Tories scrap house building targets, 'must protect greenbelt and do what locals want'

fc123

Fang wrote: »

Country villages should be protected. It's hard enough finding a decent place to live without councils inviting anyone to move in.

...Oooooh.....that wouldn't be a NIMBY statement would it?

No dig as I would deff be NIMBY too if I owned in a place that wanted to build shed loads of stuff.


I rent and own and on rented St the NIMBYism is acute here.......they buy the plot (back in the 60's - 80's) with a crud old 30's cottage on it, knock it down, buils a big FO 80's/90's style build with 6 beds.....then block every single little extension plan and go totally nuts over anyone wanting to knock the cottages down and build a FO Grand designs type place.

It will all change in a decade as they are all in their late 70's/ early 80's so not long now before another generation get a look in.

lynzpower

We should also be looking to convert shops into homes as is v popular in the Netherlands, something that is so so rare but boarded up shops just blight the area ( yet still they build more, go figure)

vivatifosi

There were plans to increase the supply of housing massively where I live. You have to wonder though who would want more housing when local schools have closed, hospitals rationalised and there were no plans to build additional trunk roads. Because the land to build could never be found (without overturning planning for Green Belt), we ended up with the local council breaking its own density rules just to try to get a fraction of the homes that it was expected to accommodate. Net result: a lot of very high density schemes that people spent a fortune to buy into and which look like future ghettos, while there's an acute shortage of family houses.

We do need houses, but the plans needed a rethink and the Tories made it clears years ago that they were going to overturn Labour's plans if they got back into power.

Brallaqueen

Leaving aside whether this is a good idea or not - would this push the housing market back up? I'm assuming that less properties to go round would mean greater competition between buyers.

Fang_3

fc123 wrote: »

...Oooooh.....that wouldn't be a NIMBY statement would it?

No dig as I would deff be NIMBY too if I owned in a place that wanted to build shed loads of stuff.


I rent and own and on rented St the NIMBYism is acute here.......they buy the plot (back in the 60's - 80's) with a crud old 30's cottage on it, knock it down, buils a big FO 80's/90's style build with 6 beds.....then block every single little extension plan and go totally nuts over anyone wanting to knock the cottages down and build a FO Grand designs type place.

It will all change in a decade as they are all in their late 70's/ early 80's so not long now before another generation get a look in.

Nope. I live in the suburbs in a three-bed semi. And I don't necessarily mean that the properties themselves should be protected, but I do think that areas should. We have a very beautiful countryside, but it won't stay that way if everything becomes urbanized. Especially when there really is no need to keep building.

I'm not saying that nothing should be built in the countryside, but why can't we use logic? Allow maybe 2% more properties to be built every 10 years in each village? Allow only those that are being built by those who plan to live in them.

vivatifosi

lynzpower wrote: »

We should also be looking to convert shops into homes as is v popular in the Netherlands, something that is so so rare but boarded up shops just blight the area ( yet still they build more, go figure)

I don't know why they don't do that. But then there's a lot of things I don't understand - for example why leave blocks of ex-LA garages vacant and derelict when they could be given power and turned into small business start up units?

Fang_3

Brallaqueen wrote: »

Leaving aside whether this is a good idea or not - would this push the housing market back up? I'm assuming that less properties to go round would mean greater competition between buyers.

Perhaps, but we are an aging population, and so there will be a glut of properties soon anyway.

ruggedtoast

I dont think Labour had any intention of building the homes they promised in any case. At least the tories are being open about conceding to the nimbys.

fc123

CLAPTON wrote: »

yes we need a zero build policy; and of course devolving planning powers power to 'local communities ' will probably achieve this

no new housing, no new railways, no new runways, no new power stations, no new gas pipelines, no new water works, no new pylons, no new mobile masts, no new factories, no new offices, no new Unis, no new shops.....

.....sounds like a NIMBY Uptopia.
Personally, I just don't understand the mindset of people who want zero change....for everything to stay in a timewarp. They are usually the same ones who moan about the decay and lack of choice on their local High St whilst driving to a Tesco once a week and shopping basics like books/DVD's online etc.

Things change, lifestyles change and we adapt.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Fang wrote: »

Perhaps, but we are an aging population, and so there will be a glut of properties soon anyway.

That's a myth.

A quick check of the ONS website will show you the projected population graphs by age all the way through to 2100. There is a surge of population building now that is even larger than the boomers. Some of it is immigration led, but we're also in the middle of a baby boom as well.

Population is projected to increase to 70,000,000 by 2030 or so. An extra 10 million people in just 20 years will need a massive housebuilding programme to keep up. And of course the Tories have just scrapped any chance we had of keeping up with demand.