To be sick of hearing about 'the housing crisis'?

[GoldfinchFeather]

This is related to the thread about Angela Rayner wanting to build 1.5 million new homes. Is anyone else sick to the back teeth of hearing about the supposed housing crisis in this country?

I live in a semi-rural area, and the amount of house building around here over the last few years has been crazy. Hundreds of houses appearing on pretty much any vacant piece of land, turning what was once a small village into something that feels closer to a town in size. Roads getting busier and busier, and and all the while nothing has been done to provide any new facilities like doctors or schools.

I understand people's frustration of not being able to buy a home. But surely just concreting over more and more of the countryside is completely unsustainable?

If the housing crisis is really so bad, why isn't the Government taking more of an innovative approach? How many town centres/high streets have empty shops that could be converted to residential use? Or properties that have stood empty for years and haven't been brought back to market? Surely just through that, there would be an enormous surplus of homes available, and less need to concrete over more and more of the countryside?

You say the government’s job is ‘just to provide homes,’ yet your entire argument is about restricting where those homes can be. If people need homes now, why should they be forced into cramped flats above shops or converted warehouses rather than having the same opportunity to live in a house like you?

Repurposing brownfield sites and empty properties should absolutely be part of the solution, but studies show they alone aren’t enough to meet demand. The CPRE report you mentioned suggests a potential for millions of homes, but much of that land isn’t viable, and even if it were, housing needs aren’t evenly distributed. People need homes near where they work, not just wherever there happens to be disused land.

As for Airbnbs and second homes—yes, they exacerbate the issue, but even if we reclaimed every single one, it wouldn’t magically solve the crisis. And government can't just confiscate privately owned homes because they’ve been empty for a year—that’s not how property rights work. If it were, then- God forbid- if you ended up on your own in your house, what's to stop the gvmt forcing you into downsizing?

You also argue that greenbelt and rural building should only happen with ‘proven exceptional need’—but the current housing crisis is that exceptional need. The alternative is pricing out entire generations. You might not like it, but if you want a real solution, it has to include new builds in a mix of locations—including some near you

'Mass deaths' should be the measure. People shouldn't be required to live in slums in order to not be homeless.

If someone wants to earn an income as a landlord they should provide safe, damp-free housing or get out of the business which will free up more housing stock.

There are lots of studies and analysis of the impact of poor housing

1950 parliament report of 900 deaths attributed to poor housing

I think the amount of property that can be rented out by 1 person should be limited and they should have a license to do so. If they fail to keep to standards license is taken away and they are not able to rent it out.

Im in a village that’s no longer going to be a village at this rate because the population of it has skyrocketed in the past few years with the amount of ‘estates’ being built in it. This has no effect on me in the grand scheme of things as I’m in a council home, but I feel so much for the owners of houses as if it loses its village ‘status’ their homes will likely decrease in value as a result. But it’s very frustrating, so many new homes are being built and it’s impacting the once quiet area. I’m disabled and I used to be able to go to the local shops where I live and park in a disabled bay or a parking space with ease. Now it’s virtually impossible to get a parking space . Things like this that may seem ‘minor’ to a lot of people when a lot of people move to areas like this because these ‘minor’ things make a major difference in our lives. I cannot complain as I’m in a council home due to various issues like my disability and having to flee dv and I know so many people are in similar situations. But I don’t understand why new homes need to constantly be built when there’s already homes

@Tricho I agree entirely. One issue the CPRE ( obviously a biased organisation!) will not look at, is that no one wants to pay for clearing up brownfield sites. In many cases it’s very expensive. So worth it where prices are high, not worth it where they are not. So who should pay? Government to kick start? Who is going to pay when making a site safe costs too much to make the house building viable? Some brownfield sites are going to cause lots of cleaning up problems.

Look at Liverpool. All those deserted water front warehouses. They have been there for over a century some of them. Why aren’t they converted? A few are but many are not. What about the mills that are derelict in Halifax? Are they not brownfield sites? The cost is massive so no one wants to know. Near me, a farmyard is used by a car breaker. It’s AONB and greenbelt but it is a brownfield site as it’s a farmyard. Can it get PP? No, of course not! There’s talk and then there’s action. Not much of the latter and then even when conversions are applied for, locals object on any grounds they can think of! Every time!

That's interesting, I wasn't aware of that.

However, the first people that jump to mind are the many young people living with their parents and doing very little of anything. Even students get almost 4 months off in summer which would enable them to do this if they wanted to. It certainly wasn't how I wanted to spend my summers (I worked but not outdoors), but then, I'm not the one objecting to bringing immigrants over to do it.

I do laugh at my ex-town.
for past 20 years have been striving to be a “CITY”
Lot of building homes with more employers and shops leaving the area.
Any apartments or conversions in “town” - are retiree flats many restrictions. Clearly town planners want town to look a certain way - no kids or families. No need for school. Skateboards banned as scare old people but drunk mobility scooters are ok.

Jobs: elderly need carers. Not much other jobs outside of building trade to build the houses for no-jobs people…. Or WFH. Thats the dream - a plastic new build for WFH. No driveway. No transport links.

Many empty shops - I wonder why landlords don’t drop rents low enough to get a tenant then thinking must be more valuable to keep it empty for some tax reason. Town now looks dirty, forlorn and depressing. Who would want to buy in the dead end town???

"I'm alright jack, but stuff the rest of you."

My thoughts too!! Now that the baby boomers are dying off the population will reduce naturally so much of the throwaway housing being built now will be next to useless in the future.
Maybe Rachel from Accounts should be looking to tax landlords to help with costs. I'm well aware that some landlords are accidental as in they have inherited property but there are plenty of landlords who use the equity they have in various properties to purchase yet another house and charge massive rents to profit from their tenants. Our neighbours have had year on year rises for five years now to the point that they are considering moving onto a caravan site - where does it end? If they move, would someone be able to afford the rent without recourse to claiming housing benefit to help with costs - so money just goes round in circles with the taxpayer ultimately picking up the bill.
That said there is still a shortage of housing which needs to be addressed maybe the developers could change direction and buy up defunct hotels and office buildings and develop these into housing accommodation.

The planning departments need to issue change of use to allow repurposing of buildings! Developers cannot just move in. There are residential development zones and work zones! There needs to be change in zoning for creative use of buildings. Angela needs to tell them to get on with it!

Where I live, a huge amount of the homeless that would be suitable for first time buyers and young families are being rented out as student lets and air B&Bs, so people are moving to more rural areas because those are the only places with normal houses.

Meanwhile, brownfield sites are left empty while the companies that own them sit and watch the value rise and eventually sell to developers who build either luxury student flats or aparthotels.

If we intend to wait for the boomers to die off, we will need to use existing housing stock more sensibly. Nobody ever seems keen to downsize though because they can't have exactly what they want. Far easier to tell everyone younger that they mustn't have what they want.

Government can subsidize housing because they own 95% of land and mostly when they sell it its on a lease so they can reclaim it and build more housing for the next generations. The properties singaporeans buy are not an investment generally, you can only buy a government flat if you are married or above 35, you can't buy a government flat if you own private property even if its overseas (i cant buy as i own a london flat), you often can't sell in the first 5 years. Even if you buy private property, your second property has 20% stamp duty.

Government can do the forced savings thing because most singaporeans pay no tax. So instead of paying tax, they contribute to their pensions (20% plus 16% from employer which can be used for healthcare and housing). It is a small wealthy city where the government owns most land and many companies and lots of assets and it only had 3 million citizens to look after as 40% are foreigners. They can charge 100k for a certificate to own a car because 90% of the population lives within 0.5 miles of a metro station (and there are enough rich people there who can pay the prices) and if we had cheap cars like in uk, the traffic jams would be horrific and no one would be going anywhere..

It's very different here. I wish we had more council housing too but our set up is very different. Hence the government needs to provide pensions and healthcare because even if they didn't provide these things, we would never be able to have low tax cos we aren't a city state with absurdly high land values. And hence no money to build government housing so we rely on private sector who vyild what people want.

I agree op and near me we are gridlocked all the time even going to the local woods or pleasure actives are now over run and it's not fun.

I wouldn't mind if new hospitals and roads were put in but they arnt

Me and my Children have just come out of 9 months emergency accommodation and are now in Temporary Accommodation for goodness knows how long. We had to re-home our cats. We had to get rid of a large chunk of our personal possessions and a lifetime of memories and watch the rest go into storage with no idea when we'd see it all again. No idea where in the country we would be put and what kind of conditions we'd be in, maybe one room in a filthy hostel full of crack heads miles away from our area. Saying goodbye to the lovely home we took our babies home to and decorated their nursery. The beautiful gardens where I watched my roses grow every year. Our lovely neighbours and the local children my children played outside with. How I wish this was all ""supposed". I'm really sorry you are so sick of it all, must be fucking dreadful for you. Let me know how you cope when telling your children we have to leave this home and we don't know where we are going next.

You’re not being unreasonable. There’s a huge amount of new houses being built near me BUT it is in an area of deprivation where they need affordable rentable homes not a thousand 4 and 5 bed private homes. Funnily enough, the homes for sale that sell fast are ex-local authority semi-detached or terraced properties because that’s what most people can afford not the fancy new builds.

Also, can anyone answer why in England, old people can buy discounted housing? I live in Scotland where that isn’t the case but my sister was so frustrated when she wanted to buy but noticing that if you were a pensioner you could buy the same property for 50 - 100k less! I don’t get it 🤷🏻‍♀️.

You mean lifetime lease?

They don't own the house, just the right to live in it until death or care home etc...(so 20 years approx.) then it reverts back to the company to be 'sold' again.

Our village is the same. We are on the sixth major development in 5 years and the village would have doubled in size IF they were selling them. But they’re not because they’re not affordable housing and I think that’s the key. Yes there’s definitely a housing crisis. No the people who need homes can’t anywhere near afford any of the ones near me and probably don’t want to or can’t practically live in rural North Hertfordshire either. These developments have nothing to do with providing housing to those who so desperately need it and everything to do with lining the pockets of property developers. We have lost ancient agricultural land that will never come back into the bargain.

I’m going to really put my neck out and say the problem is social housing and the expectation that the council
should house you. , everyone should aim to and try to own their own home. And if that means starting in a cheaper area or smaller house then so be it. And people shouldn’t be banging out 3/4/5 + kids if they don’t own their own home. Shouldn’t be relying on the govt to subsidise them.

Around here it is farmland that is being built on, we don't have any empty waste lands but that doesn't seem to be stopping them

If farmland is being built on, it's because farmers no longer need the land and sell it off to ensure they can keep their farms running.

We can't rely on other countries for food, especially with Climate Change.

You're happy to pay higher grocery prices so that UK farming is more profitable? That's why farmers are selling land.

Here I know two farmers who sold off good arable land to developers for well over a million. That money was reinvested in the farm BTW.

That's as maybe. But we have had a housing crisis in Scotland for more than a decade. We don't have unprecedented levels of migration.