House Building

[Tony Bryer]

Ah Drivel's planning policies at work.

[Doctor Drivel]

The infrastructure service may not be complete, so selling them off in ones and twos may not be feasible.

[Doctor Drivel]

A company I worked for had "hot desks" Much of their work was from home or clients premises. It was high cost effective. Many are not productive from home as there are too many distractions.

[Doctor Drivel]

If the plots are big enough, they can have CHP, rainwater harvesting, solar, etc. The problem will be, it was a Barrett type of estate rather than one built for autonomous homes.

Houses CAN be built just about anywhere these days, and still have all mod-cons. But they need to be designed and built as such.

[Doctor Drivel]

You scraping the barrel for. excuses for appalling homes, accentuated by Tory policies in keeping the land in the hands of a few. 0.66% of the population own 70% of the land.

Germany and France were early in the industrial revolution, but do not have the appalling housing stock of the UK.

Why we pay extortionate amounts for small, pokey, cheaply made houses packed within feet of each other.

The UK has a land surplus.

We are living in crowded and dense cities, not a crowded and urbanised country.

Despite claims of concreting over the countryside, only 7.5% of UK land is settled.

The value of the land accounts for 2/3 of the average house price.

The 1947 Town and Country Planning act, introduced by a "Labour" government, who promised land nationalisation during the 1945 general election, herds the population into small isolated highly dense pockets of land in urban areas. Amazingly the Labour government allowed the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) to be involved in drafting the act. CPRE was formed by large Tory party backing landowners. They influenced the act to suit themselves. The naïve Labour administration at the time accepted their input. Over 90% of the population now live in urbanised areas, the second highest percentage in Europe, leaving the countryside virtually empty, because of this draconian act. This crams near 55 million of the population into around 7% of the land, which is only 4.2 million acres out of a UK total of 60 million acres. 60 million people own just 6% of the land.

The pitiful lack of land for new housing is not helped by the 30 million acres that have 'disappeared'.

- Peter Snow (referring to the Land Registry & Planning)

The act prevents us from building on the countryside, even though much of it is being paid to remain idle by taxpayers money. A countryside that has lost its population at an alarming rate over the past 30 years. The population of the UK are forced into tight urban pockets paying extortionate prices for land, and subsequently houses. Their taxes are used to reinforce this bizarre situation by paying to:

1. Keep land unused to maintain an artificial land shortage inflating house prices.
2. House large sections of the population unnecessarily in public funded housing.
3. Overwhelmingly control where the population lives.

This adds insult to injury. A contemptuous slap in the face. The Town & Country Planning act is in effect an act to control the population, rather than ensure adequate agricultural land is available, protect areas of natural beauty or promote first class habitation. The latter it certainly does not do.

[djc]

Provided the services etc are in place. Building a set of ticky-tacky boxes in a field in the middle of nowhere doesn't support home working.