Wat Tyler rails against new housing:
And why aren't there enough houses? Well, because some idiot allowed 3 million immigrants into the country in the last 12 years, and 75% of them have settled in London and the South East.(1)
It's NIMBY to object? Well, yes, it is... and your point? It's called my back yard because it is my back yard. It doesn't belong to some commissar to do with as he wishes. (2)"
The comments, both pro- and anti- are well worth a read, but I added my tupp'orth anyway:
(1) Let's assume that to be true. What you are saying is you're happy to make a tax-free capital gain on the back of immigration, but young English people can get stuffed? They are the ones who are losing out on both sides of the equation.
(2) Doesn't the land concerned belong to a farmer or somebody? How does that make it "yours"?
He plays the "green" card as well of course: "... the destruction of vast swathes of green belt land to accommodate the forced construction of thousands of new homes...".
FFS, barely ten per cent of England by surface area is developed, and the proportion of leafy Surrey that is developed is not much higher. And it's not "forced construction"; there's a demand for housing so developers try and meet supply. You might as well argue that by not placing a limit on the number of hairdressers who can operate in the UK, the government is "forcing people to have their hair cut". And it's funny how home-owners never consider the "vaste swathes of the greenbelt" that must have been destroyed in the past to enable their homes to be built.
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4 hours ago
13 comments:
Your last point is weak - there was no such thing as a green belt when my house was built.
D, the term "green belt" may be relatively new, but all housing must have been built on what was once fields or forests or something, including yours.
Localism is fine if it's correctly used. There are things which are now dealt with at a national level which do not need to be.
But localism would also stop any power station or airport from ever being built again.
It's why LVT works so nice. Airport? Land price gets depressed, but actually not as far as it would now because the fact that you get cheaper LVT would keep the land price up a little higher.
OC, "Airport? Land price gets depressed.."
I'm not even sure that's true - shut down Heathrow and you put 77,000 'local' people straight out of work, I'm not sure that would push up land values.
Fair point, Mark. Heathrow closing might depress houses a little in the region but in areas very close to the flight paths, prices would probably go up a little.
Sewage plant is probably a better example.
I was going to say it and Dearieme did - that not all construction was in greenbelt areas and around some towns, the greenbelt is all that is left before the next town. Conurbations are not universally loved, Mark.
JH,
"not all construction was in greenbelt areas and around some towns"
I'm guessing that prior to these restrictions, new construction was quite simply where demand was. Seeing as the population is not spread evenly across the country, there is a marked tendency for it to be around towns.
"the greenbelt is all that is left before the next town."
OK, trying looking at a map of the southern half of England or peeking out of the window of an aeroplane. Can you not spot the big gaps between towns?
"Conurbations are not universally loved"
Well, 85% of us live in suburbia, but 15% don't. So let's allow more construction in the countryside for those who want to live in the countryside, more construction near the seaside for those who want to live near the seaside and more construction around towns for those who'd like to live near a town.
Don't forget that only ten per cent of England is developed, if we built five million new homes, it would still only use up one per cent of undeveloped land.
OC, "Sewage plant is probably a better example."
You're right. Shut down a sewage plant and houses for miles around would be worth absolutely nothing.
OK, trying looking at a map of the southern half of England or peeking out of the window of an aeroplane. Can you not spot the big gaps between towns?
Mark, the difference between us is that I love those green areas green but I do take your point about housing pressure and yes, I'd live in the country, as I'm in fact almost doing. :)
"all housing must have been built on what was once fields or forests or something, including yours": of course, but that misses the point. As I've told you before, a couple once built a house right behind ours on a patch of field. Since there had been no claim by government that such building had been forbidden indefinitely, we just shrugged it off. But for our present house we are threatened with a new, small town being built on the field behind us, when we bought our house knowing that that land was Green Belt. Is it really beyond you to appreciate the difference?
JH, I love those green areas green as well (which is why I choose to live in a conurbation). So? If we build houses and factories where there's demand for them, the chances are they'd be built near towns and cities, not at random in the middle of a field somewhere.
It's not quite clear to me whether you don't like people who want to live in or near towns or people who want to live a bit further away from towns or in the countryside, or indeed neither. Seeing as everybody lives somewhere, I'm not sure that anybody has the right to dictate to others where they should live.
D, yes, you have said before that you see the Green Belt rules as a one-off , State-enforced contract, for which no compensation was ever paid (whether from NIMBY to farmer or from NIMBY to the priced out younger generation) that forever deprives other people of the right to do what the person who originally built your house did.
That's the difference that I can see.
I think there needs to be a sensible approach in the sense that whilst urban areas can be expanded in some places, on some hills or in some new village, indiscriminate building all over the place is not a desirable thing.
Now the present draconian system of housing regulations is ridiculous but if the guidelines can be reduced to a fraction but those that are left are enforced, then new housing needn't be an eyesore.
For example, there could be a ridge along which new homes can be built, with reasonable space between them [not terrace]. They needn't be clustered, which no one wants.
But given a square kilometre of greenery out there, it would be unfortunate if that was scarred with monstrosities dotted all over the place but never quite filling the space.
Think I'll post on this.
So? If we build houses and factories where there's demand for them, the chances are they'd be built near towns and cities, not at random in the middle of a field somewhere.
That's true and most libertarian. I'm caught halfway in not trusting builders for a start, who'll build their own designs at cutprice [keeping close to the minimalist guidelines] and whereever they like which, to a point, is fine.
On the other hand, there is such a thing as an eyesore. Now my natural tendency is to "free up" but I can see where it would lead.
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