Do you know what I'd like to see?

danothy

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Interesting start, but being a "Cause and Effect" scenario, it seems strange you've not started at the budgeting and funding for this project and gone straight to execution.

The point of the exercise is not to work out how to publicly fund house building, it's to work out what the consequences would be if government instructed the local authorities to achieve such a level of development. There's no 'budgeting and funding' as housing targets handed down to local authorities are the scenario I've suggested here, what would be the consequences?

As a first though, it seems to me that most local authorities will follow the path of least resistance, with some naturally relying on signing off on private developments and some spending money building social houses. Some will no doubt trade the responsibility if they can't do either or a bit of both, but only to the limit the other authorities collectively would or could take the allocations.

danothy

Jegersmart wrote: »

Ultimately, these homes would need to be funded by the taxpayer. ...

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

IMHO, if this is to be social housing funded by the taxpayer ...

I think the point's been missed somewhat ... it's not a case of "it would have to be funded by the taxpayer" ... that's a condition, not a consequence. I'm talking more about if the edict was simply issued and local authorities were then compelled to try to meet it, what would be the consequences? Finding a way to make it work isn't quite the same exercise as finding the most likely outcome as reasoned step by step.

GeorgeHowell

Here's the first question to be addressed then, relating to what I believe would have to be Step1 :-

How is the 1.4 million target to be divided up by local authority ?

danothy

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

Here's the first question to be addressed then, relating to what I believe would have to be Step1 :-

How is the 1.4 million target to be divided up by local authority ?

As this seems to be turning into a dry run, lets keep it arbitrary but rational, lets say the district levels get a proportional share of the 1.5 million target based on population.

GeorgeHowell

danothy wrote: »

As this seems to be turning into a dry run, lets keep it arbitrary but rational, lets say the district levels get a proportional share of the 1.5 million target based on population.

Well that's the obvious quick fix of course. But it ignores :-

Availability of building land

Relative regional need for additional new housing

Infrastructure considerations

Transport considerations

Employment considerations

The so-called north/south divide


... and no doubt a host of other factors which do not occur to me on the spur of the moment.

Is it better to spread 1.5 million houses from Lands End to John O'Groats (or maybe from St Mary's, Scilly to Lerwick) arbitrarily ? Or should more time be taken to come up with a more intelligent method which might better match supply and demand whilst taking regional development and other salient factors into account ?

danothy

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

Well that's the obvious quick fix of course. But it ignores :-

Availability of building land

Relative regional need for additional new housing

Infrastructure considerations

Transport considerations

Employment considerations

The so-called north/south divide


... and no doubt a host of other factors which do not occur to me on the spur of the moment.

Absolutely ... the outcome of these consequences of these aspects are the point of the thinktank exercise, no?

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

Is it better to spread 1.5 million houses from Lands End to John O'Groats (or maybe from St Mary's, Scilly to Lerwick) arbitrarily ? Or should more time be taken to come up with a more intelligent method which might better match supply and demand whilst taking regional development and other salient factors into account ?

In what way does answering that question test the outcome of the starting point of a simple edict to build more houses? I refuse to believe that thinktanks come up with anything than a starting point and work it through.

GeorgeHowell

danothy wrote: »

Absolutely ... the outcome of these consequences of these aspects are the point of the thinktank exercise, no?



In what way does answering that question test the outcome of the starting point of a simple edict to build more houses? I refuse to believe that thinktanks come up with anything than a starting point and work it through.

I'm not sure that in the absence of a directional notion as to where the homes would be built an assessment of the consequences can be made with any degree of credibility.

danothy

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

I'm not sure that in the absence of a directional notion as to where the homes would be built an assessment of the consequences can be made with any degree of credibility.

Suit yourself. Personally I think that the likely course of least resistance for an authority with developers that want to develop in its boundary and for an authority that doesn't have willing developers could be reasoned out and used to go forwards in terms of the next step of likely consequences.

Seems that people are more interested in pointing out why any starting situation wouldn't work rather than running it through to its potentially glorious or ugly end. I guess any sort of thought experiment is scuppered and I was right that there could be no HP&tE thinktank.

globalds

I think the time frame would have to be over a decade or even more maybe 20 years ..

vivatifosi

danothy wrote: »

And there I was hoping people would want to prove me wrong ...

There's a little part of me danothy, that wonders if you are an evil social scientist sitting with your clipboard taking notes of the lunatics playing in their asylum. Mwah, ha, ha...