Labour’s plans to build thousands of new homes

[dnac]

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.

Looks really interesting; this is the sort of creative discussion we need over housing.

Really not sure what’s classed as green belt ,all the recent housing developments where we are have been built on what was farmland on the edges of the town, the so called grey belt areas have been turned into car parks

Near us is a lovely little town,they have built 4/5 bedroom homes there.All in the figures of 500 k upwards! They always say they will build starter homes but rarely seem to! Another town not far away ,They made the old prison into luxury flats (an irony in itself!) Said they would make 25% into affordable housing 80 flats ONE flat was the only one avaliable !

They would work for young people, the ones that are now forced to live in houseshares. So many empty shops and office buildings, many near stations, could be converted into apartments.

"You could increase density in London and build up."

Currently, around 8% of Londoners already live in tower blocks. How many more people do you want to force into high rise buildings?

Would you really want to turn London into somewhere like Tokyo?

Lots of old office buildings have been converted into flats here. I can think of 4 off the top of my head.

Building the, surgery and the school is one thing finding doctors and teachers to put in them is another. Water and drainage are also a huge problem with builders overloading the capacity of the services and then loads of remedial work to install bigger mains and sewers to cope with it all.

Well tower blocks and mega Tokyo high rise are one thing.

90% of London is actual 2 storey houses with or without a basement.

There’s a long way of opportunity in between. Like pp has said a lot of European cities have lovely 4/5 stories with internal courtyards and balconies both sides. Have you seen the kind of thing we are describing?

And like I said above @Another2Cats if you want to live in London surely you want to live in actual London.

The green belt is a designated buffer for the city to breathe. It’s already 10 degrees hotter in the centre than the rest of the country and by virtue of it being a circle the outer edges of that circle become exponentially less well connected than the inner rings. It’s why my parents take longer to travel to central than I do 100 miles away; and they are on the inner side of the greenbelt within the m25.

If you’re going to live there why not live anywhere else? It’s not making a difference to you personally.

This is what I am trying to tell you which you’re not getting. The green belt is not in London. In 90% locations it’s longer to get into central London on public transport than from Birmingham. It’s also 4x the house price. And if you want to drive you’re not getting local exemptions for congestion charge and ulez. It’s an incredibly expensive place to live. It is not for low paid workers. It’s mc mansion after mc mansion. You really should visit it one day. It is one of the nicest places in the U.K. and I see why people want to live there but they aren’t really understanding the realities. I grew up there. Both my sister and I moved out. Her to actual London and me to the midlands because that is where people start out. These are for late 40s+ executive level management/ leadership who have work from home roles and stay at home wives/dads or nannies to ferry the kids round.

I live in Tokyo. It's a complete myth that Tokyo is endless high-rises. I think you are confusing us with Hong Kong.

A quick search will tell you that around a third of Tokyoites live in houses, and around two-thirds in apartments.

We have a mixture of housing types.

There are townhouse type houses (technically detached, but they look like they are terraces from street level as the gaps bx houses are tiny); the old ones are typically two storeys, while new ones are usually three storeys to give more floor space. The majority are self-build, like in places such as Germany where there is a lot of self-build housing.

We also have apartment blocks of various sizes. We do have high-rises; I live in one myself. We also have a lot of mid-rise apartment blocks of four to eight-ish storeys, usually with elevators these days.

By the way, average floor space per person is now very slightly higher in Japan than it is in the UK, having risen consistently over the past 25 years or so. You might think that's population shrinkage, but not really. The population of Tokyo specifically has continued to rise throughout this period, and density of humans per square km has grown too, yet average floorspace per person is also higher in Tokyo than it used to be. That's because we've increasingly knocked down dumpy two-storey townhouses and replaced them with either taller townhouses that have three storeys, or with apartment blocks which means you are literally adding extra floor space.

At our local train station historically there were a lot of sidings . These days they're obsolete so it's wasteland. The council put in plans, housing association working with developers to put up an estate. It's in a town, good train, bus service. Safe to walk to three primary schools and the secondary school. Near all the shops.

You'd think that people would be happy. OMG the local objections from people already in social housing, renters and private owners who kicked off. They wanted a park. We already have two in the area.

It is a grey site. Already level so it's going ahead, finally.

"The UK is more densely populated than Sweden so we can't have apartments, whereas thinly-populated Sweden can have apartments" makes zero sense, sorry. Although it's not a perfect correlation, generally speaking rates of apartment dwelling are higher in densely populated countries, not lower!

Not Tokyo but maybe Copenhagen or Barcelona? Not everyone hates apartment living.

If you've ever been abroad, self catering, chances are you've stayed in apartments. Within the complex you can have gardens, a little park, a cafe, shop.

We really need to look at European design.

Some of the issues are also due to the changing family structures in the UK. People (mainly women) now are empowered to not stay in relationships with partners who are abusive. This leads to two homes needed rather than one. There is a bigger drive for young people to leave home and go to university, often staying away from home after graduation in house shares. Older people are encouraged to stay in their homes and be supported by care packages. These are all reasons for the increased need for more homes compared to fifty years ago. It is much more complex than an argument about immigration. We need to build homes which are soundproofed and encourage strong community cohesion in a smaller footprint.

Well since labour killed Rwanda as a deterant, before they beefed up security in a few months you’re going to think 800 is a dream.

It's so true about divorce. I read an article once about the number of properties where both mum and dad need separate properties with enough rooms for part time parenting. It's eye opening.

There is a massive misunderstanding over how much of the UK has been concreted over compared to reality.

If the UK was viewed as a large football pitch, then most people believe that almost all the ground between the goal-line and half-way line is densely developed whereas in reality, it would fit into the tiny arc marked for taking a corner.

It is impossible to have a rational and logical debate when the country is so mistaken about the basic geography.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42554635.amp

We certainly need to target the huge numbers of empty houses (people who've gone into care homes and will never come out, long delayed probates, foreign investors who have no intention of living in them, etc). We also need to have a purge on all the empty floors above High Street shops where current planning/building regulations make conversion to flats prohibitive. Plus do something about the Northern towns where there are rows of empty terraced housing. Also all the empty/disused/underused commercial buildings in towns and cities. We have to stop the obsession with building huge housing estates on farmland on the outskirts of towns.

Houses need to be built. People are living longer in their homes.

Smaller homes for older and younger dwellers need to be created. Either that or total ban on second homes and air BnB's.
There are no affordableplaces for 18-28 or single 70-100 year olds to live, none.

No one disputing that @1dayatatime

Or maybe some are. But the serious ones on here who are trying to save the greenbelt from being rebranded as an grey belt are saying if you have the whole of the rest of the pitch to build over. Why on earth are you hell bent on concreting over the equivalent of 1% of the white line that surrounds that corner taking block. There’s literally everywhere else!

You might think everyone is trying to save nature or trying to begrudge your children a house. Or any other misconception which are also stopping serious discussion.

They are primarily trying to say it’s not an appropriate place to build more houses. Because it’s not sustainable. It’s not the density that we need to be looking at. It’s not walkable cities. It’s not well connected. It’s not affordable. And the green belts sole purpose was to provide ecosystem services for HUMANS. Not nature. Its original purpose was to stop urban sprawl, provide a location for recreation and access to nature for those living in London. And to limit heat island effect and provide air quality services.

Urban sprawl is so nasty. Go on google maps and have a look at some places on satellite. We have a choice. We can build more without sprawl. We can have both green spaces and development, and walkable cities. It’s not an either or.

I’m 25, a few years in to a good grad career, my partner is the same, basically doing as well as we could for our age. We live in the Midlands and we cannot afford to be a house. Not a chance. This is not because interest rates are high- this is what they should be- it is because for 40 years the UK has not built enough homes.

Part of this is because of hard constraints, skilled labour, cost of land, etc. But a BIG reason, as seen in this thread, is that people aren’t interested in any new houses being built near them. Unless you live in a city centre or an ancient farm house, the building you live in was once ‘Green Belt’. It should also be noted that ‘Green Belt’ has been cynically used by councillors to garner votes from people who don’t want anything to change. Just because it’s a farmers field doesn’t mean shouldn’t change its use to housing.

Unless we radically change, our society is not going to be a happy or healthy one. Birth rates are already dropping, and if we carry on like this, we’re going to end up looking like South Korea. We’re looking at this from the perspective of not liking some houses being built because they’re ugly or not 100% perfect. We should be viewing this as an existential threat to our demographics and ability to function as a society.

People need homes. Presumably you have one, OP?

I imagine that everyone who doesn't want mass house building is slightly relieved that Labour got in, because they've only pledged 1.5 million new houses as opposition to the Conservatives who pledged 1.6 million. So that's good news for you.