Criticism of report calling for less affordable homes Options

[andy1979uk]

Some of them certainly do. As do people who have no friggin' idea how to do something as basic as use an apostrophe.

It is unlikely.

[Jayjay]

Possibly, but it is a fact that people who are placed in social houseing include people at the bottom of the social scale.

So you would not want to live next to Buckingham Palace, Downing Street or many streets in Belgravia? You think the people who live there are inferior to you? Those places are all 'social housing' (dwelling places that are not privately owned but owned by the state).

[Jayjay]

Drug addicts, work shy and serial baby makers do not have mortgages/

Fair do's, but the drug dealers are rich and can afford to buy their houses. You would rather they were your next door neighbour?

[On the edge]

Then there were the Rausings - must have been neighbours from he ll living in their own very expensive property! A past life collecting debts taught me that the term squalid could be applied to people across the social spectrum. Top end were generally rather more rude and offensive.

[lordtup]

Amazing how the thread ,which started as a serious and contentious debate, quickly descends into personal prejudice.
Personal finance has very little to do with social standing nor does the size of house ,(god knows Tup hall is not THAT big ),but if size impresses so be it.
The relevant point is that we need cheap affordable housing in both the owner occupier and the letting sector . The work force of this country not only needs but has a right to a decent home in a convivial environment .If we are to grow out of our present fiscal predicament then the incentive must be a the security of bricks and mortar.
A golden opportunity awaits the construction industry but the Country can not afford to invest in a comprehensive building programme if the recipients are not prepared to contribute in some small way.

Trouble is most people want to live in the SE of the Country and this gives an imbalanced perspective . Anyone fancy moving to County Durham ?

[Simon Kirby]

Amazing how the thread ,which started as a serious and contentious debate, quickly descends into personal prejudice.
Personal finance has very little to do with social standing nor does the size of house ,(god knows Tup hall is not THAT big ),but if size impresses so be it.
The relevant point is that we need cheap affordable housing in both the owner occupier and the letting sector . The work force of this country not only needs but has a right to a decent home in a convivial environment .If we are to grow out of our present fiscal predicament then the incentive must be a the security of bricks and mortar.
A golden opportunity awaits the construction industry but the Country can not afford to invest in a comprehensive building programme if the recipients are not prepared to contribute in some small way.

Trouble is most people want to live in the SE of the Country and this gives an imbalanced perspective . Anyone fancy moving to County Durham ?

House prices are appallingly high and I would like to see some significant house-building going on so as to flood the market and suppress the price. I'm no expert, but it's my impression that developers are ready and able to get developing and that the hold-up is the strangulation of supply of development land by our system of planning control. I think the planning system needs a radical shake-up to give implied consent for sustainable development on any piece of land subject only to local design briefs. This should also suppress planning up-lift and go some way to ending speculation and profiteering on the land and housing market.

And I'd scrap "affordable" schemes because they do nothing to make housing affordable, these schemes just prop up an inflated housing market. That's not to say that developers would just build exclusive gated middle-class enclaves of £350k semis because that just isn't sustainable (in the societal sense - and development must be sustainable in every sense), but even if they did, the free market would still suppress house prices to the point where everyone could afford to buy.

[Andy Capp]

Your idea doesn't address the ~3,000,000 unemployed who will not be able to get a mortgage. Of course they could get given a home that was intended for the gainfully employed, but then we have the dilemma of people on benefits living in places fit for the employed.

I suggest before your idea works, we need jobs that carry a 'liveable wage'. A society that lives with mortgages needs a society that has job confidence.

I also disagree somewhat with a planning free-for-all. This could cause traffic and problems with amenities, like doctors, schools, dentists, water, etc.

[Exhausted]

I have no problem with developers building low cost/affordable housing but what this really means is social housing. People on benefits, who have no inclination to search for a job tend to be the tenants of these properties and often, not always perhaps, have no interest in maintaining the appearance of the property that we, the ratepayers, are paying for.

As far as sluggish and poor planning goes and leaving us devoid of town centre properties, the old Travis Perkins site in Mill Lane was a prime development site and the quality of houses proposed were second to none. A proportion of them were even work/live properties. What happened, WBC refused the development, on very dodgy grounds in my opinion and the developer just walked away to develop in some other more deserving town. Remaining, a blank concrete site with weeds growing out of the concrete. Perhaps they will come back eventually.

[Timbo]

What were the grounds on refusing the deployment? I used to work close by to here and often felt it was not being used..

[Simon Kirby]

I also disagree somewhat with a planning free-for-all. This could cause traffic and problems with amenities, like doctors, schools, dentists, water, etc.

No - developments that cause traffic and problems with amenities, like doctors, schools, dentists, water are not sustainable - that's all part of what sustainable means. Sustainable development requires that the capacity of these facilities and infrastructure are improved to support the development - and if that can't be done then the development can't happen.

[Andy Capp]

No - developments that cause traffic and problems with amenities, like doctors, schools, dentists, water are not sustainable - that's all part of what sustainable means. Sustainable development requires that the capacity of these facilities and infrastructure are improved to support the development - and if that can't be done then the development can't happen.

I'm a bit confused here, because from what I have read, it is the lack or the fear of those things that normally get in the way of planning approval.

[Simon Kirby]

Your idea doesn't address the ~3,000,000 unemployed who will not be able to get a mortgage. Of course they could get given a home that was intended for the gainfully employed, but then we have the dilemma of people on benefits living in places fit for the employed.

Being unemployed can't improve your housing prospects, surely? Where's the incentive to work? Let's allow the market to make a home affordable to every working family, and let the unemployed take their chances on the welfare state. Of course I'd also like a small state that empowers industry and commerce, but that's really for another thread...

[Andy Capp]

Being unemployed can't improve your housing prospects, surely? Where's the incentive to work?

That is my point.

Let's allow the market to make a home affordable to every working family, and let the unemployed take their chances on the welfare state.

Unemployed also covers low income. They practically suffer the same problem. Is there any evidence that a free market economy will house the under privileged?

[Simon Kirby]

I'm a bit confused here, because from what I have read, it is the lack or the fear of those things that normally get in the way of planning approval.

I think a lot of development we're seen is unsustainable - look at the access to the racecourse development, it's rubbish. Look at the piece-meal development in wash water - a posh enclave with no facilities and no pavement to walk into Wash Common - that's not sustainable because it creates much more car use than a development in wakling distance of facilities. Water supply in the whole of the south-east is also stretched to breaking point and we need a scheme on a national scale to bring drinking water down from the north of the country, or else shift commerce and industry up where the water is. I don't know how these things got planning.

[Exhausted]

What were the grounds on refusing the deployment? I used to work close by to here and often felt it was not being used..

Mainly to do with overlooking. The blocks of flats, which are fairly new either side of the site, were not happy that the new houses were going to be able to look out at them and their privacy would be compromised. A local councillor also came along with the usual "I'm going to block this development" objection, increase in traffic.

There were some unrealistic S106 payments being requested but the developer seemed to be OK with those.

[Simon Kirby]

Unemployed also covers low income. They practically suffer the same problem. Is there any evidence that a free market economy will house the under privileged?

I'm suggesting so, yes.

Say developers build 500,000 new £350k semis. This doesn't suddenly create 500,000 new upper-middle-class earners, it simply floods the £350k market, and in a buyer's market prices fall - and they fall across the board, so £350k semis drop to £250k, £250k semis drop to £175k, and £150k flats drop to £90k.

However, with "affordable housing" developers still build £350k semis, but the government taxes me so that Mr. and Mrs Skank can live in what I couldn't possibly afford.

[Simon Kirby]

A local councillor also came along with the usual "I'm going to block this development" objection, increase in traffic.

Councillors are very much better at stopping something happening than coming up with a good idea and seeing it through. We suffer, but then the problem is essentially ours - lots of reactionary nimbys in Newbury.

[On the edge]

Your idea doesn't address the ~3,000,000 unemployed who will not be able to get a mortgage. Of course they could get given a home that was intended for the gainfully employed, but then we have the dilemma of people on benefits living in places fit for the employed.

I suggest before your idea works, we need jobs that carry a 'liveable wage'. A society that lives with mortgages needs a society that has job confidence.

I also disagree somewhat with a planning free-for-all. This could cause traffic and problems with amenities, like doctors, schools, dentists, water, etc.

Its a difficult issue this one. Wholly with you on a 'liveable wage' - social / key worker housing stigmatises yet again. Being key workers, they should be paid properly; all for that. However, that leads us straight into the elimination of collective wage bargaining argument. Whole mortgage thing is ironic - in most cases in reality its just rent for a full repairing lease.

[Andy Capp]

I'm suggesting so, yes.

Say developers build 500,000 new £350k semis. This doesn't suddenly create 500,000 new upper-middle-class earners, it simply floods the £350k market, and in a buyer's market prices fall - and they fall across the board, so £350k semis drop to £250k, £250k semis drop to £175k, and £150k flats drop to £90k.

However, with "affordable housing" developers still build £350k semis, but the government taxes me so that Mr. and Mrs Skank can live in what I couldn't possibly afford.

I think that all sounds a little specious to me, although not without merit. Developers wouldn't just dump half a million £350k houses on England. As prices drop, they would reign in their build. Indeed, this deflation would play straight into the hands of wealthy landlords that could buy up stock.

[Simon Kirby]

I think that all sounds a little specious to me, although not without merit. Developers wouldn't just dump half a million £350k houses on England. As prices drop, they would reign in their build. Indeed, this deflation would play straight into the hands of wealthy landlords that could buy up stock.

In fairness I have little idea whether a relaxation of planning control would reduce or inflate house prices - I'm not an ecconomist. I'd like to see an end to planning uplift and a substantial reduction in planning control, but I can imagine that the result of any wholesale change could be quite chaotic and dangerous. See it more as an idea for discussion rather than a well thought through policy proposal. I seem to remember the last time we had a building boom in the eighties (I was a labourer in 84 and 85) prices actually rocketed. The building boom may have been a consequence of the price inflation which itself was fuelled by the availability of easy credit, but maybe house building caused the inflation - I'd be interested to hear other ideas.

But I don't like "affordable" housing - I just fundamentally (call that ideologically) don't like to see the state meddle with the free market.