To wonder why the government isn’t building more flats?

[Clawdya]

I was in Europe last week and apartment living is completely normal and desirable. Blocks are warm, well-insulated and comfortable, cheaper to run and heat, use up less green space. We have a dire housing shortage.

Why aren’t more blocks of flats being built for social housing?

I completely agree, and think the problem is that in the UK all but the most pricey are seemingly designed as 'stop-gaps'. A friend's very 'ordinary' european flat I stayed in once (it would have been exceptional by UK standards apart from mansion flats of the 1920s) had three bedrooms, full bathroom and cloakroom style loo, separate kitchen that had sliding doors to a large sitting room and lots of built in storage cupboards!

So many new build flats I've seen and indeed owned and lived in two of them have low ceilings, odd layouts and not enough storage for the average couple let alone family (like secure bike storage, somewhere to put hoover iron ironing board and xmas decs). Of course you could be an impressive minimalist but it's hard.

I think if more people (in London at least) had access to a 3-bed flat with a decent balcony, sensible storage and good noise insulation then a lot of people would stay put a lot longer. I would have!

I lived in one starting out and never again. The monthly leasehold charges just kept rising each year so it was more expensive to live in than a house. Also several more neighbours who can make your life hell.

You should come to my home town. They are building blocks of flats everywhere. The trouble is they have insufficient parking and the blocks are sold to London boroughs which ship down their own people on housing lists. Crime has rocketed and the town centre is now a no-go area at night. It has ruined the town and locals still can't get cheap housing.

Because government does not building housing in the UK. That is done by private firms and landowners who seek to maximise profit above all else. Additionally, the archaic way in which flats are usually 'owned' in England and Wales (leasehold) makes it a generally unattractive proposition, and renting is even more unattractive, with no security of tenure, no rights to re-decorate, restrictions on pets etc.

The way that property is owned, rented, and generally thought about in most other European countries is simply very different to how it is in England and Wales (Scotland is a bit more sane and I have no idea about NI).

I don’t know which part of the country you’re in but down here in the SE, there’s a significant amount of flats been built and many are social housing.

Because people don’t want to live in flats? No garden, very few are built with balconies, that will be extra costs, lots of places don’t want blocks of flats, new builds are noisy, you can’t get away from neighbours

Lots of city centre flats were built in the 00s. Flats aren’t seen a desirable by many British buyers and many of the original buyers lost money.

plus the pandemic means a high premium on your own outside space
plus leasehold is insane
plus post grenfell the cladding issues mean many flats can’t now be sold.

Workhouse now flats.

Personally I would never want to live in a flat and I’ve told my DCs to avoid it. Maintenance charges etc, not having your own green space is enough to put me off. That said I’m not sure why they aren’t as we have a desperate need for housing although there always seem to be a thing about enduring families have enough bedrooms and a garden even if they aren’t paying for it.

As an aside those saying that housebuilders are greedy etc have absolutely no idea how much it costs to build anything. The price of materials is through the roof and you can’t get tradies. Meanwhile millions who can’t/won’t work especially in hard physical jobs.

Maybe the poor quality of building in the UK including flats? I live in another European country and many flats are spacious, low rise, well insulated including for noise, and have big shared gardens and green space.

Next thread “Why aren’t we building more houses with chimneys to give children more working opportunities”

As others have said - the government doesn’t build any flats. It’s all private industry and they build whatever maximises profit. In this country, people tend to look down their noses at flats - which are viewed at as mainly for council tenants and retirement living - so they’re not a go-to for developers. I think the bleak tower blocks of the past and the Grenfell disaster have added to that too.

(Ex social housing professional here, my two pennies worth is a bit london skewed).
the majority of social housing built in recent decades has indeed been flats. Problem is they are mostly built by private developers who have to sell a certain amount to HAs to get their planning through. Managing these blocks is then an expensive nightmare for social landlords. Having to deal with managing agents of the ‘posh flats’, discrepancies in compliance and repair responsibilities. There’s little profit in it at all. Example a previous employer was paying 1 million a month in fees towards whilst not providing the standards the housing regulator requires. Blocks are poorly built and cost a fortune to maintain, fire safety, communal doors, intercoms and lifts breaking down, waste collection, general maintenance, cleaning. A lot of companies make huge profits in contracts off the back of this but it’s not the landlord. New residents are paying well over £1000 month for 1 or 2 bedrooms. This is why so many full time workers need UC top-ups.
Rurally I’d hate to see small towns and villages become little clones of our cities with the same oppressive ugly grey new builds. Village house dwellers are often snobby towards the people who live in the flats. Homeowners prefer social housing residents to live in flats as they feel people are getting something for nothing otherwise, but actually houses turn a profit quicker.
I like the older style london flats with external doors on outside walkways. The modern ones with internal corridors always remind me of The Shining.
it’s all nonsense, all housing is too expensive for everyone and the majority of us and not doing too great!

Because people don’t want to live in shitty flats. People like outdoor space and as few neighbours as possible.

I would never live in a flat, how claustrophobic

This. Leasehold is a giant racket. As pps said the charges and the problem of when that leasehold eventually expires. I do know people who rent in European cities. But they have security of tenure and sensible rents. Renting from the same landlords for decades. No doubt the corporations will mess that up though ...

We currently have an oversupply of 2-bed leasehold flats built for investors and landlords during the big buy to let boom. But many are not very liveable unless you are a young couple with hardly any possessions; the private market build standards are poor, the flats are too small, often poorly built, with high management and service charges that rise unpredictably, and often leasehold issues. They are often unsuitable for families. Prices were pushed up unsustainably by the investment boom, and often these flats are overvalued and/or have lost money.

On the other hand, there is an undersupply of decent-sized family houses, many of which are either new builds built to be sold at the top end of the market, or in terms of older housing stock, often being “hoarded” by older boomers and pensioners who don’t want to downsize (and especially don’t want to downsize to the new build flats I describe above).

I lived in a flat for a few years and i hated it. It was tiny. I had to put my freidge freezer in the boiler room as there was no room in the kitchen. I couldn't even have a small dining table in the kitchen so it was a pain when i wanted to invite family for a meal. It was poorly insulated so i could hear everything that my neighbours did. It was like an oven in the summer even when it was 20 degrees. There was no green space. I live in a house now. Okay my neighbours have loud parties in summer. At least it is a lot quieter in the colder months.

I don't see anything but tower blocks going up. We are amazingly bad at them in the UK though. Leasehold is an appalling scam. Construction quality has been dire for decades. No green space. All 1 or 2 bed and no family homes. No storage. Often in rubbish locations with poor access to transport and amenities. Shaky maintenance of lifts and communal spaces. And it feels pretty inevitable that another LPS / cladding style scandal will come along at some point.

It's nice to have a little garden

Leasehold flats aren’t attractive to many people. 🤷‍♀️

I have lived in flats 3 times in my life and all were spacious and had gardens. One was a house that had been converted and the others were only 2 floors anyway.

But if you are on about tower blocks, then no thanks. Every one I have visited people in has been grim. Concrete stairs that stink of piss and have teens hanging about on. Lifts that don't work half the time. Flats are tiny you can hear everything around you.

Don’t want to pay massive service charge.

Want a garden or at least a balcony.

Flats are too small with no storage or anywhere to dry washing.

I mostly enjoyed living in a flat, including with a baby/toddler, although I missed not having any outdoor space. But leasehold is a nightmare. And our flat was flooded when the fire brigade had to put out a fire in a flat a couple of floors up.

As others have said, flats here are all too often ill built rabbit hutches, poorly done divisions of larger properties and are not valued as 'real homes' by many. That and the weird regulations around freeholding can make it a nightmare

We lived in a well built flat for almost 30 years and it was great. But I ran the freehold association!

Our southeastern town is being eaten up by blocks of flats. They’re just being filled with people moving out from London and there’s nowhere for locals who want small family homes. It’s completely changing the town. The noise living in a terrace is horrific and I couldn’t contemplate living in a flat surrounded on all sides.