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.

There's no age limit to who needs homes.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/how-many-empty-homes-are-there-in-the-uk/#:~:text=The%20most%20recent%20government%20statistics,before%20the%20pandemic%20in%202019.

A friend works for a new department in the council, dedicated to finding empty properties. You're right there are a lot.

The council are offering grants to update these properties, find tenants and pay market rate rents. which in the main are refused.

Parent in care home, offspring refuse to release even though the grants will update the property.

Flats above shops, same offer, council will update and pay market rate.

Overseas owners offered same deal refuse.

It's frustrating.

Is this the South/London? In which case I would imagine joint salary of £70k is pretty reaisttic. I'm in the North. A two bed terrace in a decent area can be bought for £100k. It's just that some young people dont want to start on the bottom rung of the ladder, but want the house at the top of the rung, without the climb.

We have a housing shortage, only about 10% of the country has been built on and most brown field sites are contaminated so need extensive and expensive clean ups before they can be built on so it seems like a good idea.

It shouldn't be optional. Government should change the law to give legal powers for councils to take over properties after, say, 5 years of the owner claiming it's empty for council tax purposes.

Either that, or change the council tax rules so that the council tax increases by, say, 50% year on year for every year it's empty, so that the longer it's left empty, the higher the cost to the owner.

The current rules/laws clearly don't work, so something needs to change.

I work in construction. We don't have the resources to either build these new, or retro-fit existing buildings to acceptable standards.

LivelyBlake · Today 03:50
We've built nothing

Where do you live?
Our local town has a population of about 20,000 and huge housing estates are mushrooming all around the outskirts. The same is happening in all towns near us.
I went through Newbury in the train recently and the outskirts look like Rostock - acres of identikit apartment buildings.
A pp recommended building more high rise blocks and another said she liked living in one, but I don’t think they are generally popular in this country. However, needs must, I suppose.

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.

@Roseyjane 🤣 🤣 🤣

A report commissioned by THE HOME OFFICE THEMSELVES admitted “the academic consensus” that “there is little to no evidence suggesting changes in a destination country’s policies have an impact on deterring people from leaving their countries of origin or travelling without valid permission”.

Here, in case you fancy a browse:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64999700831311001329637f/IllegalMigrationnBillIAA-LMM_Signed-final.pdf

Meanwhile in the real (not racist) world, I'm delighted that such an inhumane method of haemorrhaging taxpayer money has been scrapped, and I'm also delighted with our new government's house building proposal.

Finally, after 14 long and shitty years, the adults have entered the room 👏

That’s not true. Farmland isn’t greenbelt. The greenbelt is a very specific and small set of area designated across the country surrounding major cities. Specifically here Labour is talking about scrapping the metropolitan greenbelt (the one surrounding london).

99% of the midlands is not green belt. The green belt in your area are places like Solihull. No matter how many houses they build there, they aren’t going to be in your price range.

And South Korea! South Korea’s urban planning is exceptional. They have historical problems but they know what they need to be doing to correct it and are some of the world leaders in this area. The Cheonggyecheon project is one of the best examples of urban replanning in the world. But yet we can’t even have a garden bridge.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheonggyecheon

Honestly too many people who know absolutely nothing about urban planning, the environment, housing and development have opinions on this. We really should leave this to experts. And no experts will tell you the green belts are where we should be building.

I don't have an issue with housing being built if it happens on brownfield sites or in towns where the shops on the high street have been closed down and are now pretty much derelict.
But if these are being paid for by the government then they must remain rental properties for a minimum of 15/20 years under the management of a Housing Association - before they can be bought under any right to buy schemes that have lost us so much of our housing stock.

Far too much of our housing stock is decrepit Victorian stock housing that is cold, damp, and contributing to CO2 emissions. We need modern homes in the right places, so people can live fulfilling lives.

@mybeesarealive Plenty of old houses can be refurbished to modern standards. What do you suggest doing with the Victorian housing stock? Bulldozing them and building tower blocks?
Do you think people who live in modern houses live more ‘fulfilling lives’ than those who live in old ones?
We live in a Victorian house and my life is perfectly fulfilling.

But we’ve been building on green belt for a long time, we just reclassify it to brown.

Really interesting @Inlaw - just hoping Starmer's government will listen to the experts on this.

Build housing in the town centres that are underused and are just left to rot instead of having decaying buildings doing nothing

You’re not understanding what greenbelt is. It’s an actual area which was defined ages ago. In the case of the metropolitan nearly a hundred years ago. It doesn’t move or get reclassified when someone builds on it.

For those who want to know about greenbelt.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_belt_(United_Kingdom)

The Cheonggyecheon project is one of the best examples of urban replanning in the world.

@Inlaw The Cheonggyecheon stream is indeed wonderful, but Seoul has lost hundreds of acres of old traditional buildings which have been replaced by characterless tower blocks - it’s the same in Busan.
Now apparently Hannamdong is going to be demolished. The houses there are largely two to five storeys, some with roof gardens, in little streets and alleys. They aren’t exactly beautiful but they’ve got character and it’s a community.
However I appreciate that there is a major housing shortage in Seoul and the surrounding mountains limit urban sprawl.

I also think that homes built for rent for now on should remain just that otherwise we will be in the same mess again in the future . Also if a family rents a house and the kids reach adulthood and move out to start their own family then the tenant moves down to smaller accommodation.

Absolutely this. We have a town centre and high street that has hardly any real shops left. Plenty of money laundering shops, like vape shops, phone shops, nail bars and Albanian cafes, but barely any legit shops. At least 90% could be converted to homes. Purpose built HMOs seem to be the way to go for young people wanting a step into independent living.

I'm confused as there are many very nice semi detached houses in our small town that aren't selling, but all the development is large estate of 4+ bedroom houses at a way higher price. Somthe affordable houses are not being sold. Just a typical Midlands area.

This is what I’ve been thinking recently.

We’ve been tearing down tower blocks but why not invest in facilities to make them more desirable. Play schemes, youth hubs, community outreach, nice green spaces and more police presence to stop anti-social behaviour.

I live in a small town with next to no infrastructure- it’s fine for us as we both drive, we could afford somewhere bigger and quite like having the countryside on our doorstep.

However, If you don’t drive it’s a prison. There’s not even a Tesco express. Taxi’s are extremely expensive and have to be booked up in advance. There are buses, that run hourly during the week, but only in certain directions. Either online shops, driving to the supermarket or relying on the very expensive Nisa.

There’s a young single mum that’s moved to the town and she’s constantly posting on the community group asking for lifts to appointments/hospital. She got absolutely flamed because she didn’t want to walk three miles to the next town for her community midwife appointment, and getting the bus, she’d still have to walk over a mile and be hanging around for well over an hour.

If she’d want to take her kids swimming, it would be a day trip. Or, if she wanted to access the council funded under 5 groups, it would take 2.5 hours of travel. I can only imagine how lonely/isolated she must be after being placed here by the council.

Surely for low income/car less families being in ‘15 minute walkable cities/towns’ would be much more preferable over having a private garden.

I think housing more people in city centers is a good idea, but building new buildings in a lot of cases makes more sense than trying to retrofit old ones. People living in apartments need enough space, layouts that make sense, balconies, nice communal spaces and so on, not some dodgy retrofitted office building.

It's also a good idea to retain a fair bit of the retail/services on the ground floors of a lot of buildings. If you are expecting people to live in the center of town, there is not going to be room for all of them to be driving cars everywhere or parking them, so people will need stuff within walking distance. And one of the big advantages of cities that are full of people is that you can have nice, lively city centers again. People who have relatively little access to cars and do not have much outdoor space spend more time in public spaces and using local parks, public transport and so on, and it tends to be natural to pick up your shopping as you go along. Part of the reason why UK city centers are in such a permanent pickle is because, by international standards, few people live in central urban areas.

How can you not afford a house in the Midlands if you both have good careers? Or do you mean you can’t afford the type house you really want?

@Autumnflakes

Surely for low income/car less families being in ‘15 minute walkable cities/towns’ would be much more preferable over having a private garden

I agree. My son has no wish to live on the outskirts of town, nor have a garden to look after. He's in his first year of his first graduate job, working from a city centre office (small Northern city). The ONLY flat he could get was on the outskirts, not on a good bus route, and is a ground floor flat where he's responsible for the garden. That was after months of trying to even get viewings. He couldn't even get a single viewing for any town centre flat!

He'd far rather live in the centre, i.e. flat above a shop or in a block of flats, so he could walk to work and be closer to nightlife and attractions/facilities, etc., but there are so few available, you can't even get viewings. He despairs when he walks around town, and sees all the empty properties, i.e. closed down shops, derelict/empty flats above shops etc.