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

[billysboy]

As title really , everyone seems to agree on the need for more houses regardless of type but doesnt want them here ,
Green belt is supposed to ring fence existing settlements , I like the idea mooted this morning about Wild Belts to encourage wildlife etc ,
I cannot see how this government or any other hopes to build there way out of a crisis where in a lot of places it seems to be 10 x income to get a foot on the ladder
Ultimately it would seem lower house prices would be good for everyone apart from those in negative equity or using housing as an investment rather than a place to call home and the only way to achieve this is to oversupply the market causing prices to remain static whilst wages / income catch up
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

No easy answer on this one

Social housing isn't part of the normal market though. You are entitled to stay in it for life, priority goes to need etc.
If the UK had enough social housing for everyone that needed a home when they moved out that's state control. Fine I guess but it's not what we are used to in the UK.

It very much was the norm before the right to buy. In the 60s/70s every young family who wanted a home could apply to the council and within a reasonable time be allocated a house. The RTB wiped out the social housing stock and it wasn't replaced. There were private landlords before that but not a huge part of the market. There were also rent controls. The growth in private landlords is a direct result of RTB.

FWIW as an old person living in a village I would love to see house building here. Much of the problem is because everyone wants to cram into a small part of the UK. I'm no fan of Angela Raynor but I think what she is doing to push through building is brilliant.

There are hundreds of thousands of empty properties in the country. The government has powers to seize them. That would be preferable to infinite greenbelt building in a climate crisis.

Rise in life expectancy is a major driver in rise in housing needs in UK.
Shall we start calling for people to die younger, that could do a lot to address the housing crisis. And the social care crisis. Or could demand that old people must live with relatives and everyone live in smaller homes.

It's about as rationale a plan as insisting that stopping immigration would stop housing shortages.

I don’t mind people building houses where I live. Unless someone lives in an original house from the “settlement” they really can’t complain. As long as infrastructure is in line with the houses I’m fine with it. We just need sole extra GPs where I live really.

Well, Labour had better get a grip on immigration quickly if they're doing this. The optics are crap.
Fwiw I would only allow people to own one house (and I'm speaking as someone who lets out a house). If all the buy to letters had to sell up, property prices would go down.
Lastly, I LOATH the way that the government frame opposition to this as NIMBYISM. There are very good reasons for people to oppose development.
But then, I wouldn't expect anything less from Angela Rayner

I'm aware that there is a problem with a aging cohort living in houses that are (theoretically) to big. Like me.
But that's a variable that we can't change.

How is that affordable for a single income?
For a dual income, yes—nevertheless, salaries have been stagnant for 20 years. We're not in the 60s, 70s, or 80s of growth; that period is gone and is NOT coming back.
The North also has poor transport networks, so bad they're estimated to stifle economic prosperity to the tune of £300 billion over the next generation.

Why can't we change it? There's no reason why we can't incentivise downsizing or homesharing is there?

I don't think any green belt should be built on while there are whole areas of brown field.

Both from environmental and food security perspectives.

Even before brownfield building, there are nearly 700,000 homes in England that are standing empty, over 250,000 long-term. It's bonkers to build over useful land when we have an entire major city of homes standing empty.

Do we really need to build more housing? Or do we need to stop people turning perfectly good accommodation into Airbnb, and to do something about the hundreds of thousands of houses standing empty?

Totally agree

Why can't we change it? There's no reason why we can't incentivise downsizing or homesharing is there?
I live in a house I love, that is, technically, too big for me. As does my 94 year old mother.
I would love to what 'incentives ' you have in mind that aren't sinister.

Those saying “but where I live is a special case because we just don’t have the infrastructure” make me laugh. Where do they think does have the infrastructure. Where are these underpopulated areas with plentiful GPs, empty roads, a great public transport system and schools with empty classrooms?

It’s just a politer way of being a nimby.

Cut stamp duty for downsizing, council tax discounts, make pensioners in social housing pay bedroom tax. Off the top of my head.
You don't need to get so defensive btw. I said incentivise not force.

But when does incentive become force?
Remember how unpopular the proposed bedroom tax was.
Sorry about being defensive.

I think the fastest way to solve the immediate problem would be to ban foreign house purchases. If you arent a UK passport holder and habitually resident in the UK you are not allowed to buy a house. Or a property of any description. I’m sure of the countries have those policies.

Many countries have those rules. There's absolutely no reason why we can't do the same, apart from lack of political will.

Why would incentive become force? We're incentivised to do all sorts of things already. It's not a new concept.
Bedroom tax was unpopular with people who might have had to pay it. Hence the problem. Those who have want to keep. Those who don't have don't get a look in.
If we don't want more building, we need better distribution. There's no alternative.

Yes definitely

Yep. If people accept we can't just keep increasing population then I don't see why kicking the can to later is better either

Nope I don't agree. 1.5 million in 5 years? Won't even cover immigration ffs

We can't just keep building more and more houses. We are quite a small country and need space for greenery and farmland and natural habitats. Destroying wildlife, polluting the air and water and turning pleasant towns into huge, sprawling estates with no matching infrastructure and no community, is a disaster.
There are many existing buildings which are empty or only used occasionally. Lets make them liveable in before building more. And it can't be right for people to own multiple homes when there's a housing crisis. Fine if they are rented out to tenants who need them, fine for a small percentage in each area to be used as holiday cottages, but second homes should be banned and so should turning villages and towns in a mass of AirBAndBs so that the locals have no resources close by and are forced to leave.

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.

Yes it is cheaper for a company or the NHS to employ a skilled, ready trained immigrant as needed than to invest in training the local population. But it is hard on the country that loses their skilled labour. I feel particularly bad for resource poor countries who lose skilled staff that they really cannot afford to lose. We will be feeling the negative effects ourselves on the NHS as more UK medical staff move to Aus and the Middle East for better pay and work life balance.

The trades are a popular option for school leavers, but there is a shortage of apprenticeships, creating a bottleneck, because being a brickie or a mechanic is something you mainly learn on the job supplemented by day or block release training.

If you’re a small family firm, do you have the capacity to take on apprentices? Will you take the risk that once they are confident, they will leave and set up a rival business, which will poach your clients? I have heard these worries articulated so they are genuine. How do we address them?

I am not anti-immigration, far from it. But we have to be honest and clear about the advantages and the costs of each way of supplying our economy with skilled workers.

Hear hear!
There are many factors that have lead to the current mess we're in with housing, not just lack of building and population growth:

• right to buy without ability for councils to reinvest
• tax breaks and 100% mortgages that spawned the rental investment boom
• growth of second homes and air bnb
• many councils not having Local Development Plans that would set out the development strategy for an area

No government will let house prices fall significantly as it would be politically unpalatable, but we could really do with them staying static/falling slightly over time. And to the PP who said they won't sell their two rental properties cos they would have to pay CGT, sorry if I don't weep for you....