To think the people who build new housing estates are on crack?

[NotYourHun]

What was wrong with roads in straight lines? And why does everyone need their own designated parking spaces with no thought for visitors? And how long does it take to include a postcode or area on bloody mapping software?!

I do community visits as a healthcare professional and am sick of not being able to find addresses because they make no sense whatsoever or aren’t on a map (including google maps/satnav), finding postcodes just show up in the middle of a field, and when I eventually do find a house, finding that there is absolutely no on street parking to be found and either having to park ‘illegally’ or walk for miles with heavy equipment.

The windows are a bit small though. Yet the garden is a fair size! 🤷🏼‍♀️

*First image is not my actual house, it's a stock image. Second picture was sneakily taken before I got the keys

So many councils are against the idea of drive way parking and wont approve it

But why? Driveway parking makes sense as it keeps the roads clear. We are not in a situation yet were people are giving up ther cars.

There are actually minimum road widths that they have to build to @BackforGood but again the size of the roads is down to the council, they often ask for minimum size roads because they believe it will stop people being able to park on the roads and so keep them free of cars. Councils often dont want to see cars on estates and would rather them be parked in side drives or parking courts or behind houses.

@Whatsnewpussyhat they would rather cars be parked in courts, behind houses or down the side. They dont want cars out front of houses, this includes on the road

Councils can refuse permissions and the big developers go to appeal and win, it happened here a couple of years ago for a batch of rabbit hutches

I live in an area of mostly Victorian semis, but there are a few houses that were (presumably) bombed during the war and have been demolished and replaced with a modern house. When you see them next to the older properties, the difference in size is striking - both are two storeys, but the Victorian houses are almost a third taller than the tiny looking modern ones beside them. Give me a lovely old house over a modern box any day!

Must admit I think its shocking how new builds manage to go for a premium. When we were bought our first house we went for an older property, size wise we couldn't afford this on a new build. But I guess people must love that they can love in with barely anything to do

There is a really snobbishness going on here!
Many new build homes are offered with help to buy and there is a housing crisis in this country. Ok, so, they are not always the prettiest places but I don't think you should turn your nose up. People need somewhere to live and often, families can live in larger detached homes on a new build estate who wouldn't be able to afford the same square footing of a traditional Victorian with all the period features and of a certain postcode.
I'd also like to mention that no house built before 1990 had car parking in mind and were not bitching about those! You only have to drive around some areas of Bristol to see lack of car parking space a real problem and many older houses having tiny gardens but because they're in a trendy area, they're really desirable.
Well done if you have a large drive, large backgarden, detached house with 'character'. But that comes at a price tag many can't afford.

Yes, we were looking at our first house with Help to Buy scheme @Briz and still made sense for us to buy older property but like I said, I assume it's because people want to pay a premium for not having to do any DIY when they move in - which I do understand, especially if you have kids. Doing DIY around our DS has been challenging.

I'm just on this thread as I think it's always surprising how little the general public know about how planning system works. Ideally it needs a massive overhaul from government level to see any changes to how developers build but it's like they're too scared to make significant changes because then they think the developers will stop developing and if that happens then the housing crisis will get worse

Very true about the backyards in older properties @Briz ! Like how many used to be built back to back. Nottingham has loads of examples of these terraces and were built back to bacm

I used to work in HR for a construction company. We drugs tested the men on site regularly to make sure they were fit to operate heavy machinery and power tools etc. A surprising number of them were sent home after testing positive for cocaine.

Huge one near me. Slap bang in the middle of the countryside. Unbelievably ugly, No pavements, no green space and no shop so they all have to drive everywhere. Thousands of cars. It's minging. Totally agree OP.

I think a lot of it must be down to bonkers councils then. There is a new build estate near us that is being built and the rubbish the council is coming up with about it providing local homes (the people buying will come from London) with people working locally said people will be working in London) and how they won’t add to traffic congestion because they’ll be working locally and using public transport (whxih doesn’t really exist or work). All the residents know it’s bollocks.

In the same way, our local council won’t approve a multi story for the hospital because it wants to encourage cycling (not even joking!) it is ridiculous because no-one cycles to A&E and most of the patients are elderly people or children. I was in with my child last week and couldn’t park so My husband has to leave us every 2 hours to move the car.

I live on a really nice development with plenty of green space and playparks, and attractive, well-built houses of decent sizes. Even so, we have the usual issues of parking, pavements and facilities. My understanding is that this is due to two requirements - firstly the developers are either required or incentivised to discourage car use so most houses only have one allocated space (in little car parks) with a tiny number of visitor spaces which results in plenty of crap kerb parking; and secondly the developers are required or incentivised to have as much green space as possible so in order to maximise housebuilding space, lots of the development has (completely useless) grass verges instead of pavement. These two factors have the effect of making the development pedestrian-unfriendly, especially for buggies and wheelchairs, as either the bits of pavement don't join up, forcing you onto either road or soggy grass; or there are cars parked halfway across the pavement and it's too narrow to get round. Extremely frustrating!

We also have the issue that part of the Phase 1 area was supposed to be earmarked for retail/amenities but they did a survey before phase 1 was complete and decided there wasn't the demand so it became houses too. We are now on Phase 5 so as you can imagine the local doctor's surgery is now overwhelmed and the 1000s of people who live here would love a little community space or coffee shop.

So in short - clever developers technically meeting local requirements while maximising their own profits.

Is there a syndrome that those who are powerful enough to make decisions in planning and development are often wealthy enough not to live in estates like this, in the same way that many politicians are so wealthy they’re not affected by the realities of their own decisions? I don’t know well such jobs are paid.

Just wondering @MsJuniper as you say no pavement just useless green verges (which I bet get bloody parked on and turn to mud!) Are those roads made out of anything but black tarmac? If so, sounds like the designers sold the idea of "shared space" for pedestrians and vehicles- if you go onto the planning application you'll find a Design and Access document with drawings of both people and cars happily using the "shared space" aka road. I've always wondered how practical they are in reality - there are places in which it can work but surely there needs to be signs as drivers will always assume there wont be people walking in the road

I think it depends where the new builds are and who is building them.
So fairly recently a set of 4 streets of back to backs were demolished (nearby) I cant remember the exact numbers now so I'm rounding.

120 houses knocked down and the cellars filled in. 55 new ones built.
There is currently a green square of grass in the middle of a large cul de sac of houses. They are small, a few are three storeys and they are not as tall as the three storey Victorian back to back terraces over the road. They do have large back gardens, but the builders stole a path that ran there so no one has a shortcut through now. One I used everyday btw.

A friend has moved to a newish build on the outskirts of a pit village. Its huge. Massive back garden, driveway for one car and importantly a garage actually big enough for a decent sized car. You could fit an estate car in easily. Naff all front garden granted, but the back garden makes up.
The pit village was dying, these newish builds (iirc 6 years) have brought new life, the shop/post office/dry cleaners/everything has reopened.

Public transport is shit though.
So yeah it depends.

They don't design the estate with an obvious way out. I have had to use sat nav to just drive out of some.

@wanderings so the actual policy writers and policy enforcers are on a pretty average wage but the people who discuss and create the policies for new local plans will be most of your locally elected councillors as well as Head of Planning etc. Problem is also the National Planning Policy Framework and Government agenda feed into local plans. On the whole, the general idea is to remove and limit car use with making it harder to use them but this hasn't worked yet in reality it seems.... although, we do only have 1 car and part of that decision is because we dont want to have an issue with parking a 2nd car, we like our 2nd space for guests.

Very true @Dangerfloof - look at some Countryside Properties award winning designs. Beautiful schemes and some amazing art projects on their schemes too. However, their houses are unattainable for majority of people.

No different to old rows of terraced houses with no drives and cars parked nose to tail either side with only enough room for one car to drive through the middle, they don't seem to attract the same outrage as new build properties 🤷

They do, plenty of threads about parking issues in terraced streets!
Also I think the difference is that terraced streets tend to be in straight lines so the parking looks better/is more effective use of space. People can't park effectively on curves and new housing estates tend to have all curved roads.

Most of the new estates in our area are on flood plains or over networks of underground rivers. I went past one last week that had neighbouring fields flooded, one with a big sign half-submerged cheerfully proclaiming "Phase 2 coming soon!"

I work for the Environment Agency, in Flood Risk Management. We are a statutory consultee for developments on floodplain, but we have no legislation against which to enforce our advice.

Just to add my own experience, we viewed a house on one of these plots and yes, curved roads all over the place and only one parking space. It also had the weird triangular garden to save space and was hugely overlooked. I remember being hugely impressed at the fact it was 3stories high but not a single room downstairs had space for a dining table to eat at.

I think it's about budget though. My friend has bought a 5bed on a new build estate. Enough parking for 2cars and the estate is lovely for a new build. I think this is because the houses are all over a certain price though.

I don't mind the look of new builds. We have some pretty ones being built near us. I prefer the look of those to the 1950s bungalows everywhere near me.

We've been lucky with our local ones, there have been tens of thousands of houses built near us (West Sussex) mostly in farm lands that been sold. They all seem to have been built to encourage old style closer communities, playing fields and parks in the middle, community gardens and meeting spaces (outside but with covered areas too for bad weather)
We're hoping to have one of the ones that are going up in Jan, pre adapted to our families additional needs and I can't wait!

There's so much NIMBY going on though, whole streets of big, posh houses being sold because snobs cannot bare to live near an estate or new builds 🙄 where on earth do they expect people to live?!

The planners are surely at fault here. They are going about it the wrong way. The way to restrict car use is to make other options more attractive, not make parking difficult. Estates should have wide pavements, pedestrian cut through so people can get about on foot, shops and amenities on site, and cycle lanes going from the estate to local schools /work places. Many new estates seem to have the complete opposite of these things. Meanwhile the lack of parking space means cars are littered everywhere, making it even more awkward to get around on foot. 2.5 spaces per house are needed really, and garages shouldn't be included as these are rarely used for parking!

Locally there has been a new estate going up for the past 5/6 years. They have only just put a footpath in to connect it to anywhere by foot.