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

I take issue with the premise of your OP but not because I disagree with houses built near me, I take issue with houses built full stop.

The narrative seems to be that we need more houses.

But we have about half a million empty ones and way over 1 million second homes.

Before building new ones, I'd bring the empty ones back into use and use carrots and sticks to encourage people to rent out their second homes. And while doing that I'd carry out some research to make sure that we do need more homes, and if we do, what we need and where to build them.

As someone said on another thread, we need more bungalows (and houses for smaller families).

And I am fundamentally opposed to green field development. We do not need it.

Wish building developers stop building or converting buildings into studio flats. People are WFH/remotely and need a separate room to work and to chill.

If any empty homes are too dangerous to live in. Knock them down and build on the land. Brownfield homes.

Anyone born after the war would have been 16 in 1962 so this isn't very likely 🙄

It helps even less when newly qualified nurses and midwives can’t get jobs because the nhs trusts don’t have money to increase staffing 🤷‍♀️

But we have about half a million empty ones and way over 1 million second homes.

think we should ban holiday cottages and get them back into full time occupancy housing stock.

@FeegleFrenzy

Yes I have heard that before

The country is full of empty houses or houses being used ineffectively.

Plenty of apartments and houses in London are sold entirely as investment to foreign investors and not used.

Flats getting built are rarely family homes or indeed accessible to most/ those struggling.

I did a project quite a while ago now that covered the number of empty council properties due to damage and disrepair ( in the city I lived in then and it was eye watering.)

Also scrap air bnb. Probably second homes altogether tbh.

Building houses comes at great environmental cost and should be a last resort. We certainly shouldn't be squandering precious greenbelt land on it.

We don't have a shortage of homes, the country prioritises wealth over people and the environment.

They tried to build a new development near me a while ago - the promised number of social housing flats kept mysteriously going down. Those would have a separate entrance and no access to the gardens. The flats themselves were really only suitable for single adults possibly couples.

764000 net migration

9% Indian, which is the highest, Polish next

there is a reason we have such large numbers of Indian

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 apart from developers, who release houses at a rate that won't cause prices to drop.

Thats a good point and one i accept but i would move to country with 3x the land mass but a similar population, plus i would bring with 700k euros and a monthly income, plus health insurance.

If our Uni sector cannot survive without 300k foreign students + dependents, then it needs to shrink to a level that is suitable for our own population plus around 50k foreign students... you know much like most of Europe.

My point, which your post ignored, is the UK has millions of the young and sick NOT in work, meanwhile we import millions of people per decade... that in a country as small as the UK and with terrible infrastructure is unwise and as well as unsustainable.

We need more mid-rise density. I'm sure that many people covet the 3 bedroom suburban semi with a big garden but what's the point if you can't afford it? We should look at Dutch cities as an example.

Train travel between the North and London would be faster and cheaper if the last government hadn't cancelled HS2 to Manchester and Leeds.

Two suggestions

Build more affordable 1-2 bedroom homes so older folks like me can release our 3-4 bedroom houses for families. Many of us do not want retirement flats etc., we want an affordable bungalow or small home.

Second suggestion - in new towns, make it a condition of planning permission that Tesco, or whoever want to move in, also build a GP surgery or contribute to building a primary school.

No we don't, we need to stop importing people to pay the taxes needed to pay people to sit on their arses.

The millions of people coming here from SE Asia and Africa, with families etc will need pensions, care & long past their old age, what to do? oh lets import millions more to look after them....

Its utter madness

For housing, ban second homes, just force people to sell, give them 12months to get rid.

We don’t need houses to be built - we don’t want green sites to be built on. We do not want are countryside destroyed. What this government needs to get a grip on is all the illegal immigrants coming across on boats. I fear this is why the government want to build houses for / which is just not acceptable.

Another ill thought out contribution - any ideas where we will get the builders to build these? staff them? where we get the money for the scanners and equipment required?

oh lets import more people into the UK...

We need to stop migration, we are building houses to house, mainly, low skilled immigrants & their families.

I don't really understand why rather than building huge soulless new housing estates with no amenities, where everyone has to drive and use the existing services of the nearest town, they don't spread it around. So each village gets say 15 new houses, each large village 20, small town 100, medium sized town 150.. then it would be easier to deal with and nowhere would feel overwhelmed or like their services can't cope. That wouldn't meet the housing targets. Villages round us are having entire estates built, making a huge difference to the community. My small town had a housing target of 5000.

Estates on greenfield are popular with developers because building costs are far lower.

Councils already have the powers to compulsorily purchase long-term-unoccupied properties.

I wouldn't want to live in a smaller space if all the savings are being eaten up in moving expenses.

Some of the problem is everyone wants to live in the same place, there's no shortage of family homes in many parts of the country.
I'd like to downsize but houses just don't sell here. Lovely 4 bed, 3 reception detached round the corner in the market nearly 2 years now. Not unusual here.

Did you vote for Brexit? If so, then give yourself a big pat on the back for making it harder to bring in skilled labour for short periods of time, and for making it more expensive for our businesses to trade, create wealth, and employ more people in the UK.

I don't mean to distract from the point of this thread, which is about housing and not immigration, but you did bring it up.

We don't need more homes, there's plenty already sitting empty.

We need to ban second home ownership in areas of housing stress and a ban on foreign national non-residents stashing their (often dodgy) cash in family homes, artificially inflating local market.

Capital gains tax rate on residential property that is not your main home has been cut, made cheaper not more expensive.

It is also quite a low rate with the lower tax bracket paying 18% of gain minus all improvement costs and the higher tax bracket paying 24% of gain minus all improvement costs. (It was cut from 28% in 2019).

It’s a massive unearned amount of cash, how can you even think you should not be taxed on it?

@TheLimeHedgehog you won't need those bedrooms when you can't climb the stairs and are sleeping downstairs in a bed in the dining room.

I'm not getting too excited about these changes / announcements. Yes we need more housing but it'll be crammed into the South East where no-one can afford them . We already have new build housing estates half occupied due to affordability .
There won't be the numbers of social housing as developers site building costs etc . There won't be infrastructure to go with them .
They won't achieve the numbers anyway , insufficient planners , insufficient tradesman to build . They'll be poor quality in the rush to throw them up .
The sentiment is very good , practically it won't happen .