Labour wants to build huge amounts of new houses

[RudsyFarmer]

I’ve just been listening to it being discussed in the radio. The conservatives are not building enough to support the growing population.

i completely understand the need for millions of new homes but man I feel so sad for the loss of green space. Is it just me being ridiculous? Make me feel better about it as in my local area there is just continuous new housing every here. I can’t imagine that quadrupling year on. 900 houses in the next village alone. 5,000 homes have created a new town a few miles away. I want my kids to be able to live in a house but also want them to see the odd field.

Come to London, my company builds properties every year. They aren't sold to those who need them though. They get sold onto Chinese, American and Arab investors who leave the properties vacant.

I would absolutely restrict property ownership to one property only to foreign nationals. So many London properties are bought as investments or money laundering and are left empty. The buyers are able to pay inflated prices so the prices just go up.

On a local level, some areas have worse infrastructure than others, and some considerations like flooding do mean that not every site is suitable for more housing.

But on a national level, which is what this thread is about, new housing doesn't mean additional people. It just means moving them out of their parents house into a place of their own, or out of a bedsit and into a two bedroom flat/house. They don't actually flush the toilet any more!

London has a very low rate of vacant housing compared to other countries - which you can see here https://open-innovations.org/projects/housingengland/?region=E12000007

a few very rich people have created anecdotes that people take as more widely reflective than they are. In reality, London's properties are nearly always lived in by owner occupiers or rented out.

So would I

Or do what other countries do and not allow it at all

But new housing does mean additional people locally. Say 2000 new homes are proposed locally. Assuming many of those homes will have two or more people moving into them , that means probably 4 to 8000 more people. Those sort of numbers have to be properly planned for and the infrastructure put in place before they move in. Resources aren't available equally all over the country. Take water for instance. Parts of the south east of the UK are incredibly dry and under massive water stress. Where is the additional water going to come from for 8000 people in one of those areas? No one wants our rivers to run dry, our parks and gardens to turn to dust bowls due to over abstraction. New reservoirs need to be planned and water diverted on a national scale from the wet areas of the country to the dry areas. Massive investment and vision is needed.

We need good infrastructure so people can have energy and sewage and water and all those things. But we need that anyway, new housing or no.

People move around or into the country, new houses or no houses, they cram themselves into bedsits and house shares. They create traffic, use water regardless. Before they move into their overcrowded housing they don't bother to check the local water situation. They exist anyway.

And using your example, in the south east the vast majority of people who move into a new development will already live in the south east.

Those people are already here, living somewhere, using infrastructure anyway. There are hotels which have been "repurposed" by local councils for somewhere to live for those without homes of their own. Not just immigrants awaiting processing either. We've two large hotels in our nearby town that havn't been "open" as such for several years, literally full of people just waiting to find a home to rent, when a room becomes vacant, the council puts someone else in straight away. They're already here, already using water, the roads, local healthcare, local education, etc. There's also lots of people living in unsuitable homes, i.e. on friend's sofas, families living in a single bedroom, etc., also desperately waiting for flats to come available for them to rent.

I really don't think people who are living in "steady" accommodation realise just how bad things have got. My son was looking for a flat in a new Northern city that he's moving to for his first graduate job - we'd no idea how cut-throat it would be - you can't even get a viewing unless you phone the agent, literally minutes after the home is put up on the websites to let, then you can't "negotiate" a viewing slot - you're "told" what's left and if you can't make it, tough. Those who want to proceed are listed and given to the landlord who choose which tenant they want, based on status, pets, smokers, children, occupation, income, age, how much more than asking they're willing to pay and how many months in advance they can pay! It's insane. There's no choice at all, you have to take whatever you can get a viewing for and hope that your "offer" trumps the others who want it!

We've far too many people in the country, in they're in the wrong places. There are vast swathes of semi-derelict run down areas in the run down towns (ex industrial towns and ex-seaside towns), but no one wants to live there because there aren't any jobs other than minimum wage, so those with skills/trades/professionals/qualifications have to stay in the overcrowded cities because that's where the jobs are. The empty/unlet properties in run down towns just get the dregs of society who are often "bussed in", such as newly released prisoners. Obviously such areas suffer more than their fair share of anti social behaviour and social problems, making them ever more so unattractive!

We also have major problems with holidays lets, Air BnBs etc., where local housing in tourist areas and cities is taken off the housing market due to investors who want to let them out for holidays and short breaks. Personally I think such people should be taxed to the eyeballs in both income and capital taxes as they're really damaging local housing availability and causing misery.

Yes it sounds like the Northern city I visited recently and a friend of dds was staying with her and saying a similar thing.

It's a real shame

The immigration situation really isn't helping either

Those people are already here, living somewhere, using infrastructure anyway.

No, they're not. Not unless you mean the broadest definition of "here" as a sweeping statement to cover the whole of the UK. They're not in that local area using the local infrastructure. Someone sofa surfing or in a LA bedsit is not getting housed in new-build 3-/4-bed developments with token affordable housing ghettoised on the margins of the development (or not built at all, utilising loopholes in the planning process).

We've far too many people in the country, in they're in the wrong places. There are vast swathes of semi-derelict run down areas in the run down towns (ex industrial towns and ex-seaside towns), but no one wants to live there because there aren't any jobs other than minimum wage

And this is why they're not already using the existing local infrastructure. There's a movement away from some areas towards others. And the areas they're moving to are already on the brink of sustainability - particularly water supply.

This is what I've seen in London too - the huge high rises are just built and bought up by investors. They're just left there. That should be stopped, they could be homes for actual people.

People on normal wages just can't afford to live in London any more.

If Labour had a plausible plan to massively increase home building AND infrastructure I might actually vote for them for the first time in my life. It is needed - but must include infrastructure expansion at the required level. How they could actually fund this is the elephant in the room. Will people accept the higher tax receipts required ? Personally I would. It's crystal clear they won't be able to borrow or print money to do it.

Err if they move to a nearby housing estate that uses a different sewage treatment works? i.e smaller sewage stations..... oh and our uk pop. increased by 600k last year.. net... where is that extra shit going? seemingly into rivers and the sea.

I don't think planning takes much notice of flood areas - housing estate in Okehampton, the dev has had to ship in 100s of '000s of tons of hardcore to compensate.

Yes they could move to a worse area for infrastructure on a local level. There were only two parts to my post, local level and national level. I made the distinction pretty clear.

But sure, they might move to another area with more strained infrastructure, they might move to an area with less strained infrastructure - making things better! Some people might move in to a new house, some people might squeeze into an existing house in the form of HMOs.

It's not like if we don't build houses we don't need the right infrastructure.

And yes, immigrants come into this country. They don't check the new housing statistics before they move - they come here and start flushing toilets and using electricity regardless of whether we build new homes or cram more people into the existing ones.

As a country there's no get out of free card for infrastructure if we just don't do housing! We need to build the right infrastructure and we need the more housing for the number of people we have. The amount of people who say we can only do housing if we do infrastructure like we can carry on with decaying infrastructure and an increasing population as long as we cram everyone into less and less space is bewildering to me.

@Beviolinar It shouldn't bewilder you, people oppose housing estates because we offer them only one... more houses, no one promises more infrastructure too and guarantees it.

Its also no good building houses few can afford or rent or that meet very poor insulation standards with no Solar/ASHP etc.

Labour should be offering to give grants to homeowners so they can improve their EPC ratings and have more energy efficient homes.

Before Labour or any other government allow more building on agricultural land, they NEED to consider food security.

Putin bombed 600,000 tonnes of grain yesterday and vetoed Ukrainian sea exports. The world grain price shot up within the hour.

We have such hot weather across southern Europe and north Africa that the fruit and veg crops are being destroyed.

India banned the export of non-basmati (lower cost) rice yesterday following severe flooding. The world rice price has risen immediately.

If you thought last winter was bad, trying to keep warm, imagine being cold and hungry. Agricultural land needs to be protected, we only produce half what we need now.

Building endless luxury five bed houses or covering acres with solar panels is stupid, shortsighted, unnecessary and an idiotic strategy. Govt or whichever colour needs to get a grip !

The UK can and never will be able to grow enough food, we simply do not have the climate to grow what we need, we couldn't do it in WW2 with a far smaller pop. and far less demand for choice.

Ukraine and its export of grain can be solved by ending the war, easiest way to do that is to open up the Black Sea, an international sea, it needs to be done as Ukraine cannot function as a country if it is landlocked, regardless of results on the ground.

Solar farms means less reliance on foreign energy imports but yes should be on poorer quality land.

But every single field we build over makes us more vulnerable.

There must be a complete veto on solar on land, it can be installed over carparks ( as in govt plan), on existing buildings, warehouses etc.

Govt needs to take power away from the developers. And soon.

Feck that! Homeowners can borrow against their asset to improve their asset if they don’t have the cash.
Tax payers shouldn’t be giving money to people with equity, equity which is untaxed.
Alternative: get the grant and a charge gets put against the house for repayment, with interest, on the sale.

Agree. It’s a bottomless pit. Who funds it?

The taxpayer gets hit.

The problem is the opposite of that actually. Too many people in ex industrial towns who won’t leave and go where the jobs are. People who are economically inactive due to lack of jobs, but still using infrastructure and services.

You may remember that in the latter 20th century the government designated many ex industrial towns as “category D” meaning no new development would be allowed. The goal was to force these towns to degenerate so people would move elsewhere to new towns with jobs. But it didn’t work. People refused to leave their communities, families, friends and history. Refused to leave their homes and the place they grew up. There were protests.

Eventually the government relented and removed the category D policy. Started investing in regenerating ex industrial communities. It still isn’t enough though, there’s lots of unemployment still. Imo if the country invested in regeneration these people could work and earn more, and become net givers instead of takers from the system.

@Archeron

The problem is the opposite of that actually. Too many people in ex industrial towns who won’t leave and go where the jobs are. People who are economically inactive due to lack of jobs, but still using infrastructure and services.

That's ludicrous. Why move people from areas where there is adequate infrastructure and homes, to places where it's already grossly over-crowded and the infrastructure is struggling. Makes no sense. Just makes the problem worse.

How are they going to afford to move anyway? My son has just graduated and is moving to a different town for his first job. Trying to get a flat has been ridiculous - all viewing slots booked within 30 minutes of flats being listed. To get one, he's had to offer a year upfront rent and pay 15% over the asking price - the agent had 10 viewing slots for it, and all 10 wanted it, so it went to "best and final offers" to choose who the landlord was going to rent it to! Not many people can afford to do that, many won't have even been able to pay for last minute train tickets to get to a different town for the viewing slot and certainly not be able to do it several times as each property got taken by one of the many others who wanted it.

No, the answer is indeed to spread people out more to use the existing infrastructure in less popular areas more. All this centralisation is causing more and more congestion, homelessness, strain on infrastructure etc.

My son would have loved to get a job more locally but not a single one of the graduate jobs on offer in his chosen profession were within commuting distance of our area. All concentrated in a handful of large cities. It never used to be like that. My own Godfather chose the same profession and he got a job in a head office of a national firm that was located just 20 miles away - of course, in the 90s it got closed down and relocated to London!!

We would probably have millions more people in the country under labour as they seem to think that we are responsible for taking in the whole world.

This is why I won't vote for them. Otherwise I would.

It worries me as well. My family is very multicultural and traditionally Labour voting but this is putting them off. We simply do not have space for all of the refugees Labour would want to take in. It isn’t a matter of principals or goodwill, the resources simply are not there. And it isn’t selfish of us to want a decent standard of living before opening up to others.