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.

@Badbadbunny Who comes up with these estimates on the number of new houses required?

I live in an area that has high levels of housing need but the people who need housing will never be able to buy one even if house prices halved and they cannot afford rents charged either, so they leave the area and/or the essential jobs they do i.e Care work.

Houses aren't selling either, people are just taking them off the market instead.

Some blocks of new housing estates have been sold to out of area HA's, not directly because thats not allowed under the planning app rules, so the developer buys the houses they have built and then sells on.

A new town (all Green belt) had so little interest that the developer has ended up buying houses in order to keep getting the money from the council for meeting building targets, again sold on to HA from outside the area.

Basically, huge need but the properties being built are not for local working people on low wages, they stuck in private rental, it might help if mortgage companies took into account peoples rent payment history.

No mystery why Blair went that way. Private HAs could take on debt to fund new social housing without negatively impacting the public finances. It's a similar economic tool to PFI funding (which was a policy Blair inherited from the previous Conservative government), moving capital infrastructure debt off the balance sheet.

Yes you’ve all made it make sense

But allowing councils to build new council housing with the proceeds from sales, wouldn't impact public borrowing, the houses were being sold for far more than the build costs, even if its wasn't one for one to take into account land prices & councils would have had appreciating assets on their books too.

PFI was used for the reasons you suggest but the amounts involved with PFi were huge and wouldn't have been great if added to public borrowing costs.

See my earlier comments on the political motives of the Conservative government that introduced RTB. The comment your responding to was specifically in response to the question of why Blair didn't reverse that decision.

And how are these houses going to be paid for? What about the infrastructure to support the occupiers? Is that costed too?

We've just fought off a plan to add 400 4/5 bed houses to our small rural village of 201 homes.

We have no school, no shop, no church, no pub, no doctor or dentist, the sewage plant is already overflowing and waste has to be tankered away at night.

The broadband is on its knees and the only road in is single track with passing places, and floods every winter. There is no employment.

Building the slums of the future won't work. Developers must be blocked until self-contained functioning communities can be planned.

And then not on top grade agricultural land. The countryside isn't a pretty place where rich people live, it is one huge factory that feeds us all. If you thought fuel security was important, wait until we can't feed ourselves...!

Today we produce about 50% of the food we need. In an emergency, we could just about grow enough to survive.

Unfortunately the Labour party does not have a good history or understanding of rural affairs. While we need a change of government, putting an Islington lawyer in charge is not a good idea.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-66156561

1,200 occupied homes on a development scheduled to reach 10,000 homes, and still no shop, GP, school, community centre. Residents started moving in five years ago.

Nobody has yet acknowledged my point about the impact of the increasing divorce rate on the need for extra housing
https://www.propertytribes.com/impact-of-divorce-on-housing-demand-t-127633698.html
Nearly half of the couples in the uk now divorce and both of them need to be housed (separately)

Most people i know where the marriage or partnership breakdown, then met other people and move in together, so surely, this just evens things out over time?
You ve also the reverse, when couples meet, they had a home each, they then marry/live together - freeing up a home - i really don't see the divorce rate as being a significant driver, immigration is a far far bigger one.

The article you link too is primarily for landlords, people with a vested interest to see more houses built, so they can buy them up and rent out.

Anyway, i rent lol!

Same nr me, its an absolute joke what developers get away with, they promise sooo much (in our case a new rail track and station) then say "oh dear, got our sums wrongs, can't afford to build these things now" and its all ok, development continues.

Divorce is less of an issue versus not coupling up in the first place. Two out of 3 of mine have absolutely no intention of ever purchasing property with anybody. Having seen what happened to me in the divorce and to be fair at their dad didn’t fair much better. I can’t see them hitching their financial wagon on to anybody.

Agree they need to build whole towns and cities, not just “build more houses”.

A new Manchester is needed every year to keep up with population growth.

Oh yes and control the population by famine

70% of households have more bedrooms than they "need" according to the last census. Why aren't we making any effort to use existing housing more efficiently?

Bedroom tax didn't work. People like their extra room. Old people like their oversized big houses so they can have the relatives come and stay.

That statistic possibly predates covid and the growth in work from home. Two people (without children) could realistically need 3 bedrooms and an extra reception room. It's entirely down to the definition of need that you apply, which will be different for individual circumstances.

@MrsCat1

Have you tried looking for housing recently? Have you experienced homelessness? Have you lived in a tent because you can't find a rental property? Have you seen the dozens of people who apply for each rental property in some areas? We need more homes. For a so called civilised country our housing situation is atrocious. It's a shameful situation that needs to change.
^^^^
THIS
what your creed or colour you need a stable base

More private sector built houses do not mean significantly lower prices or rents, land, materials and labour costs play the most important factor in prices charged plus whatever the market will stand & that doesn't help people on lower wages or in expenses areas.

Only state subsidy will do that and neither party have said they will build primarily council housing, with rents people can genuinely afford, so nothing is going to change.
UK economic model is based in increased house prices and the consumer spending of the back of that.

@Doagooddeed

More private sector built houses do not mean significantly lower prices

Yes, it may mean that in places with very high demand and low supply.

My son has just secured a flat to rent in a Northern City where he's starting a job soon. He couldn't even get a viewing on the first 20 or so that he was interested in, and that was from phoning the agent as soon as the flats appeared on the websites - viewing were snapped up within minutes. Getting through to agents was like getting a GP appointment - just continual engaged tones and when you finally get through, all viewing booked. They were limiting viewings to around 10 per property, and the agents were saying that of those 10, usually 7 or 8 would ask to be put forward and the owner would decide which they liked the sound of. The agents put forward personal details such as wages, pets or not, smokers or not, single or couple, how many months in advance they'd pay and even how much more than the asking rent they'd pay! His "offer" was to pay a year upfront and 10% more than asking price - apparently he just "pipped" another viewer who offered the same 10% more but only offered to pay 6 months upfront!

Agents said most rents went for far more than the asking rent, typically 10-20% more! If there was more supply, then renters wouldn't need to pay more than asking, so ergo, rents would reduce.

It's basic economics of supply and demand. When demand is more than supply, prices rises, when supply is more than demand, prices fall. More properties would inevitably mean lower prices, whether owned or rented. That is as long as they were all homes and not holiday lets etc.

No that's still "want" rather than "need". Lots of people work from home without a dedicated office, such as on the dining table or on a small desk in the corner of the lounge/bedroom. Just as lots of children have to share a bedroom instead of having one of their own. Just as lots of people don't have a "spare" bedroom for guests. None of those "extras" is a "need".

On that basis, noone needs anything bigger than a one-room hut. You don't need a flushing toilet because you could use a bucket. You don't need a washing machine because you could multitask the bucket.

If your employer no longer has full-time offices and you're required to work from home three or more days a week, you need an appropriate workspace.

My original comment was referencing the government definition of "need". It wasn't a personal opinion.
And no, a dedicated office space isn't a "need". A desk in a bedroom is perfectly sufficient.
It's seems utterly absurd to me that people with extra space can oppose new construction. It's very "I'm alright, Jack".

For most, a "workspace" these days is basically somewhere to put a laptop or two really in the new "paperless" world. Long gone are the days when someone working from home needed a filing cabinet, printer, scanner, desktop PC, storage shelving, etc. A small desk or table in the corner of a room is adequate for most! However, if you "want" rather than "need" a huge mahogany desk, views of the countryside, a wall full of books, etc., then that's a choice, not a necessity.

I hope they stop developing so much in the SE. It's ridiculous where I live. The countryside is slowly disappearing here and they charge an absolute fortune for the properties based on location. 😔

So long as the new homes are well designed in a local style with decent gardens and lots of greenspace with lots of biodiversity planned in, I don't have a problem. A few dozen homes for the villages, a few hundred for the towns. Money released from the developments to pay for upgrades to infrastructure, schools and amenities. Probably all needs planning at a regional scale. Those few dozen homes per village will add up. Where you get the water from in the east and south east of the UK is a bigger problem. More reservoirs needed most likely along with water saving measures in the new homes. Again it needs regional thinking.

As to who decides what gets built where. Its the locally elected councillors on the Planning Committee who do. As should be imho.