If care about plans to build thousands of houses on the Green Belt read THIS...

[fortyplus]

The Government Office for the East of England is holding a 'Public Consultation' re: the proposed East of England Plan.

I'm not sure how it affects other parts of the South East, but as an example - my nearest town, Hemel Hemsptaed, currently consists of 68,000 homes and it is proposed to build another 12,000 over the next 15 years - necessitating a 'major review of the Green Belt'.

The South East is extremely congested already. Hemel Hempstead Hospital is earmarked for closure, 4 local primary schools are closing (presumably so that the land can be used for housing) and the local NHS Trust (Hertfordshire) has such massive debts that it is predicted that they will never be cleared without massive cuts in services.

THIS IS MADNESS! Why not use Government money to boost the economy in other parts of the country instead of cramming even more people into the South East?

Please use this link to make your comments GoEast Regional Planning Web Page

Please bump the thread from time to time to keep it active.

Thank you.

I agree it's mad trying to cram more people into the South East. I'm in South London, so I take it I'm insufficiently local to comment on the GoEast regional planning web page, but I'll look out for similar consultations nearer here.

We have ever more houses being converted into flats with not much thought given to where all the cars are going to park (I seem to have ended up as one of the neighbourhood planning vigilantes ). The schools are becoming more and more full, what little green space they still have is being earmarked for additional buildings, and I'd have to be at death's door even to consider a visit to the overcrowded and overstretched doctor's sugery.

Oh well, this rant should serve to bump the thread...

I'm afraid I have to disagree although I am putting my flak jacket on as I type.

The number of households in this country is increasing rapidly, mainly due to the ageing population (not immigration as most people thing). This is putting immense pressure on the housing stock. There are no 'cheap' areas anymore, no places to relocate to. Companies want to be in the South East for many valid reasons.

Homes will have to be built somewhere and although no-one wants them on their doorstep, someone has to.

The numbers of young families in flats is going up all the time, not to mention the vast swathes of twenty somethings living in rented places, unable to get anything to buy.

IMO it is hypocritical for anyone who lives in a home of their own to protest and to deny that opportunity to anyone who had the misfortune to be born too late.

People live in the South East b/c they can get work there.

That's why most people live where they do.

I don't particularly like living here, crammed up in a flat, but this is where employment opportunities abound.

Until this changes, then people will congregate in these areas and you'll have housing and parking issues.

As to the car thing - until this country gets serious about making public transport reliable, efficient and cost-effective or indeed even a possibility at all for many, cars will be here to stay.

It's time Labour realises that.

And to respond directly to your point about schools closing down: schools are closing down because of drops in admissions. This is one of the results of the fact that families can't afford to move into areas like Hemel unless they are supremely wealthy - and probably with two incomes unimpeded by childcare costs.

Surely that is one sign that more homes need to be built to accomodate the younger people who have been priced out?

I live in an area where the young can't buy a house and where we are threatened with massive development. The thing is, our friends who are in this position aren't in favour of mass developement either. They've grown up here and don't want to see their way of life change. Thew market here is distorted for many reasons - the airport, second homes etc. Or in our village, because the school is good house prices are up 20% on others. 'Affordable' housing has been built here - £165k for a 75% share in a box. And teh 'key worker' housing is now all on teh open market and being bought by business people who commute. House building in an already overheated area isn't the solution.

We also get the same rainfall as Jerusalem - we simply don't have the water to take any more mass housing. And the comprehensive school already has over 2,000 pupils.

With the political will compaies do relocate to the north - there was a piece on this on the programme with Peter and Dan Snow - companies were opening up in a former mining town. It's political laziness and snobbery that prevent the Gov. from tackling this problem.

I realise there is no easy answer to this. i apologise if I sound a bit strident on this issue - it is never easy to argue against the prevailing idea that greedy developers and lazy governments are the only ones to benefit from homebuilding.

Because of the ageing population and increase in number of households, more homes need to be built. There are still fewer homes being built now than almost ever before in modern history. No-one wants to blot the landscape, but 57% of new homes nationwide are now flats, more than ever before. The vast majority are still built on the rapidly reducing stock of brownfield land. And still people are up in arms about the limited greenfield development that is managing to take place.

If anyone is interested in how new homes could be compatible with a better environment, please look at this report from the Adam Smith Institute on how more homes could be a positive thing for the environment, the economy and people.

Land Economy

It's not as simple as objecting to the view being spoilt. I live about half an hour from a huge new 'village'. Acre after acre of countryside gone, thousands of new houses, along with a 'nature reserve'. During an interview one householder said, 'It's nice that the countryside is nearby, but most of the time it's just like living where we used to live - supermarkets, bowling - it's great!' So the local shops close, local individuality is gone. But the new shops are 'out of town', and as the developements get bigger it becomes increasingly harder for the young people to get to any of the amenities. The result is what one commentator has called 'asbo-land'. The character of a place, the things that made it special - gone forever.

It's also not entirely true to say immigration doesn't have an impact. Here in East Anglia the economy relies on migrant workers - something I am totally in favour of - but the flip side is that in certain towns all the reasonably-priced houses are bought by landlords to rent to gang masters. Local families are priced out and the communities fail due to a transient population. It's a similar situation near to Stansted airport; all the smaller/cheaper houses are bought and then let to airlines as it is cheaper than putting staff up overnight in a hotel; so more houses are built in an effort to keep up, which are bought by more landlords. Perfectly good homes are used for one night at a time and local people lose their neighbours.

And nothing addresses the shortage of water here. New developements already bleed our rivers dry. There is no water.

And what about the predictions of James Lovelock and others that due to global warming (and maybe political factors) we will need to be self-sufficient in food again like during the war? His advice is that East Anglia in particular needs to protect its arable lands now because we will not be able to import food in the near future. Some of our countryside may be low-grade but we need it to grow food. We are already reaching the stage where we have reduced our dairy industry so badly that we will be a net importer of milk in 5 yrs. We can't rely on that and our farms need protecting.

But there is land in the north that could be developed well, and with a boost to the economy. But no-one has the vision or the will to try it.

what really annoys me is the government supporting the shaed ownership schemes etc purely because they are keeping the housing market artificially high. If there were no first time buyers then the housing market would drop again so people on more typical incomes could afford to buy something.

It would be far more helpful if they helped out people by providing rented accommodation that was cheap enough for people to pay rent and save up for a deposit at the same time!!

Oh and like in other parts of Europe if people in "council" housing are over accommodated that have to pay a premium to stay in that property.

I do not begrudge anyone buying their own home but the rental market needs sorting out rather than the property market being kept over inflated my artificial means.

Rant, rant, rant,

There are several factors in the housing shortage - aging population being a minor one. It is single occupant homes, second home owners and yes, immigration that is also to blame. There is plenty of room on brownfield sites but it is more expensive to develop these sites so everyone wants greenfield. The Labour govt doesn't give a shite about preserving the countryside of the British Isles and seem to want the lot bulldozed and concreted over.

I actually can't understand the British obsession with owning your own home. I would far rather live where I do in a rental than in a hideous faceless new build estate on a maximum mortgage. Why do it to yourselves?

I do realise how very lucky I am to have a very good landlord and reasonable rent, but even so.

The short-assured tenancy is a MAJOR drawback to renting privately.

HUGE.

The buy-to-let thing definitely has played a role in the rise of homelessness as well.

Agreed - you have to trust your landlord which is madness. Two months notice is way too short, esp if you have a young family. Unfortunately with half the govt in the buy to let game I can't see anything changing soon. (And I still think renting is better than selling your soul to the Devil just to 'own' a minute piece of real estate).

they want to build new homes near us some of them would be rented as per govt regulations.

the farmer wants to sell his land - he wants the copiuos amounts of money being offered.

however locals are campaigning becuase of a rare newt.

the whole thing is rather bizarre becuase we know they are not campaigning about the Newt really. they are campaigning becuase they dont want their house prices to come down.

they always seem to find room for developments of £million houses round here. i think housing people is more important than fields.

nearlythree, I would agree with you on the point you raise about destroying character. There is just no sense in that happening. Unfortunately in areas like where I live at the moment, really nice large character properties are being bulldozed to the ground to rebuild huge numbers of flats. I don't see how that enhances the character of the UK.

At the moment, only 8.9% of the UK's land mass is 'urbanised', with 8 out of 10 people living in an urban area. Interestingly, the North West is the most urbanised region by land area, and the ten most populous urban areas in the country are all in the North or Midlands, with only London and Bristol also in the top ten.

As for the point about preserving land in East Anglia. It is one of the least urbanised regions in the first place, along with the South West. Why should it have a greater right to preserve its already large stock of arable land than any other region?

cloudhopper, East Anglia has the right because without it we might starve. It has the best land for growing cereal in the country. We might not be able to rely on imports. There isn't the water to sustain massive developement. Norfolk has no motorways, neither does Suffolk.

I garee about inappropriate housing being built. A piece of land became available in our village (the old petrol station ) which could have taken two pairs of semis or even a small row of terraces - instead we got two 'executive' houses with postage stamp gardens. Then on the outskirts of the village a pair of (very ordinary) farm worker's cottages from the 1960's - dull but cheap - are going to be bulldosed for - yes, a four-bed executive house.

We need smaller houses and flats around here, not more giant commuter homes.

nearlythree, I understand your concern about losing agricultural land, but it really isn't likely that they will build on such a huge area that it would dent the food supplies of the nation.

East Anglia is the most sparsely populated region, along with the South West, and there is really no likelihood of this development vastly altering the balance of the whole region.

What I would ask you to consider is the fact that demographic factors are meaning that an increased number of homes are needed in the Eastern Region for your own population. Would you have other regions give up all their green space to accomodate your local people that need homes? Every region is losing some space to newbuilds, but at the slowest rate in modern times.

The ageing population is much more of an issue than immigration, because over 40s already own most of the family sized homes, whereas immigrants do not. Unless people were to vacate the family sized homes when they don't need them any more, which I would not suggest for a minute, more will need to be built.

Just because young people can't afford family sized homes any more doesn't mean that they don't aspire to the same standard of living as anyone else born before the demographic timebomb.

But I don't oppose house building; I oppose the amount and the type proposed. And we do need smaller houses here for the very people you describe. One of my closest friends is stuck in a large house that is too much for her because she wants to stay in the area where her friends are, yet there are no small, modern houses for her to buy.

And other parts of the country need regeneration. It's not a case of another region giving up its green space when that space is a former colliery. Part of the reason the SE and EA are under so much pressure is because of migration within the UK from north to south - as Expat says, it is where the work is. Until the north is regenerated there will be a social imbalance - I ask you the same question, why should the south be accommodating people from the north - and why should northeners have to leave their homes? The Gov. have clearly signalled their contempt for the North by knocking down and displacing whole communities.

And you talk about development not changing the region as a whole, but when you build a large estate near a village that can double its size - it changes everything - the school can't accommodate the children so it merges with another. Small developements bring villages to life, but it has to be done with sensitivity.

I'm not actually in East Anglia, I'm in Mid Anglia. We're obviously threatened by the expansion of Stansted (sustainable development New Labour -style ) but also the fact that Prescott wants to build homes for commuters into London. How is that right? Cambridge also puts the pressure on b/c of Silicon Fen - most workers there are from elsewhere in the country or abroad and have to be accommodated.

But nearlythree, it sounds a bit like you are saying that people must stay in the village/area they grew up in, regardless of the jobs there? THe jobs in Cambridge are part of the Cambridge economy, so why shouldn't the homes needed to house these people be near there? Equally, Stansted expansion provides jobs for local people - what do you want them to do, live in london and commute out?

Yes there are commuters into London from any county area within reach. This applies to Surrey, Kent, Berkshire, Essex and all the other home counties. Massive development is going on everywhere. There is no more space in London itself - it is already the most densely populated place in the world.

Huge efforts are being made to regenerate Northern towns, with a lot of success. But for example the City of London is becoming the financial centre of the world, and the money associated with that is enormous. This is attracting many people to work there. The home counties benefit from this in terms of hugely increased wealth, but the "downside" is that homes need to be built.

No-one wants to lose out on their particular bit of green space, which is why we all need to accept some change in our part of the world. There is no other option, other than families being completely priced out of a life.

40+ I live near you and I find it deeply depressing how the area has been so over-developed. So much has been lost in the way of community and open geen spaces.

It's a tricky one because as Expat says as long as businesses are centred in London the SE will continue to be developed. And what with people living longer, more people living alone etc more houses will be needed, you can't really get away from that. A friend of mine said why doesn't the govt subsidise companies to relocate to less densely populated parts of the country so as to spread out the concentration of employment? Or is that too simplistic?

AS to the schools...it's all about money. Falling birth rate yes, on paper, but it's really about selling the land to develop for housing.

And don't get me started about the hospital...

We are thinking of moving next yr and these are all reasons why we would rather put down roots somewhere else.

Please, cloudhopper, the notion that Stansted provides jobs for locals is a joke. We already have a very low unemployment here (so low that migrant workers are employed on the farms)- the only work for locals will be McJobs which no-one around here wants. So houses will be built for the people that will move in from elsewhere to find work. Build the airport where the TUC wanted it - near Doncaster - and a whole area is renewed with jobs for all levels of ability.

What I'd like is for people to be able to choose whether to stay where they grew up or not. I don't live where I grew up. It's when people have to leave their homes and families to find work that I get annoyed. There should be work wherever people are.

'A friend of mine said why doesn't the govt subsidise companies to relocate to less densely populated parts of the country so as to spread out the concentration of employment? Or is that too simplistic? '

That's too simplistic.

These places often lack the services and transport links AND housing for large influxes of people.

And then you have the issue that many do not WANT to relocate to some of these areas.

A lot of people enjoy living in cities and towns, or have a spouse or partner who works in that area and has a good job. So now they're supposed to decide who quits. And then what if he/she can't find a similar job?

Or have a child well-settled in a school for whom relocation is a major upheaval?

Or is carer to an elderly relative?

That's not a very viable solution.

More telecommuting and flexible hours are.

I used to live in Bishop's Stortford, nearlythree, and still know people in the area, so I do understand what you mean about low unemployment. The problem with the location of the airport is that they wanted/needed to increase the capacity in the South East where it was needed, rather than somewhere where it is just going to be a white elephant.

I am not backing the decision to expand Stansted, but whether the workers at Stansted are local originally or not, they need to be housed locally. It isn't fair to put homes somewhere else (where?) and expect them to commute in.

However, if expat's friend were to be listened to, and governments were subsidising companies to relocated to less populated areas, then East/Mid Anglia would be top of their list, along with the South West. These are by far the least populated areas in this country, and seemingly where the most opposition arises to development.

The North, contrary to the beliefs of most Southerners who seem never to have been there, is already very heavily populated - most of which is very urban ex-industrialised areas.

But what is wrong with urban regeneration? And how does anyone know if an airport in the North would fail? That's aside from the point that pandering to Ryanair and the other low-cost airlines is woefully short-sighted given that only the super-rich will be able to afford to fly (or drive) in 30 yrs time.

Agree with expat, teleworking is a must.

To be honest, nearlythree, I feel a lot of empathy with you if your local area is being changed out of recognition because of development. I guess at the end of the day, no-one wants to be near huge new developments instead of green space.

I personally despair because I have done an awful lot of research on demographics and housing, and unless nice new homes are built somewhere, the social consequences will be huge and horrible. And having brought up my family in a 2 bed flat in a (very nice) urban area, I am very reluctant to condemn the whole next generation to do the same.

There is a reactionary part of me that feels that anyone who feels very strongly about there not being development in the countryside should vote with their feet, set and example and move to a new apartment in a Northern city. Locals trying to stop development in the country always strikes me a bit as "Do as I say, not as I do".

But I do respect your viewpoint, and just think the whole thing is very unfortunate.