’ Here Are 2 Key Reasons.

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alan_m 2 years ago

HMG is trying to force people to build in already traffic jammed towns & cities. The result is higher costs & ever more productive time lost in ever worsening traffic. Building new towns & > expand existing villages would avoid this

You are erroneously assuming that infrastructure to support new builds in villages and small towns exists. It's not just a matter of assigning a few fields for a housing estate and expecting things like the local sewers and roads to cope with the extra demand. For villages and small towns without meaningful public transport building a few hundred houses will not magically create a bus route, nor necessarily reopen the local pub or village shop. Furthermore, there also has to be enough (worthwhile) jobs locally to prevent "higher costs & ever more productive time lost in ever worsening traffic" and long commutes.

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Jeff Layman 2 years ago

Some do consider infrastructure first:

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At a cost...:

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alan_m 2 years ago

Where does that article say anything about the existing infrastructure?

2500 to 3000 houses isn't a small extension to the housing for a village or small town. That development just seem to be joining up the green land on the outskirts of Southampton in much the same way as urban sprawl is occurring around many large towns/cities.

£160k(ish) per house (assuming NOTHING goes wrong)*.

The cost to the council, with a yearly "income" of £65 million, is approx x10 this amount and up front to finance the project.

I assume the local jobs created are only temporary while the building work takes place and the people who will eventually occupy those houses will mainly commute on the already gridlocked roads to the nearby city.

*Around my way there is a large uncompleted estate where none of the semi completed buildings have watertight roofs because the developer/supplier has recently gone bust. Work has been abandoned. It also looks if other similar projects have stalled in the past 6/9 months.

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Jeff Layman 2 years ago

Apologies - wrong link:

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See "New link road": "By putting the roads in first, we can unlock the rest of the site for construction vehicles and keep traffic in the area flowing smoothly. It also means new occupants will benefit from the new access routes straight away. "

That's the theory anyway. Goodness knows what the council tax will end up to finance all this. It's all part of turning south Hampshire into Solent City, which will be an urban conglomeration stretching from Portsmouth to Southampton and on to Winchester. When we moved to this area over 11 years ago it was to a small village with around 250 houses. We now have 3000 houses being built within a kilometre.

Correct. The M27 takes the traffic while it is flowing, but if it is blocked for any reason all roads within a km of it are gridlocked.

I doubt that's unusual these days, unfortunately.

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Animal 2 years ago

I'm not. That inrastructure needs to be built where not present obviously. That's part of the building process.

No. Start with the few hundred villages & build 10k, then a shop, pub & bus route become likely.

That's equally true anywhere. Any new build town needs commercial space as well as houses.

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alan_m 2 years ago

I'm writing about where the existing infrastructure in a village or small town is barely adequate to cope with the current demand. While there may be land available and the infrastructure for the estate is first put into place this will feed into the existing sewers/roads/utilities. It's not just the cost of the new housing on the estate but maybe upgrading 10/20 miles of connecting roads, replacing sewage and drainage to 100s of existing properties etc.

10,000 houses in each of a few hundred villages?

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Animal 2 years ago

and? Either one builds in existing towns/cities or away from them. The former works rather badly. The latter can actually work. New towns would be good, designed to be car compatible from the start.

not what I meant at all.

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’ Here Are 2 Key Reasons.

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