Planning changes to encourage new builds

cells

daveyjp wrote: »

Incorrect. Ask your local Council how many housing developments they have given permission for in the last 10 years and how many have actually been built. There will be a huge gap as not everything with permission gets built and large developments take years to bring to complete.

The biggest block to housing development is the free market. When prices are falling development stalls as developers can't cover the cost of the development. When prices are rising developers restrict supply in order to capitalise on a rising market.

Why do you think the last Govt invented ever more schemes to increase demand? It was to prop up a failing property market.

Its stupid to expect 100% of planning approvals to get built maybe 2/3rds will for various reasons. You can see this in many nations, eg France gives out about 600,000 stamps a year and sees 400,000 build. In Turkey they give out about a million stamps a year and about 800,0000 get built

the UK probably needs a similar new build rate as France. That means the UK should be approving ~600k planning applications and expect ~400k of them to be built

cells

David Cameron once asked Simon Wolfson, the CEO of Next, why Britain didn’t have its own Silicon Valley, and was told that it would “probably never get planning permission”.!

Generali

Sapphire wrote: »

If the aim is to settle a 500,000 increase in population, which you postulate, in London this is far too much for the infrastructure alone to cope with, let alone housing. Perhaps try and reduce this increase, rather than 'do nothing'? :cool:

I think the point is that the increase is going to happen and so it's better to put facilities in place for them than pretend somehow that it's not going to happen.

Sapphire

cells wrote: »

I think generally those who dont thunk at all or very little aboit the issue just go with the propaganda about saving the countryside and those in the industry one way or another or have spent time to understand it reasonably see that tjere is a true shortage of homes in the UK

That's absurd. The people I know who object to ever-increasing 'luxury apartment' development primarily for investment by foreigners and indigenous speculators think very deeply about issues such as lack of infrastructure (for example travel and health facilities, which I know have certainly been very badly affected by the increase in population, since I see this with my own eyes every day in London), overcrowding, poorly built construction and design of inappropriate gigantic buildings, the destruction of the country's heritage and the environment, and the massive over-reliance on property as a money-making 'asset' for the country. Those 'in the industry' generally have a vested interest in making money from property and in property being treated as a 'commodity' to be gambled with, rather than as homes, as used to be the case. They think only about their own interests and short-term gains, rather than 'understanding it reasonably', whatever that means.

Sapphire

Yes, but the point is that the infrastructure is not being put in place – I see this with my own eyes every day, since I live in the capital and travel in it. London is really terribly crowded, and as I said, there is a finite number of people that can be accommodated in it without it becoming a deeply unpleasant, stressed, paralysed place to live in. I mean, just how far do you think we should go? Until we are packed like sardines?

In addition, as I keep saying, much of what is being built is aimed at foreign investors and speculators within the UK, not at the indigenous population, which largely cannot afford what is being built because of the amount stuff that is being bought up by speculators. Without that aspect, and with homes being built to be lived in, there would be plenty of property for the indigenous population to buy, and there would be no need to build badly designed, tacky, ever-higher megalithic structures that are a blight in London.

Generali wrote: »

I think the point is that the increase is going to happen and so it's better to put facilities in place for them than pretend somehow that it's not going to happen.

Mistermeaner

cells wrote: »

What infrastructure do you think is needed in your area due to population migration, that is lacking now. Also why should new house be responsible or provide that infrastructure.

for example why is a new house with its occupants less entitled to use infrastructure x than an existing house and its tenants. There seems little logic to an idea of first come first serve to homes.

and finally infrastructure tends to lag demand this is quite natural. The alternative are bridges to nowehere and uear/decades of under utilisation of pre built infrastructure.

Hi cells, my local issues are just that so I'm not speaking on behalf of a nation or dealing with the macro issue but you asked so will explain.

2 main issues: 1 is schools, pop has increased but no new schools, all of the pre-existing local schools have struggled and have mobile buildings etc. Not insurmountable and may improve in time. One particularly large New estate did build a new primary school which won awards for its sustainable and ecological design but unfortunately has placed for only a fraction of the kids off that estate. The rest commute out daily. Genious.

The main issue is the roads - they are carnage and getting worse - there is no easy fix and the choke points are mostly bridges over rivers / rail lines. Single file bridges with 3 way traffic control, most of them listed from waterways hey day and still need to swing despite no boats coming through. There is no obvious solution even given money as no object because there is no way to expand them or to run New roads to new bridges because everything is built up round them. All the brownfield sites that are being developed are inside these choke points (as expected they were once part of town). It may be better IMO to convert these to parks and to build the new houses on the edges of town where infrastructure and roads particularly can be better planned. Nb there is literally no employment in the town virtually everybody commutes out, it really is a place to live and your kid s to go to school but you need a car to do anything. Train stations etc are also in daft places and not utilisable in any meaningful way. There is a number of disused rail lines that were looked at to turn into roads but they are too narrow and too boxed in by housing to be useful


As a side makes me laugh when new estates are built with 1 car park space per dwelling on basis people will use non existent public transport, people move in 2 cars per house and end up parked all over the pavements.

ukcarper

cells wrote: »

The answer is it can and it might not*

There was a period of about 2-3 decades where London population shrank and during that time an additional > 500,000 homes were built in London. So London got physically bigger (if youocount the size of London as the last house in the edge) yet its population shrank

likewise there was a period when the whole UK population shrank ober a period of some 3 years. During that time soke 1 million more homea were build. So a million more homes and no additional people.


the conclusion is easy. Population drives housing need, houses dont drive population.

of course that is on a national or regional scale. On a local scale ita somewhat different. Eg if Hackney in London somehow built 200k homes over the next year even if London population growth during the same time was zero you woupd find you need more infrastructure in Hackney and less elsewhere in London.


Anywho. Infrastructure generally gets more productive so there is little need to add to much of it. Only transport is a problem but its not an unsolvable problem nor should it be a limit to say no to development in location x.

You keep looking at London as a whole but the areas outside London in green belt or otherwise do not have the infrastructure and if you plonk 3000 houses on a greenfield just outside a small town or village it will cause substatial problems. You seem to have a great love of statistics but do not seem to understand how things actual work in real world.

ukcarper

Generali wrote: »

I think the point is that the increase is going to happen and so it's better to put facilities in place for them than pretend somehow that it's not going to happen.

I think that's a good point but people who ask for the infrastructure to be put in place are always branded nimbys but building without any consideration to existing infrastructure is not sustainable.

mwpt

ukcarper wrote: »

I think that's a good point but people who ask for the infrastructure to be put in place are always branded nimbys but building without any consideration to existing infrastructure is not sustainable.

Infrastructure grows once their is demand. Hence the population, houses, will be built first.

ukcarper

mwpt wrote: »

Infrastructure grows once their is demand. Hence the population, houses, will be built first.

Perhaps but I'm not convinced and if it is the lag can cause significant problems, I see no reason why infrastructure should not be put in place at the same time.