can't believe what I just heard on the news.......

[2shoes]

even after all the flooding the govement still can't rule out building houses on flood plains...........pratts

yeah

The planning system in this country is at the root of a lot of our problems. I think the presumption should be that anyone who wants to build a home anywhere can. Unless there are good reasons not to - the only one I can think of is that they are building on a flood plain and so making other houses more susceptible to flooding.

With the utter misery being caused by high house prices - the greenbelts should be either turned into allotments or parks that we can enjoy or allowed to be used for building homes. Second home ownership should be punitively taxed and the banks more carefully regulated to stop them pushing house prices ever higher so they can take an ever bigger share of our future earnings in interest payments.

Countries in Continental Europe that are more densely populated than the UK:

Monaco
Netherlands
San Marino
Belgium

of which the Netherlands and Belgium at least have also had to build on flood plains, and Monaco and San Marino aren't really scalable models.

Sorry upwind can't agree with allowing people to build whatever they want whereever. It will still be the case that only the rich benefit. Green belts are vital 'lungs' for cities and a lot of it is recreational land (just not built up as fancy parks but accessible nevertheless)
Best thing is to sort out tax of BTL/restrict multiple home ownership. If that doesn't work (but it would) sorting out mortages would help too. Self cert is being abused quite a bit I gather - all feul to the flames.
Netherlands has highly organised flood plain building with mega sea defences, rather than the ad hoc for benefit or developer flood plain building we get here!

Venice seems to do alright

Plus, houses on stilts are really cool [flippant]

apart from the fact it is sinking QV..but apart from that..yeah.

We are all sinking.
We are all ageing.
We are all dying.

just mailed you with amedical update....

this thread was so good until you 2 came along

I wouldnt go that far

Pan.....?

v. painful biking accident.......oooch.

you can go on the environment agency website and it will tell you if a house you are looking at will flood . you then makes your choices .