But once there they don't want people building around them. I once used to live within 400 yard of the "open country" now I am more like a mile - without moving!
-- Mike Drew Yate/Sodbury and Dodington Liberal Democrats Lib Dem Councillor since 1983
Not in significant numbers, they won't ... unless, of course, those "executive hillside homes" are being bought as weekend cottages :-)
True, but unless someone puts massive investment into infrastructure then its exactly those "empty" spaces that don't have modern communications (whether it be broadband 'net access, high speed efficient rail links, proximity to int'l air travel, ...).
Thought experiment: remove all planning restrictions in (say) the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. Just how many people do you imagine are going to be clamouring to build/buy new homes there (assuming that there are no changes to the distribution of economic activity, improvements to infrastructure, etc.)?
Hint: compare the price of a 4 bed detached house, in half an acre of garden, in Cumbria with one in your beloved Essex.
Not at all ... I'm simply saying that people *want* to be able to live relatively close to their places of work (often, as close as they can afford to). Remove planning restrictions and they will go to new homes built close to existing towns and cities, rather than those in the Welsh mountains, Dartmoor, the Lincolnshire fens, etc.
Right. So that's why every road, rail, and air link to/from London is full to over capacity every morning and every evening.
... and where have those people gone? Satellite/dormitory towns and villages in Cheshire and Lancashire -- most of them will still be commuting in/out of L'pool or other major urban centres.
You *really* don't get it, do you? Even if every "subsidised open field" was available for building, nothing would happen: people want (in many cases need) to live close to their places of employment. Those places are overwhelmingly in towns and cities.
And quite where you get the idea that "those without families" have specific interest in being "out in the fields and woods" I haven't a clue ... (unless your source book for rural life is "Winnie The Pooh"). The only parameter that's different is the issue of access to schools, and in my experience it is exactly families *with* children who are most interested in living in / having immediate access the country rather than in large towns or cities -- but will compromise on this if proximity to schools, supermarkets, etc. becomes a problem.
My point is that is exactly what would happen - an increase in the urban footprint - cities and towns become larger (in terms of area occupied), with reduced population density. Opening up the other 85% of the land for potential building is going to result in ... absolutely nothing.
Julian
a> You are a very confused person.
It's easy to get confused when communicating with someone who is clearly in a different universe to everyone else.
BTW, you still haven't explained why the people you believe own all the land need a planning system to stop houses being built on that land.
Louis
Sorry - just plain wrong on one particular point (no idea of the rest). 34% of an average UK home price is land value - not the 66% you claim. It used to be 15% in 1992.
At least, according to the article produced by the BBC:
I beg to differ.
I omitted to mention that the era of the autonomous house is here. No sewers as septic tanks can be used. Power by LPG or oil, electricity via Comboined Heat and Power which can be a fuel cell. Vaillant are doing some major work in this area. Communication via wireless. The days of the ribbon development following the sewers, power, telephone, water and gas lines are near gone. The countryside can be opened up for people to live, if the bastards will let you.
I don't know, as I know little about the district. If people,want to build houses there, let them. If they want the new house built from local stone to the local vernacular then fine. I can't see an issue except NIMBYism.
Value. This obession with value.
Because of business. You notice that people are living elsewhere and travelling to do business. Nothing new there.
Of course some people;el commute to the local large towns and cities, nevertheless local industries crop up and local services employ a lot of people. The new, or expanded towns, are a far cry from the overcrowded slums they replaced.
That is not necessarily the case. There are countless small industries in rural areas. Also the T&C planning act forced commercial and industrial concentrations.
Many people without the burden of a family are quite prepared to live out in the wilds, if there is such a thing in the UK.
Let's pretend your view is the case, then why prevent people building in the countryside as we presently do? You require some linear thinking lessons.
And your point?
If we didn't have a Stalinist planning system then you could build out in the wilds yourself. In the good old days before 1947, people would buy a large piece of land, build on it and keep the space around themselves. You can't do that now, unless you are a large landowner building a mansion type of house. Gummer when in power added this amendment to planning laws. If you are rich then you can build, if poor forget it. How Tory.
Advanced British architecture, especially in the domestic sense, stopped in
1947. Go to other countries and see the advanced styled homes and then look around the UK. Abysmal isn't it? The planning people are also the style police, turning down applications on merely subjective views of their own. When people appeal it can cost them 10, 20, 30K in legal fees to get what they should have had in the first place. And if your appeal is successful you can't claim back any fee from the planners. Appalling situation. They want pastiche mock Georgian and other mock retro tripe littered around the country.
After this Gilligan affair you would be foolish to back the BBC. :) Cahill, who I prefer to believe as his book is mentioned in Hansard and often quoted by ministers, gives the figures and the "average" home has approx 2/3 of the value being the land due to the artificial land shortage created. Cahill is the only reliable authority on this subject as government department figures actually differ from each other.
The BBC report said "In 1992 the cost of land accounted for only 15% of the value of a new home, by 2002 this had risen to 34%." This is "new" homes mainly built by large developers, not the average home in the UK. Remember only 20 companies build like 90% of all homes in the UK. No other country has this monopoly of land ownership and building. These BBC figures are what the developers buy the land for, which is mainly green field land and they buy in bulk. Cahill touches on this point in the cosy relationship of large landowners and developers. In which many have their fingers in both pies. Is this 34% a part of what the total build cost is, which is "very" different to the selling price? Pretty vague isn't it?
I notice the BBC still use emotive propaganda terms as "urban sprawl", "concreting over the countryside", etc. We just can't concrete over the countryside as there is just far too much of it. The UK has a land surplus. BTW, about the south east becoming a huge estate, terms used by the BBC, the home counties are under populated.
Let me get this right then.... 90% of new homes built in the UK aren't those new homes talked about in the BBC article? So what they meant to say was "In 1992 the cost of land accounted for only 15% of the value of a new home, by 2002 this had risen to 34% - but only for the 10% that aren't built by large companies - for these 90% its actually 66% but we won't talk about that".
So you're saying that the house builders are in it to make money? Shock horror! And I thought that it was out of kindness. And you're also saying that the 34% is of the cost - not the selling price - therefore that means that its even lower percentage if you compare the price of the house to the cost of the land (unless you're suggesting selling houses for less than their cost price).
Tell that to to the Government who are trying to put 40,000 new homes into the South East (Hampshire (6,030), Kent (5,700), Essex (5,240), Hertfordshire (3,280), Buckinghamshire (3,210), West Sussex (2,890), Berkshire (2,620), Bedfordshire (2,430), Oxfordshire (2,430), Surrey (2,360), East Sussex (2,290) and the Isle of Wight 520 homes.)
D
Running in telephone cables is chicken feed to running in all the other services. Fast wireless Internet is here already.may be not in your street yet.
I'll see what I can do.
That is their choice. And it is the choice of people to live near a wood in the wilds if they were allowed to.
Those areas are mainly national parks so no one even applies.
And less in Cornwall too.
House prices reflect the local economy and wages. A house in Cumbria may be less than Essex, yet the people in Cumbria earn less to suit.
That is more to do with under investment in infrastructure rather than a housing/land problem. Compare the infrastructure around Paris to that of London. No comparison.
No just de-regulate planning, full stop.
Depends on what era of post WW2.
Colectively quite a lot and it would be far more if the planning system did not push industry and commerce into towns and cities.
Economic considerations dictate where they setup. A friend of mine is the legal man in a company that has been in the City for around 180 years. They have realised that the land they own is worth a fortune and that they don't need to be in the City any more as modern communications dictate otherwise. They looked around and homed in on Milton Keynes for the excellent transport networks and housing, either in the city or the surrounding villages. They considered having temporary accommodation in MK and then moving out to the edge of one of the surrounding villages with a complex surrounded by trees, etc. Great for image and the employees, etc. Could they get permission? Could they hell! They are still assessing the move.
Rewriting the planning laws would certainly make matters far better for the average person in then UK that is certain. Redistributing land or introducing Land Value Tax, Liverpool is trying to get the government to allow them to introduce it. would also improve matters considerably too. Not Utopia, but far ,far better than the Stalinist system we currently have that only benefits large landowners and large developers.
If the odd person makes a killing here and thee so what. The end justifies the means. Better is the means were fairer too.
As scary as it seems, on this point I must agree with you - at least the part about the lack of advancement in British Architecture. I have no personal experience of the planning people so can't comment on them being the 'style police'. But I think some developments that are the standard, bland fare that is so popular now are more of an eyesore than something which is on the cutting edge. I think that very modern works better alongside the very old than mock-whatever.
I have a vehement loathing of all the little boxes that are being built now. Some of them are even completely impractical for most families.
I do like a lot of the 'loft living' developments which are recycling old buildings. Unfortunately, they come at a price.
What I'd really like to see is more modern 'social' housig aimed at those wth low incomes. Built to be cheap to run ie. energy efficient and practical for children, the elderly and the disabled. When I lived in a council house, it cost a fortune to heat. So many people on low incomes have to choose between food or heating because they live in poor quality housing.
More generally, I would like to live in an architecturally interesting house. But to do this I'd need a lot of money. A suitable plot would cost as much as my current house. I'd like to make use of emergent technologies, be as eco-friendly as possible and utimately have somthing that's fairly unique.
I think a large number of my generation (early 30's) feel the same but can't find what they want without self-building which is too risky and time-consuming for some. So we end up buying Victorian or older properties instead.
I will never understand people who will spend best part of half a million on an executive box that looks like all the others one the street when there are far nicer period properties around.
Lloer
The BBC figures need clarifying and set against the existing housing stock. Very vague indeed. This is typical media tabloid speak.
I am not saying anything. I am saying the figures are vague, which they are.
I know. It is disgusting. They say 3 houses per hectare not 2. This is appalling when we have a surplus of land in the UK. The green propaganda movements, like Friends of the Earth have made a good job at conditioning the nation and government, supposed to be a peoples government, never countered their propaganda. Cahill says they are a front for large land owning organisations such as the Countryside Alliance, to keep people out of the countryside. He pours scorn on Jonathan Porrit.
40,000 much needed new homes spread over all these counties is not a lot at all.
Now I'm really confused... either its under populated, or the houses are much needed... I can't see how it can be both.
D
You should be sacred knowing how it is. We have all be given a line over past 50 odd years.
Fuel poverty which mainly affects the poor. If the land was opened up people would be able to build their own homes wit their own money. Because
60 million of us are all rammed into 7.,5% of the land mass an artificial shortage is created ramping up land and house prices. Then the government step in the fill the economic house gap. The tax payers money should be kept out of this as much as possible. The vast majority of housing needs can be met they the private sector. Currently the taxpayer subsidises housing to keep large landowners with their rolling acres. In short we, the taxpares, subsidise the stinking rich.If the land and planning laws were relaxed land would be in your grasp.
The countries leading eco architects, The Vales, went to NZ because the planners would not allow them to practice advanced designs. They upped and pissed off.
Look into why. Yes, why? why? why? It comes down to two points: land ownership and the planning system. The problem that cascade down from this are immense. Recently Vauxhall at Luton sated that the green belt was one of the reason why they moved car production out of the UK. They could not expand the pant, which had room for expansion, which has been there since before WW2. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.
The period properties are , as you identified, not designed for modern living. They cost far too much to heat. We need to build far more advanced modern eco homes and tear down al this awful Victorian crap.
conditioning
How is that confusing? The home counties are currently under populated. They also require much need homes too. Is that so difficult?
It is still vague and must be set against the existing housing stock to get a true reflection.
Do you have the source for the Vauxhall quote?
Thanks
D
/street/village-and-surrounding-area// :-(
Anyway (as I'm sure you know) running cables isn't the issue. BT were happy to lay a new connection from here to the local exchange to ensure that my ISDN lines worked correctly; however, their own short-sightedness and the restrictions placed on them by the gov't and Offtel mean that they can't / won't enable ADSL at the same exchange.
"Fast wireless" internet connections have issues with security and reliability -- and still require a moderately local connection into the BT infrastructure.
As with most of your "solutions", waving a magic wand is not going to solve anything over night :-(
Julian
Not off hand, I'm sure a Google will come up with it. Their spokesman on TV was clear about the greenbelt being a major obstacle in plant expansion, hence 4,000 job went west. Or east. he said it is the same around most towns and cities and that 1/3 of Merseyside, where their other plant is, is greenbelt too.
The solutions are there though and that is the main point. Working on them can make matters better.
"IMM" wrote | After this Gilligan affair you would be foolish to back the BBC. :) | Cahill, who I prefer to believe as his book is mentioned in Hansard | and often quoted by ministers,
Oh he must be right then.
Does *he* know where the WMDs are?
Owain
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