Oxford at risk due to high house prices

Graham_Devon

Interesting piece on the BBC news a minute or so ago.

They featured Oxford, where to get a mortgage on a standard house, you will need an income of 70k+.

This has seen people leave the city in order to find accomodation elsewhere.

Oxford now suffers not only a lack of teachers, an acute nursing and healthcare shortage, but also a shortage of bus drivers. The bus company has already had to up pay to that over and abover a London bus driver, but they still find themselves unable to hire simply because people cannot afford to travel further and further into Oxford from their homes to do the job.

The bus company are looking at building a barracks type arrangement to house their drivers!

Meanwhile, outside of the greenbelt, a conservative councillor is interviewed who is protecting his area from any new building. It appears it's more important for those who already have houses to have a house with a view than it is for others to simply have a house.

Fierce opposition from the community to any building halts builds and the developers simply go elsewhere. Of course, you get the pictures of the retired bloke tending to his flowers on his huge lawn as representative of those who do not want others to have the same opportunity.

The will to build is there. The only thing stopping it is those who have already built on these wonderful views.

CLAPTON

yes we need more housing


although it's good to see the (non government controlled ) market working by seeing increased wages

Thrugelmir

Graham_Devon wrote: »

an acute nursing and healthcare shortage,

Oxford isn't unique. With National pay scales you can earn the same amount working in Halifax as Oxford.

lisyloo

Many people have "roots" though, whether that's grandchildren, parents, children, a nursing job they like, spouses job, children's schools, friends, social networks or homes etc.

Most people won't be in a position to just "up sticks" unless they are migrants or young free and single.

I remember when my parents tried to move my school when I was 15. The syllabuses were different and I would have lost some of my o levels, so they couldn't move my school without messing up my chances of a levels and university quite badly.

wymondham

Bus company building accommodation has Victorian throwbacks! lose your job and also lose your roof automatically.... not good..

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

So here's the link to the article Graham was (mis)quoting.

UK's most expensive city facing 'catastrophe'


Britain is facing a housing crisis because of a serious shortage of new homes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34573656

Having initially denied the housing shortage existed, and then denied the housing shortage was the cause of high prices, it must be rather traumatic for Graham to accept the truth.

40,000 people commuting long distances into Oxford for work every day, while people moan about not being able to afford to live there.

Even if prices in Oxford fell, are there suddenly 40,000 empty houses for these commuters to live in?

Of course not.

So this isn't a story about high prices, it's a story about the housing shortage which caused high prices.

As has repeatedly been noted, prices will rise so as to ration the limited stock available, until only the wealthiest can afford to buy in the prime locations.

If you want this to change, build a few million more houses, and provide millions more mortgages to allow people to buy them.

lisyloo

So how come it's Oxford? Is it because of the green garrotte? Whereas in London peopl just spread out further? Or is it because the wages are lower or a combination of both?
Like many people I would have expected london

kinger101

lisyloo wrote: »

So how come it's Oxford? Is it because of the green garrotte? Whereas in London peopl just spread out further? Or is it because the wages are lower or a combination of both?
Like many people I would have expected london

The supply of houses in Oxford is not sufficient to house the number of people that work there. At the same time, there are many high paid jobs in Oxford from companies which based themselves there for the supply of graduates. So this pushes up the price on the limited supply of houses even further.

There are similar problems in other cities, notably Cambridge.

PasturesNew

Simple... move the University and all the students out to a campus 10 miles up the road.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Having initially denied the housing shortage existed, and then denied the housing shortage was the cause of high prices, it must be rather traumatic for Graham to accept the truth.

Ha, what a load of mis-representative guff! I'm the one calling for mass council building programmes to sort out the lack of new housing. Something you vehemently appose.

I haven't misquoted anything at all. The video is there for all to see.

I've referenced the housing shortage and the reason they cannot build homes so I'm not sure what your beef is, other than your theory that lower wage people will all start sharing accomodation and we should bring even more people into the country simply isn't working in Oxford.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I'm the one calling for mass council building programmes to sort out the lack of new housing.

You surmised that a load of Nimby's were forcing developers out. Would state sponsored building not just face exactly the same problems from the same Nimby's?

If the answer's no then, logically, the government must be better able to get permission to build. If that's the case then why don't they just give the permission and let the developers do their thing? I'm guessing the people of Oxford and the pushed out commuters would prefer this rather than aspiring to seeing a load of council estates being built to house the 'needy'.

We're back to looking for root causes. Planning seems to be the root cause of the lack of new houses - if you think about it more deeply you'll see that's what you've implied on this thread. More council houses solves the problem of not enough state interference, of the sort you approve of, in people's lives.