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.

Because we need affordable housing.

Ah! So your objection is based on politics of envy, like VAT on private schools, rather than being something genuinely beneficial!

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

"A field could produce food. So a field is more important than a predominantly middle class male sport."

Not at a loss it couldn't, there really isn't much money in farming and who can blame him for wanting to sell the land for golf courses, housing or solar farms. In his position you would do exactly the same thing.

You think a golf club is more beneficial than a field used to produce food?

Depends if the fields would ever be used to produce food! Lots of land simply isn't suitable. Lots of golf courses are "links" courses on very sandy/wet land which simply isn't suitable for crop growing. Lots are on "fields" with steep slopes, again unsuitable for crop growing. If the land was high quality arable land, the farmers would never have sold it "just for a golf course" in the first place!!

Nobody is envious about people playing golf. But land has to be used effectively for everyone.

Of course not but these particular generations are likely to need smaller homes and have the least disposable income.
Small inexpensive homes/flats/maisonettes simply don't exist in the numbers they did 40 years ago.
Everyone I know left home between 16 and 19 - we all had flat shares at very affordable prices for students and low waged. It was never a problem finding somewhere to live.
Now it's near impossible.

My adult DD has been very fortunate. In the town she lives private companies built too many 'high end' student accommodation blocks so the local authority agreed they can they now house non-student adults and most now have young professionals.

She only as a small studio but it is right in the town centre so she doesn't need a car and the fact there is a reception that is staffed around the clock makes it feel so much safer. Add to that the fact the building has a gym, cinema room and communal social space and it is bills (other than council tax) included it is perfect for her.

The footprint of the building is relatively small, something like this in other towns would be relatively easy to build. I do hope the new government will look at these kinds of options.

@ticktickticktickBOOM In London when I was young finding a rented room was a nightmare. It was fine outside of London though.

Retrofit tomorrow's nightmare @Tomorrowisanewday

That's the crux of those opposing in a lot of cases - that it would spoil their view...
The housing situation is dire and needs to change. There needs to be a selection of affordable homes, from 1 bed apartments (with access to green space), bungalows, 2 and 3 beds of a decent size with bedrooms you can fit more than a bed and bedside table in. There needs to be electric vehicle points and sufficient parking (car ownership is not going to go away any time soon).
New paths need to be built connecting new housing to nearby larger villages and towns so people can travel by bike or on foot.

There are already loads of executive 4 and 5 bedroomed houses being built as they offer the most profit.

Requires a lot of investigation and expensive lawyers. Councils are broke!

Sounds really good!

Councils already have to take action on empty homes. The issue is that unless a owner ignores contact from the council, legally it is very difficult to force owners to do anything. Owners can easily get a stay of execution for many things. They plan to sell the house, they plan to do it up and sell it, etc.
A friend has an empty house, her mothers old house. In spite of lots of offers of help, she can not deal with deciding what to do with it. It is still full of her mothers furniture. It has been like that for 5 years now. The best thing is to increase the amount of council tax that local authorities can charge on empty homes to try and force more back into housing circulation.

Thank you.

I couldn't square why we have a much-discussed drop in the birth rate yet an increase in population. I think this explains it perfectly

So - there will never be enough housing, will there?

The councils need to audit who they have housed before we concrete over everything.

There are many thousands of council tenants who have a home abroad.

If the birth rate continues to drop there will be more than enough housing, places will sit empty & eventually fall down as the old die & there are no young people to replace them.
Japan has quite a lot of derelict houses because of this process.

Well said! I was about to reply to this post but you’ve said it all.

Only about 1% of asylum seekers (or some other tiny proportion) were going to be sent back under the Rwanda plan at a massive cost. It was a gimmick not a serious strategy!

It’s a shame so much of the electorate are thick wilfully ignorant and don’t read the small print beyond the daily mail headline .

Seriously, it’s frightening what people will fall for, you don’t even need to read detailed home office reports- even news channels like BBC and CNN among many others reported on the fact the vast majority of migrants wouldn’t be sent to Rwanda and therefore it was hardly going to be a deterrent.

The birth rate decrease is very small in comparison to the increase in average life expectancy, we are already short of houses and as more marriages end, and the divorce rate increases you need more to house both adults.

True, but there will be a compounding effect with the birth rate decrease.

2019 Ten properties in our cul de sac. Four of them single occupancy , 11 bedrooms between them. Two of them had carers once or twice a day. Two of them had carers three or four times a day. All refused to go into residential care.

Our small councils largest bill is care in the community. Their second largest bill is now paying for the homeless to live somewhere, sometimes placed in another county.

I don't have any solutions. But I know there are many empty presents and under utilised properties here.

Our council are considering doubling or trebling the rates on empty properties.

The set up in your first paragraph sounds like an efficient use of care resource - is that your point ,or are you going to tell me it each individual needing care had it provided by a different organisation?

They can plan all they want. But living near Cotswolds, I intend on signing against every single plan around here that pops up.

Good luck to them, it’s ain’t going to happen 😏

No, council housing is a big pull.

And many of the immigrants housed have houses in their country of origin. Councils don’t care and don’t check.

Jeremy Corbyn wanted to compulsorily purchase long empty properties in the city and also put a stop to foreign investors buying up swathes of property. The issue of air bnb didn't really exist back then but I'm sure he'd have got his teeth into that too. However he was, apparently, the anti christ so that was the end of those really good, sensible ideas.