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Climate Change

Labour’s plans to build thousands of new homes

354 replies

dnac · 08/07/2024 22:57

Anyone else feeling dismayed at the plans announced today to build huge numbers of new homes on the “grey” belt? Why not just concrete over the UK? It’s not just the homes, it’s the infrastructure that will need to go with it that will almost certainly involve cutting down trees, spoiling natural habitats and losing more green space. Plus the boundary between grey and geeen belt will blur over time. Why can’t we put more effort into refurbishing existing properties (or just rebuilding on the same sites?). So much for refreshing, positive ideas from the new administration. Just more of the same ill thought out sound bites that make me despair for the future of the planet.

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9
Puffinfoot · 11/07/2024 11:39

I'm just going to point out the Conservative manifesto pledged 1.6m homes and a big green belt development near here was rejected by local planners, but forced on them by the Conservative government in Westminster.

It might be a problem, but it's not because of the change of government.

Yes, if course empty homes need to be brought back, brownfield sites need to be used and that's included, but literally millions of homes are needed. These greyfield sites are already developed.

Cattery · 11/07/2024 11:49

@Badbadbunny What was the “crazy” stuff? Wanting every child to have access to broadband?

KnittedCardi · 11/07/2024 12:03

We have a local campaign against, not houses, but a solar farm. Massive. Lots of roads and various infrastructure needed too. On farmland. Productive farmland. Wheat and rape in rotation every year, in green belt, adjacent to AONB. Really worried it will now get the go ahead.

KnittedCardi · 11/07/2024 12:06

Locally too, lots of town center student accommodation being built. Lots of objections. However, what has happened is that it is freeing potential family homes back on to the market. Therefore much more sustainable.

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 15:19

"Yes I do think that taking the existing untold miles of terrace and adding an extra three stories would have big potential gains in housing space for zero additional footprint.

Huge amounts of square footage has been added in recent decades through loft conversions but existing planning laws work on a fairly arbitrary restrictive basis"
@Metempsychosis

Not sure they would get building control permission to add that many stories to existing terraces - the foundations would need to be structurally able to support the extra weight.

There would also possibly be a blocking of light issue.

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 15:21

Cattery · 11/07/2024 11:49

@Badbadbunny What was the “crazy” stuff? Wanting every child to have access to broadband?

Exactly! He wanted a fairer society.

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 15:22

KnittedCardi · 11/07/2024 12:03

We have a local campaign against, not houses, but a solar farm. Massive. Lots of roads and various infrastructure needed too. On farmland. Productive farmland. Wheat and rape in rotation every year, in green belt, adjacent to AONB. Really worried it will now get the go ahead.

It can be returned to productive farmland - what's the issue?
It can also be grazed.
We need to focus on renewable energy.

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 15:37

Plus wheat and rape every single year will have a ton of chemicals sprayed on it.
If the grass is planted up with different species of wildflowers, it will offer much more biodiversity.

justasking111 · 11/07/2024 16:18

KnittedCardi · 11/07/2024 12:03

We have a local campaign against, not houses, but a solar farm. Massive. Lots of roads and various infrastructure needed too. On farmland. Productive farmland. Wheat and rape in rotation every year, in green belt, adjacent to AONB. Really worried it will now get the go ahead.

You can't keep rotation farming though you're exhausting the land.

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 17:41

KnittedCardi · 11/07/2024 12:03

We have a local campaign against, not houses, but a solar farm. Massive. Lots of roads and various infrastructure needed too. On farmland. Productive farmland. Wheat and rape in rotation every year, in green belt, adjacent to AONB. Really worried it will now get the go ahead.

x.com/woxfarmbirds/status/1535997705901617152?s=46&t=uRXD5qYrgGn-S8bg2iKwTA

Solar farm here for example. Return of skylarks.

EdithStourton · 11/07/2024 17:54

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 17:41

x.com/woxfarmbirds/status/1535997705901617152?s=46&t=uRXD5qYrgGn-S8bg2iKwTA

Solar farm here for example. Return of skylarks.

We've always had skylarks on the arable fields here. One where I used to listen to them is now.... covered in houses.

While I get the point that solar farms can be returned to arable, we do need to eat. Things like direct drilling are using fewer inputs and are better for the soil.

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 18:51

@EdithStourton
When electricity prices are delinked from gas, and comes from renewable sources, or solar farms then more of this type of farming is possible:

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-68341208

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 18:57

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 18:51

@EdithStourton
When electricity prices are delinked from gas, and comes from renewable sources, or solar farms then more of this type of farming is possible:

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-68341208

Also wheat can be grown:

www.farminguk.com/news/vertical-farm-trial-growing-wheat-produces-exceptional-results-_61512.html

KnittedCardi · 11/07/2024 19:26

Vertical farming cannot replace acres of farmland. They are also indoors so require building on the land. Building is not ecological.

These fields are not sprayed with loads of chemicals, they are managed to ensure this is not needed. Apart from the environmental impact, it is very expensive to use fertiliser and chemical sprays. We already have skylarks, several species of raptor, and all and sundry other wildlife. The fields are set aside every rotation. I mean if you want to increase the price and scarcity of imported wheat and oil, go ahead.

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 19:42

KnittedCardi · 11/07/2024 19:26

Vertical farming cannot replace acres of farmland. They are also indoors so require building on the land. Building is not ecological.

These fields are not sprayed with loads of chemicals, they are managed to ensure this is not needed. Apart from the environmental impact, it is very expensive to use fertiliser and chemical sprays. We already have skylarks, several species of raptor, and all and sundry other wildlife. The fields are set aside every rotation. I mean if you want to increase the price and scarcity of imported wheat and oil, go ahead.

I think it will in future once we develop more technology. It is also less susceptible to weather related issues and will prevent pollution.
There could be several floors in relatively small footprint. All managed by robots and computers.
The arable land could be returned to wild grasslands and woodland.

miserablecat · 11/07/2024 20:02

Are there even enough tradies to build even half the amount they're promising?

Metempsychosis · 11/07/2024 20:08

miserablecat · 11/07/2024 20:02

Are there even enough tradies to build even half the amount they're promising?

The Tories have been building over 200,000 new homes a year recently: not the 300,000 that they and now Labour were aiming for, but comfortably more than half.

EdithStourton · 11/07/2024 22:28

Well, sure, if you want to cover the entire country in buildings.
Not sure how much space that leaves for wild plants and animals.

I live in a very arable part of the country. I regularly see or hear skylarks, woodpeckers, buzzards, goldfinches - literally dozens of species of bird, as well as a couple of species of deer and various other mammals. There is a surprising amount of wildlife out there once you get your eye in. Obviously if there were more skylark plots and wider headlands and more hedges, there would be more, but the UK is densely populated and it's a trade-off between food security and wildlife.

Your next post would seem to indicate that you have no idea just how much acreage in this country is down to crops - not just cereals but vegetables too. I dare not imagine the carbon footprint of just erecting all the buildings that would be needed to produce on several stories what is currently grown.

Tryingtokeepgoing · 11/07/2024 23:00

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 19:42

I think it will in future once we develop more technology. It is also less susceptible to weather related issues and will prevent pollution.
There could be several floors in relatively small footprint. All managed by robots and computers.
The arable land could be returned to wild grasslands and woodland.

Vertical farming might have a place in replacing veg / salad crops, but at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, it doesn’t make sense for arable . Wheat is currently at a 10 year high, but even if you take the current £260 odd a tonne, and manage to achieve a yield of 10 t per hectare, at £30 per tonne margin then you are looking at a tiny return on the £2m plus it costs to build a hectare of protected growing. We are miles away from that being commercially viable.

GreenTeaLikesMe · 11/07/2024 23:02

Solar can be combined with agriculture (agrophotovoltaics) and with grazing animals; it can even improve outputs by providing ensuring you have shade as well as direct light in a field.

Around 40% of all arable land in the UK is used for growing animal feed. Eating less meat would help more with food security than refusing solar farms.

You are going to get the solar farm anyway. We need renewable power and it has to come from somewhere.

Tryingtokeepgoing · 11/07/2024 23:02

miserablecat · 11/07/2024 20:02

Are there even enough tradies to build even half the amount they're promising?

No, which is why Labours announcements are unachievable. Still, we are now 8 days into their 100 day plan, in which time immigration and growth were going to be sorted :)

GreenTeaLikesMe · 11/07/2024 23:18

BurntBroccoli · 11/07/2024 15:19

"Yes I do think that taking the existing untold miles of terrace and adding an extra three stories would have big potential gains in housing space for zero additional footprint.

Huge amounts of square footage has been added in recent decades through loft conversions but existing planning laws work on a fairly arbitrary restrictive basis"
@Metempsychosis

Not sure they would get building control permission to add that many stories to existing terraces - the foundations would need to be structurally able to support the extra weight.

There would also possibly be a blocking of light issue.

I think the idea would be to replace the existing buildings with taller ones, not literally had more storeys onto existing terraces.

Victorian terraces vary, but a lot of the ones I see have huge cracks up the side because they have almost no bloody foundations, just a foot of rubble or so at the bottom. They also have single-layer walls with no cavities, so you cannot insulate them except by adding weird cladding to the outside, which negates the whole point of maintaining an old "charming" building. Attempts to insulate Victorian terraces in various ways often result in damp/mould, which will get worse in the future if people try to add air con in the face of more heat waves. Most housing has a lifespan of 150 to 200 years; terraces built in the 1870s or whatever are therefore reaching the point where at most they only have a few decades left at the most. It is not worth trying to tie ourselves in knots retrofitting them IMO.

Accounts like Architectural Revival on Twitter have some good ideas for attractive but taller buildings which adapt traditional styles. If you adapted streets of terraces into streets which had a mixture of three-storey and four-storey terraces and some mid-rise blocks of flats (4-6 storeys), you could create tons of housing and the streets would look nice.

You would need to make hard decisions on transport and cars though, otherwise you will end up with hellish developments with cars jammed into every inch of the street, pavement and everywhere else, and everyone at each others' throats about traffic and parking.

It's possible to have terraces with offstreet parking (by having a gap under each of the houses that a car can be put into). However the risk is that you come back a decade later, and everyone has converted these garage areas into extra rooms or filled them with clutter and crap and then parks their car all over the street/pavement anyway. You'd need some firm local ordinances banning people from parking overnight on the street, and requiring people to get cars signed off by the powers that be before purchasing, checking that they have an off-street parking space for it and that their car fits their garage (we literally do this in Japan as a nationwide law!). And the roads will need to be wider to let people out in the morning.

Or, you can develop these developments as car-free neighborhoods if they are close enough to the center of town, but again, you'll have to be tough with people or they will just buy cars anyway and plonk them all over the neighborhood. And there will have to be serious serious work on public transport and active travel infrastructure to make it work.

1dayatatime · 11/07/2024 23:18

@GreenTeaLikesMe

"You are going to get the solar farm anyway. We need renewable power and it has to come from somewhere"

But where do we get the renewable power on a cold dark windless January evening?

GreenTeaLikesMe · 11/07/2024 23:35

Well, firstly from other sources of power (nobody is saying that solar is going to be the UK's only energy source), and secondly by storing solar power, because batteries, just like solar itself, are only continuing to grow exponentially cheaper and more powerful, and because there are also other forms of storage (example: you use "excess" solar power during the daytime to power water pumps in a dam which pump water upwards; during the nighttime, the water that has been pumped uphill is allowed to pour downwards and turn turbines, creating hydropower).

None of the above is complicated or controversial.

Inlaw · 12/07/2024 00:08

It's possible to have terraces with offstreet parking (by having a gap under each of the houses that a car can be put into

You definitely don’t want to be doing that. It will make for a horrendous street scene, unsafe and intimidating. If you had a street like that near you I guarantee as a woman you would not walk down it. In planning it’s called natural surveillance. But it’s interesting because you don’t often surveil much from your front windows or vice versa. It’s really a psychological trick. But is a really strong trick which does impact real life perception and thus actions of both potential perpetrators as well as potential victims. I love this part of landscape. There’s so much hidden psychology in how we perceive, interact, value or become affected by a place and I find it so fascinating.

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