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

So how is this going to work? Who is for the "mass cull"?

Naturally it'll be short, fat and poor men first, because thats combination that nobody wants.

Yes exactly. Or jobs, or roads, or parking, or waste water facilities

It's the gap between rent and buy. Yes social housing stock was sold off but the issue is after a short time it would then get resold as a private rental property. At rents that cripple people but also meaning are worth more as investments ( rather than homes)
There's no reason why people couldn't own their social housing but only be able to sell it back to the HA at market rates or other renters. ( In the same way it's sold to the tenant)

What about the environment

We are constantly told about net zero

The issue isn't that social housing was sold off, the issue is that is has never been replaced. This means that landlords are able to maximise their profits as property is viewed as a business.

Can.you guess which political party has the most landlords as MPs ? It's not hard

If they really want to make property prices more realistic then
(a) have UK residence requirements for home ownership
(b) regulate mortgage lending do that people are limited to 3x one salary plus 1x second salary
(c) put much stricter regulations on second home ownership.

But they do also need to have an ongoing house building plan.

If our Uni sector cannot survive without 300k foreign students + dependents, then it needs to shrink

There are so many alternatives how this could play out... but let's go for the obvious cost-saver one: Govt completely stops providing loans or subsidising tuition fees plus no foreign students: foreign students literally aren't allowed. Private loans for tuition etc. are still available.

RESULT: Oxbridge continues but dramatically reduced in depts because Uni applicants only want to enter the lucractive professions. Every other university closes. All our young people need to embrace non-degree trades and professions. UK trains almost no doctors because very few people can afford 5 years of tuition followed by 6 years of junior doctor salary. The only people who can get degrees are quite wealthy.

RESULT2: UK needs to import pretty much ALL of its highly qualified healthcare staff. And teachers. And engineers. And scientists... Net Immigration soars.

So I guess that's what people want when they say "Let's get rid of all the foreign students and make the UK university sector shrink."

ps: I'm not following how banning immigration would make UK young people who are unwell, suddenly be well and able to work.

(b) regulate mortgage lending do that people are limited to 3x one salary plus 1x second salary

That one measure would stop the housing market in its tracks, particularly in the south east of England. I doubt any of those home owners would vote for seeing their £1m plus homes drop to a price the average buyer could afford.

The existing housing stock held by social housing landlords across the UK needs to all made available - for example just one housing provider near the border of Wales has over 800 empty properties that they've still not got round to repairing and making fit for letting. This would suggest there is no need at all for yet more substandard new building developments. Social housing landlords must concentrate on their resources that already exist, they need to stop lining the pockets of private developers.

I do think that some of the jobs used to be done without a degree

Also even if people here do qualify as a GP they are not necessarily taken on as the trusts have no money

I live in Surrey and they have already started building on green belt land around us. It is going to be a nightmare for traffic and things like doctors appointments, schools etc. I'm all for building more homes but this is a village and they are building so many houses on any tiny bit of green land.

Same in Hampshire. It's ruining the character of villages that are becoming just housing estates. There's no soul let alone facilities. More people more crime, more problems, less cohesion.

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.

Why are you going to the extremes and being rather silly about it too, no has suggested what you re saying they are.

How do other countries manage & have almost free Uni education?

Why are students allowed to bring in dependents or were allowed too?

Are you really suggesting that the almost 20m people claiming some sort of disability benefit are disabled???? that none of the 3.8m on long term sick, can never work again??

If so, we are truly fucked.

Its not about banning ALL immigration but getting it down to pre Brexit levels of around 200k instead of 3 or 4x that amount.

Annoys the out of me when nimbys immediately campaign against anything new being built nearby. Simply down to the fact the majority in our area are retirees who moved to the area and their actual contribution to the local economy is a negative one.

My personal feeling on new housing is we need to remove these preservation orders on buildings that nobody will ever be able to renovate due to cost restraints. Bring them down and build on them. I can think of two just off the top of my head within a few miles of me that could fit iro 300 plus homes. But no developer will touch. They both suffer repeated arson and other damage attacks with the emergency services out regularly.

There is the part missing there that points out how many of these university courses are of little use once the student finishes.

A change in financing tuition for required industries like health would help. I'd suggest a Dr would get their tuition cost written off after eg 10 years working for the NHS.

I think if they are going to approve these mega developments they need to be ensuring that the infrastructure is putt in place first before any of the houses go up.

While I agree that we need better infrastructure, I think this issue is distinct from the house building issue.

Building houses doesn't create people. The people already exist and are living somewhere. The reality is that nowhere in the UK has the infrastructure to deal with this many people. All of our major cities are already hugely overcrowded, so it seems reasonable that villages should take their fair share and be expanded into cities.

Really, this isn't a housing crisis, it's a population crisis. We have a population larger than the size of Liverpool moving to the UK each year - that's a new city and a half that needs to be created every single year. You cant just keep cramming more and more people into exiting cities.

I think that Government should focus more in building social housing along with infrastructure to support it.

LOL, I can't wait to see the response to that.

In the eyes of a NIMBY, what's worse than a housing developer building 400 homes in your quaint little village? 400 council tenants moving in.

I don't think this is realistic. Our cities are already too densely populated for the infrastructure. You can just keep adding more and more people into cities and expect services to cope. Also, most people want a house with a garden, not a flat in a tower block.

With current net immigration levels, small towns and villages will need to be turned into new cities. I think this is the long term plan. Once the houses are there, demand for shops etc will grow.

Our current levels of immigration are unsustainable why does the government not care about this

It's such a shame

Also why ruin the beautiful countryside

So the government and House Builders federation are now claiming a labour shortage for brickies etc and we may have to bring skilled labour in from abroad
when are we as a country going to learn to recruit from within for skilled labour and train up these people required rather than just push them to further education and everyone going to uni

Just 37% of students go to Uni, that leaves 10s of 1000s each year who do not.

We ve huge shortages of Teachers Engineers Healthcare staff, all of whom need a Uni degree.

Its very difficult to train up a young person into a trade, doing a 2 or 3 year college course without an employer sponsoring you and providing work experience, means you'll leave college without a job and with no real life experience, you'll struggle to get one.

Blame the industry, these highly profitable building companies haven't invested in training.... now bleat "we haven't skilled labour..."

But large numbers seem to leave further education with no jobs to go to within any of the more academic subjects, social sciences and subjects like art /music etc.

Perhaps removing some of these courses where large numbers end up working in supermarkets etc, would free up funding for more hands on based learning like the building trade.

It's very unfair on our young people

Construction is a popular course.

I'm sure it's because the businesses can get away with paying overseas workers lower wages and there are dubious practices

We don't need more houses, we need fewer people.

If we build new houses, people will just move into them. We can't keep building more houses infinitely. So there has to be a time to say "no more". It might as well be now.