The immigration thing

baby_boomer

Relax the planning laws

and / or

Government to increase taxation to finance the building of more social housing and shift the focus on government spending away from health for a decade

Regional development will be important because in terms of transport and water, the London area can hardly cope at the moment.

Gordon Brown's offer of one former military base for a small new town is supposed to be a big initiative but it's not going to start to scratch the surface.

I don't see a solution, or a realistic debate, from any of the three main parties at the moment.

So I suppose I'm saying that increased population, combined with government inaction, may help underpin house prices in the coming decades.

PJD

wecanhelpu wrote: »

Instead of trying to bait other posters, why don't you just come out with what you want to say?

i.e. "There's too many f*cking immigrants in this country and that if we don't send them all home there won't be any houses for us".

Or is it something else that is troubling you?

Meant to press QUOTE not THANKS!

It's a very sad current state of affairs that we can't discuss so many things these days without worrying, or being accused of, being a racist, xenophobe etc etc :mad:

Drives me up the wall

Ad

The Labour government allowed unlimited immigration into the country to suppress wages to assist with the fiddled inflation figures, which has kept interest rates at an artificially low level resulting in a huge asset boom.

All this just so Gordon Brown can get to be PM and the NuLabour remain in power for yet another term.

Only now are the sheeple slowly waking up to the devastating social and economic consequences of rampant House Price Inflation.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/06/13/more-mortgage-misery-89520-19287608/

Guy_Montag

Mheh watch the net migration change direction when we go into recession. I wonder if there's a Polish version of "Auf Weidersehen Pet" about workers coming over to Britain & working on building sites.

Jennifer_Jane

baby_boomer wrote: »

Relax the planning laws

.

EEEK! It is our local planners who have allowed a transport company to run their articulated lorries past our houses, so that they shake and vibrate. And it is the planners who have stipulated that only 5 of these huge vans can use the road during the night! Please change or enhance the planning laws, but please don't relax them.

There are plenty of houses available in England, people should just MOVE to where they can afford.

Love
Jen x

Guy_Montag

But what will all these young people do in Grimsby & Middlesborough? The reason property is so cheap these is there's no damn jobs there.

I almost had sympathy for you until your penultimate sentence now I'm laughing.

wecanhelpu

I don't have an ideal solution either, but I would like to respond to these two points.

baby_boomer wrote: »

Relax the planning laws

Nimbys

and / or

Government to increase taxation to finance the building of more social housing and shift the focus on government spending away from health for a decade

I don't want to pay any more tax

.

baby_boomer

Your responses help explain why neither the government nor the opposition has been too keen to grapple with the question I posed in the OP.

I personally don't have confidence in the government's ability to expand the housing stock in order to ensure affordability in the near future. They won't be able to break out of their narrow "health 'n eduction" election mindset, particularly when government purse strings will need tightening for years to come and hard up nurses make such good TV.

Relaxing planning laws will prove cheaper for government, but first there needs to be a groundswell of political support for such a move.

BTman

baby_boomer wrote: »

Relax the planning laws

and / or

Government to increase taxation to finance the building of more social housing and shift the focus on government spending away from health for a decade

I'm sure if the government scrapped the RTB scheme, taxed BTL businesses and sacked most of the 100K+ public "workers" managers then that would more than cover social housing..


Regional development will be important because in terms of transport and water, the London area can hardly cope at the moment.

I agree, it's NOT all about London

Gordon Brown's offer of one former military base for a small new town is supposed to be a big initiative but it's not going to start to scratch the surface.

I don't see a solution, or a realistic debate, from any of the three main parties at the moment.

Neither do I

So I suppose I'm saying that increased population, combined with government inaction, may help underpin house prices in the coming decades.

You may be right, but as soon as the cheap money and immigration dries up...

wecanhelpu

Hence the very difficult solution.

What is definitely needed is a government prepared to plan for generations rather than the shortermism often in evidence.