To be sad about houses being built on Greenfield sites

[Orangemochafrappacino]

Its rife in my village at the moment. There are a few brownfield sites but these seem to be being ignored and farmland is being snapped up for development instead.

The rulebook for this seems to be slowly being torn up by this current government and I'm now hearing stories of developers being able to purchase land on a forceful basis and even proceed building giant housing estates without proper planning permission.

Has anyone else noticed this in their local area? I understand houses need to be built but it seems completely nuts, we are going to have no farmland or trees left at this rate.

If they developed all the empty properties and derelict city centres first before building houses they probably wouldn’t need all these flimsy estates

Luckily in the village I live its in steep valley with old underground stone mines, so it can't be built on. But yesterday I wouldn't be happy if they built on it if they could.

The population of the U.K. has gone up by 20% since 1990. People don’t tend to live in big family groups as much and divorce is more common. We have to build houses. For those houses to be sold (and therefore the developer has an incentive to build them) they need to be in the areas where people want to live. Sometimes that means building on greenfield. Frankly, there simply isn’t enough brownfield to build enough houses for the population growth that we have had… and if the owner was happy to sell all of this brownfield land that you are seeing then I’m sure they would if because they would get a lot of money for it if houses are going to be built on it.

I live in London and pretty much every area of brownfield is being used to build houses on near me. Generally very tall developments. A 55 storey tower block is being built near me where most houses are 2 storeys and the highest building is around 5/6 storeys. Most developers seem to be tearing down mid-rise and building high rise in the cities.

Its so badly positioned and planned. As people say its all very crowded housing plonked off single track roads, far from schools and shops and generally on flood land. I always think if i wanted to live somewhere so awkward id want to at least be not overlooked and have a garden. But people snap them up because its all thats available.

2000 houses to be built on the outskirts of my village in Devon and we’re trying to resist a further 1000. It would change the character of the place enormously. Nowhere near enough infrastructure now. All all ugly, cheap housing proposed for beautiful countryside. I could weep too. It’s a cynical land grab. I know we need more housing but I’m very dubious about the amount and quality that is going up across the country on greenfield. I don’t doubt that a very small number of people will be making very big profits and in the longer term the rest of us will lose out. I live in a new build so I’m in no position to complain but our streets are too narrow, not enough parking, lack of maintenance etc.

[quote AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii]@dreamingbohemian this is always my first thought as well. Where are the people coming from who want to live in the 200+ houses they are building? They say so many will be affordable housing but I don’t know who they are affordable for? Certainly not local people[/quote]
Yes exactly, it's only profitable because people are willing to buy the houses, but it's a mystery why people want to

I understand the situation @Ylvamoon is talking about, the expanding commuter belts, but it sounds like a lot of these developments aren't even that.

In China you have all these 'ghost cities', enormous new cities that were built but hardly anyone lives there. I wonder if the same might happen with some of these developments? In 5-10 years the housing pressures might look very different thanks to 1) less WFH 2) less immigration 3) people having fewer children 4) a generation that cannot get on the housing ladder just gives up on buying 5) the older generation passes and younger people increasingly prefer more urban locales

An area I know is doing the same. Nearly every piece of green belt land is conveniently being taken out of green belt status without any kind of consultation.

A development being planned adjacent to a major motorway with huge sound and pollution issues has had a report written to say that neither of those 2 things are a problem as all properties will have ventilation systems and triple glazed windows so that the occupants do not need to open the windows at all.
Not to mention it’s an area that local planes can land in the event of an emergency instead of the major motorway.

But hay, so long as they make a big profit and destroy an area, what do those things matter

BG21031, there is a speech given by the architect Ben Pentreath two or three years ago where he was talking about the longevity (or lack of) in the buildings being erected today. The Shard was built with a life expectancy of 85 years - what a waste of time, effort and materials. The irony was not lost that he was making the speech from the Painted Hall at Greenwich, a building which has stood for over 300 years.

The text of the speech is here, and although Ben Pentreath obviously comes from a privileged background, he does speak much sense.

For the Long Term

Yes, we have plans for huge housing estates on green belt land.

The council is shutting down loads of council owned amenities to make way for housing developments - an educational farm is the latest casualty. They’ve sold off a nature reserve as well.

We do have a huge housing shortage here so if you ever criticise or complain you get told you’re a NIMBY or want people to become homeless, so the debate is just shut down and we continue building willy nilly while the housing crisis for local people just gets worse and worse

I’m not convinced that mass housing developments on green belt land is the answer to be honest.

Firstly, there’s never any added infrastructure with these developments. We have 1 tiny hospital in our county which is chronically short staffed. Schools, GP surgeries, etc are all full. They’re built in the middle of nowhere, with no bus routes

We need affordable housing - decent sized flats, 2 bed starter homes, 3 bed family homes desperately, yet despite affordable housing quotas supposedly being adhered to, these estates are always “executive homes” that locals are priced out of

We have issues with second home ownership and most of these houses are bought up as holiday homes. We also have big problems with the rental market - at the moment there is not one family sized home available to rent

Locals are priced out of the housing market so people from outside the area are moving here, which is great, but the local infrastructure isn’t keeping up

There are so many brownfield sites that these developments could be built on - near me is a holiday camp that closed down years ago. It will never reopen as a holiday camp so why don’t we build on that instead of the farmland next to it?

We’ve had a very lovely housing estate built on our harbour - but it’s the only deep water harbour in the area so we’ve now lost that whole industry (and associated jobs) to build houses that locals can’t afford to buy

The current policy of just whacking up housing isn’t working

If it is done unsympathetically or shoddily, it can really devalue a place. But realistically, about 6% of land in the UK is built on or roads/motorways, and 2.5% is land that can't be built on (cemeteries etc). We do have a long way to go before we don't have any green space left. But it does need to be planned right.

I live in the South East and they regularly throw up 500 houses here and there around our town and surrounding villages, then as @lakielady says, the odd more contentious few thousand build. The roads are at an absolute standstill. When I was pregnant I blew a high level on the carbon monoxide test, I don't smoke, we checked our boiler, the only thing it could be was I had walked to the appointment along a road that is always gridlocked. We're moving away now because of the over population of the area, trying to get to work or in fact anywhere is a nightmare and it's only going to get worse. There are precious few green spaces left and developers are constantly gunning for them. Its only a matter of time before any countryside is concrete round here.

The county I live in has more elderly than young people now, most young move away for uni and never come back and I don’t see that changing, the majority of people who buy around here are older with no kids or retired which is daft as when they get older they’re miles away from GP, shops etc and public transport is shocking

They say so many will be affordable housing but I don’t know who they are affordable for? Certainly not local people

People pushed out of other areas.

alloalloallo - you make a great point about second homes (also holiday homes). In Scotland there are great swathes of the country where most of the houses are either second homes or holiday homes, hollowing out communities - the same can obviously be said of Cumbria, Yorkshire Dales, Snowdonia, Cornwall etc etc etc. Maybe we need a new law that no-one can have a second property until everyone has a first joking not joking

The Shard is only meant to last 85 years?? What happens after that?

It's really criminal how all this works. Lots of already rich people making more money, that's all that matters apparently.

It’s easy to say that only a % of land is built in but what they are building on just now, fields, views, in villages etc is directly affecting the people living there

Maybe we need a new law that no-one can have a second property until everyone has a first

I think there should be much higher levies as it's one way of helping the housing crisis. However people won't vote for it as they want their own holiday home or BTL.

A 55 storey tower block is being built near me where most houses are 2 storeys and the highest building is around 5/6 storeys. Most developers seem to be tearing down mid-rise and building high rise in the cities.

An acquaintance of mine sells them in blocks to Chinese investors who may never live there. Just empty shells, it’s shocking. Where is this money going?
Someone upthread also mentioned oversupply of new builds. It’s going to become a problem, especially for the people buying them at the current prices.

People need housing. Many of the outraged village dwellers are themselves living in 20th century housing built on fields.

Your local authority will consult on land allocation and you need to challenge it and make constructive suggestions.

I don't disagree the housing design and infrastructure and transport could be improved, and councils could manage it better but the housing shortage is real.

Yes I think being accused of being a NIMBY or not caring about the fact that people need homes is a big part of why people stay quiet.

I feel very uneasy about the fact that so much red tape around development seems to have been quietly cut and now it's becoming shockingly obvious everywhere, clearly.

There must be a better way than this. Yes homes are important but the environment is absolutely crucial.

'We need to build, and to design, to last. We need to think about long-term robustness of materials… I am constantly struck by the ironies of the current campaign against plastic in the oceans, and yet by the vast amount of plastic that we shove into our buildings, knowing that all too often they will be demolished in a matter of decades. Whatever you may think about the design of 122 Leadenhall Street, in the City, more commonly known to Londoners as the “Cheesegrater”… when you learn that the designed-lifespan of this £350m structure is reputedly just 80 years… then, I think we are suffering an endemic problem. It is not just the buildings that become hyper-scaled, but a monumental sense of waste entombed in such short-termism.'
Ben Pentreath

Mea culpa, dreamingbohemian, it was the cheesegrater, not the shard, but I imagine similar thought processes.

@jihhy so just a never ending circle of crapiness then. The houses should be made affordable for those local first really

@reprehensibleme this should be exactly what happens bet there wouldn’t be a crisis then

It’s easy to say that only a % of land is built in but what they are building on just now, fields, views, in villages etc is directly affecting the people living there

I don't disagree that the planning & what gets built is crap but no one wants to be directly affected so what is the solution?

@NotMeNoNo you can contest till you’re blue in the face a lot of developments still go ahead unfortunately

@jihhy look at second homes, holiday homes, empty disused properties and shops before immediately going for new build estates