN. I was raised in a mining town somewhere “up north”. At the top of my road was a stretch of waste land we called “the Tip”. It was basically a slag heap - but it harboured a wealth of wild life. I can particularly remember puddles of water holding smooth and crested newts. It’s now a housing estate.

The Tip bordered the railway line, another harbour for wildlife. We used to try to catch lizards there. They were everywhere. Did you know that if you catch a lizard, it will eject it’s tail to avoid capture? I caught lots of tails as a child. How many lizards in the UK have you seen recently?

Across the railway line, was a small patch of land we called Butterfly Field. In summer, there were clouds of butterflies and moths. Hundreds, thousands. A child with a net could catch them, then release them. Has your child done this? Multiple types of moths? Newts? Toads?

I am privileged to live in a wooded part of the south east. I haven’t seen a hedgehog for many, many years. I HAVE seen houses that have been empty for many, many years. We need to ensure that houses which are left empty are occupied and we need to control the population in this small group of islands we call home.

It really isn’t racist to say we need to control immigration, so that we can control population. Let’s allow a conversation to be had, for the benefit of everyone, and the wildlife.

Do you live in a house?? What's so special about you that you're allowed a house and other people aren't? There would have once been fields and wildlife where your house sits.

In my area recently there were plans to build on a 'green wedge' local feeling was generally against, however my (elderly) ndn's opinion was that he couldn't object whilst we were living in houses built on land that was once fields - and I agree he had a point (though taking the last of the green bits is never that good an idea)

Brownfield land isn't always bad or undesirable - locally there has been a massive development on an old factory site, it has been very popular, it sits next to existing houses and good amenities, another site is where a council building stood, and is in-between existing houses in a very desirable area.

The Tory government haven't been that great with their building.

In terms of council housing - obviously I can't speak for all areas, but again locally, some have been on 'brownfield sites' - either by knocking down unsuitable housing and re-building, or knocking down garage blocks. There is land available if people think a little more out of the box.

@Lockheart The people who need the homes already exist. They already need food and other resources.
If you want to be outraged, at least don't be ignorant. 72.9% of England is farmland, and only 8.8% is built on. Even if 100,000 extra affordable homes per year were to be built they wouldn't even increase this by 0.01%.
I'm fairly certain we won't run out of land for food.

How many lizards in the UK have you seen recently?

I’ve never seen a lizard in the UK! Or a hedgehog.

YABU
It's not just about the homelessness, it's about the pp who have children who will need somewhere to live someday and your own parents and their parents for having you. The home you live in was green land once. You can not put the genie back in the bottle op.

We used to have a hedgehog who came every night in the garden.

Now we barely even have squirrels. We do have huge expanses of flats though, many of them empty, and the air we breathe makes your snot black.

@maryberryslayers if you can't understand that the footprint of land needed to produce food for one family is many times larger than the footprint of land needed to house one family then it's you who are ignorant. Britain is already unable to sustain its own population in terms of food. This isn't something I'm making up. If we keep building on greenbelt farmland, the situation will only become worse.

The answer is not to keep taking green land but to develop brownfield sites, and move to reduce population levels (on a global scale as well as a national one). It is imperative we reduce our demands on the planet as a species or else we'll go down with the ship.

how do you propose to feed all those families in all those houses, given that you've just built over too much agricultural land?

Exactly this. We do need greenfield and agricultural land. We don't need any more executive style houses, or golf courses.
We probably need to build more low rise housing. It sucks but thats how it is.

We could build low rise flats with greenhouses on the roof that grow salad stuffs for local consumption. We need to start thinking how to do things differently.

@Doingtheboxerbeat you are right - we can't put the genie back in the bottle. But what we can do is stop letting any more out.

Did you know that if you catch a lizard, it will eject it’s tail to avoid capture? I caught lots of tails as a child

That's a shame. Losing a tail and having to regrow it is a huge shock to a lizard's system, it's a last-ditch survival mechanism not a game for a child.

MaxNormal - yes, you are right. We were kids and learned very quickly to have more respect. But the lizards survived then. Not now though.

You’ve got me going now - huge fllocks of starlings, the sound of cuckoos, house martins, swallows, hares, wrens. Come on - when did you last hear or see any of these?

We are going to run out of food, water, and energy.

I'm so pleased to read some of the sensible responses on here. As people have suggested, living people need somewhere to live! No good telling them to fuck off back where they came from - that's the same planet as us! A lot of the problems arise because of a profit rather than planning motive when it comes to deciding how to manage housing need. So derelict/empty homes, brownfield sites, those empty luxury flats, all should be assessed as part of the response to the housing crisis. And frankly a government building on its own account is more likely to "make use and mend" in this regard rather than a company seeking to make quick profit.
People, we have a once-a-generation chance here to start afresh, to have a government where you can insist you have input and accountability. It's not going to be perfect but it will genuinely be a breath of fresh air and new life into our decaying nation. Can we do this?!?

how do you propose to feed all those families in all those houses, given that you've just built over too much agricultural land?

Palm oil from the deforested areas in SE Asia and beef from the ex Amazon rainforest.

We need to do something about the 250,000 plus empty properties we already have first.

We shouldn’t be looking at overpopulation just on a global scale. We need to protect our spaces here, in the UK. Please do google the threats to our own wildlife. Maybe not as exciting as elephants and whales, but so, so important.

Houses are being built on green belt around the country because of Tory work-around policies that allow companies to "extract minerals" from greenfield sites turning them brownfield overnight.

Labour's manifesto is fantastically green and the best going for our environment. They aren't going to renege on that to fulfil housing policy effectively.

It's an excellent manifesto: labour.org.uk/manifesto/

decaying nation ? Really?

And frankly a government building on its own account is more likely to "make use and mend" in this regard rather than a company seeking to make quick profit.

Make use and mend - I’d be all for that!