Bole Blasts Nimby Boomers with Brickbats

PaulF81

grizzly1911 wrote: »

We have anumber of speculative applications around our area and when viewing the applications the traffic impact is always the one that makes me smile.

Experts (for the developer) are wheeled in totaht prepare areport that suggest the vat majority of movements will be by foot, <1m; by bike <3m; public transport, that runs every 30mins at best to limited locations and some by rail or although the closest station , >2m, is only a spur line so not really that useful.

Cars are always way down the list.

If you look around most existing properties have at least 2 cars on the drive if not more. It is semi rural so the vast majority of journeys are by necessity by car. In the time we have been here traffic congestion has increased markedly, to the point of gridlock, at "rush hours" with little improvement on the road network.

The reports always state that impact will be low. The plots never have sufficient car parking space either on them or around them.

Of course limiting car use is a nice aspiration but it just isn't reality.

You are forgetting that these cars will exist already, somewhere else. Its not as if people go out and buy cars the minute they buy a house do they? So making out it is going to increase road usage is a bit false really, as there will be a corresponding decrease elsewhere.

ash28

PaulF81 wrote: »

You are forgetting that these cars will exist already, somewhere else. Its not as if people go out and buy cars the minute they buy a house do they? So making out it is going to increase road usage is a bit false really, as there will be a corresponding decrease elsewhere.

Doesn't help the area where the extra traffic is going to though, especially if the area is already very congested a peak times.

In fact in the area I was talking about, there are 4 peak times - early morning, the morning school run (the traffic is as bad as the early morning), afternoon school run and the evening rush.

And the new residents will likely be coming from far and wide and their departure will not have impact in their old area that their arrival will have in the new area.

And grizzly1911 is right - most households have 2 cars or more.

A._Badger

Poor old Toastie, Never let the facts get in the way of a good swivel-eyed Leftie rant, eh?

grizzly1911

PaulF81 wrote: »

You are forgetting that these cars will exist already, somewhere else. Its not as if people go out and buy cars the minute they buy a house do they? So making out it is going to increase road usage is a bit false really, as there will be a corresponding decrease elsewhere.

As ash points out that is fine if everything is equal. But things aren't.

No different to how much data you can push down a given pipe size. If you increase the pipe maybe, but only if the switches can handle it too.

The devlopers choose to ignore the size/quality of the road infrastructure and the need to actually park the cars.

PaulF81

grizzly1911 wrote: »

As ash points out that is fine if everything is equal. But things aren't.

No different to how much data you can push down a given pipe size. If you increase the pipe maybe, but only if the switches can handle it too.

The devlopers choose to ignore the size/quality of the road infrastructure and the need to actually park the cars.

Well, perhaps if the national housebuilders didnt have to pay an arm and a leg for affordable housing for the great unproductive unwashed they could contribute to improving infrastructure instead, building a school for every 2000 homes built or increasing road capacity.

grizzly1911

PaulF81 wrote: »

Well, perhaps if the national housebuilders didnt have to pay an arm and a leg for affordable housing for the great unproductive unwashed they could contribute to improving infrastructure instead, building a school for every 2000 homes built or increasing road capacity.

Don't make me laugh.

They would just take the profit and run.

Unless their feet are held to the fire they will do jack without a return.

ruggedtoast

Some other miserable boomer has come out in opposition of housing the young.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/01/tory-rural-raid-andrew-motion

Tory rural raid will ruin countryside, says Andrew Motion... The former poet laureate describes feeling emotions "somewhere between horror and enormous anger" as Tory minister Nick Boles set out his plans to build on 2m acres of unspoiled land.

"I already have a house thank you"

CLAPTON

The general situation, whilst varies from local council to local council, is that all significant housing developments must
-pay infrastructure costs
-and provide 'affordable housing' at below cost.

Sometimes the builders provides local amenitites (school, surgery, playground etc) directly and sometimes they give cash to the council.

You may wish to speculate if the council spends the cash directly in that local community or whether it is spent elsewhere.

The usual reason builders don't provide enough parking for two cars even when there is clearly enough space, is that councils live in a fantasy world where they pretend that everyone walks, cycles or goes by bus.


Obviously, the costs of the infrastructure and affordable housing are added to the price of the houses just like other costs.

Whilst it may seem reasonable that these buyers of newbuilds pay for the local infrastructure and 'affordable' house for social tenants, one can consider that the council will be receiving extra council tax from these properties for the next 100 years or more.

Whilst each development is doubtless different one could perhaps speculate that the 'extra' costs put on newbuilds tends to push builders to go for relatively expensive properties where the extra mark up is more acceptable to the buyers than say for cash strapped first time buyers.

Zero_Sum

CLAPTON wrote: »

Sometimes the builders provides local amenitites (school, surgery, playground etc) directly and sometimes they give cash to the council.

You may wish to speculate if the council spends the cash directly in that local community or whether it is spent elsewhere.

Known as Section 106 Agreements

http://www.pas.gov.uk/pas/core/page.do?pageId=12516

zagubov

PaulF81 wrote: »

You are forgetting that these cars will exist already, somewhere else. Its not as if people go out and buy cars the minute they buy a house do they? So making out it is going to increase road usage is a bit false really, as there will be a corresponding decrease elsewhere.

Before they're sold the cars are often stored in remote places like abandoned airfields in the middle of nowhere (used to work near such a place).

In an urban area the car needs the space it uses up on the road, the braking distance of length front and back on the roads, and storage space on a driveway /side of the road or in the occasional garage that some builder accidentaly makes big enough to store more than a few tins of paint in. Plus parking spaces at shops, workplaces.

We're 9% built-up but if we relied on big cars as much as the US we might end up as built-up as the US. Which is 4% and that sounds less than us till you realise they have 1/8 the population density.

If we allocated built-up land per person as generously as the US did, the UK would be more than 33% built-up!:eek:

Edit: some other countries have copied US urban layouts (Oz, NZ I believe) Anyone know how they're coping with congestion, sprawl etc.?