Wednesday, Jun 09, 2010
All the emergency stuff that's needed....?
Sky News: Garden Grabbing' Set To Be Outlawed
Nah - lets get on with protecting our own. This will reduce the new 'supply' side by 25%.....adios HPC.
Posted by braindeed @ 07:56 AM (1648 views) Add Comment
44 Comments
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1. flashman said...
braindeed: I had an identical thought process when I first read about this policy. However in the first article I read that described this policy, the govt. were quoted as saying that they had better ideas to increase the supply of building land. If they do actually significantly increase the supply of building land, then I am all for this policy. I would far rather they selectively released millions of acres of farm land, national park land and brown field sites. I've seen roads where they've allowed two houses per garden and they start to look a bit like brick shanty towns. 'We' are always moaning about new houses not having decent gardens. Shouldn't we therefore preserve the few decent gardens we have and release a shit load of virgin land ,so that all the new built houses can also have big gardens? It's a bit like the public school versus state school conundrum: We want to create a level playing field, so do we make them all shit or all good?
2. house said...
@1, Flashman
Where would this new virgin land come from and even if the farmers were encouraged to sell what would be the cost. As stated before it is not the building cost that is the problem but the cost of land. Do you agree ? Your comment on this would be appreciated.
3. doomwatch said...
Outlawed is totally wrong. It will be handed to the local planning, so the neighbour NIMBYs can get their
teeth on it, which they haven't been able to do since Prescott's lot classified gardens as "brown field".
Apparently both the ConDems and Liebour now have housing as a high priority. High priority to flip
CGT free profit is the only evidence I've seen from these self serving tw ats.
4. Exiges said...
Good. The number of times I've seen a nice house for sale, only to see the greedy owner has built another house in their back garden with a shared drive.
5. flashman said...
hello house: We have millions of acres of farm land, green belt land and brown field sites that are barely used. We could siphon off enough land to build 2 million houses without any real loss of land in % terms. Every time I fly into London, I look down and am amazed by how little development I see in the UKs most populated area. Grass and trees are good but humans should take priority.
As a side issue I once wrote an letter to Prescott (politely answered and ignored) that pointed out that it should be illegal to build a new house that did not have a basement and a developed roof (in a crowded country). I have built a few houses and the councils always make it uneconomical to do this. The footprint of these essentially four-storey buildings (that only have the height of a 2-storey) would be quite small which would allow bigger gardens per unit of land. We have several hundred thousand decaying bungalows in this country. The councils make it bloody hard for you to build a 2 story house on these plots, if you demolish them. If they allowed you to build two detached houses (each having two storeys PLUS basement and developed roof) we'd solve our land shortage in one swoop. I can see how this looks like I am contradicting my comments @1 but if both new houses had the much smaller footprint allowed by my two-storey plus basement and developed roof design, then they would have a smaller combined footprint than one bungalow. There would therefore be adequate gardens for both houses.
6. uncle tom said...
I take a fairly positive view of this.
Labour sought to duck the housing issue by allowing this sort of messy cramming, and also sought to pretend that one bed flatlets packed into urban tower blocks were statistically no different from a 3 bed family house.
The coalition seems to be closing the door on these avoidance tactics, and that has to be seen as a good thing.
I'm also encouraged by the amount of attention being given to housing, given that we're only one month into this govt.
I think the new govt knows that it will be jumped on, if the stats for new build show a decline; so expect some fresh initiatives to encourage new development.
7. p. doff said...
I agree with Nick ....erm....Flash. I'd prefer to live in a pleasant leafy neighbourhood rather than some sh!te overdeveloped brick jungle full of little boxes.
House. I don't think farmers would need much encouragement to sell. Agricultural land in this area is about £5000/acre. Give it residential planning permission and the farmers could get over £1million/acre. What would you do if you were a farmer?
8. flashman said...
p.doff: Sorry it's early. Nick Clegg or another Nick?? How did you know?
9. mark said...
this has already been outlawed by some local councils including Wirral and some parts of Cheshire
10. mark wadsworth said...
Flashman, 1 and 4. Excellent, spot on, nothing to add. Would you like to be Housing Minister in my Bloggers Cabinet?
The previous incumbent Alice Cook (UK House Bubble) accepted the job but then disqualified herself by giving up blogging.
11. flashman said...
mark w: I'd be delighted. Joking aside, I wish there was some kind of viable platform
12. house said...
Hello Flash, Thank you for your comments. It has been noted. I have nothing more o add accept that the debate will go on until property becomes affordable and no one will be interested because the prices are not going up. No quick buck to make.
13. the number cruncher said...
This is total posturing by Greg Clark, and in the real world will make no difference to the granting of planning permissions. We will see many such press releases aimed at placating the 'home-ownerists in the core supporters of both the Liberals and Conservatives.
I agree with Uncle Tom that we have had a lot more balanced reporting of housing issues in the press in the last few weeks, so the coalition has done something, what it is I do not know as of yet.
14. str 2007 said...
Flashman @ 4
I envisage a fantastic future of fit people with well shaped thighs and buttocks after climbing up and down all your stairs.
Either that or a whole wing in each hospital dealing with knee problems after you demolished all the old peoples bungalows.
Maybe you've just bought heavily into Stannah Stairlifts and are talking your own book.
Joking aside
Something definately needs to be done wiith regard to planning.
If only all local authorities had to keep a choice of say 20 plots per town and village (as each one's sold it is replenished with a new one). That would help get prices much closer to a sustainable level, particularly if the price was in some way capped for the granting of planning permission. Afterall why should a farmer suddenly 'win the lottery' overnight and get £1m per acre for something that was a carpark for old scrap and rubbish.
I think £250k per acre would be much closer the mark - tops.
With this in place who wouldn't wait a year to have their 'dream' house built. Most of the money for it of course would be pumped straight into the local economy for the labour and materials element.
15. nickb said...
We can't sell off farmland for development because of food security concerns, given that peak oil is round the corner.
Makes more sense to encourage cohabitation more, plus land value tax to avoid hoarding land or buildings without tenants for speculative purposes, and we should enable squatting and so on. Not much point really building loads more houses to the extent that there are buildings already unoccupied. High price of houses is not directlty a sign of shortage relative to population size since the market is highly cyclical and the population isn't.
16. mark said...
there is a lot of brownfield land around, yet it remains empty due to planning constraints.
17. mark wadsworth said...
Here's my summary of what four different Tories have had to say on the matter in the past few days. More "joined up government" methinks.
18. the number cruncher said...
NickB
Not too sure about the disconnect between prices and supply, I think it is a big factor along with all the others, such as money supply etc.
There are huge amounts of land that are not in productive agriculture that can be used for housing. And if planned properly, like the Dutch have done you can cut down environmental impact and increase wildlife at the same time. Also planned communities can cut crime, drug taking, increase employment and improve the lives of many.
Also our socialist friends in Cuba do a great job in showing what can be achieved in a low carbon economy by getting very high yields from market gardens around there houses, higher than modern factory farms.
Build on the Green belt is what I say, and give every house an allotment at the back of the garden - just like both my grandfathers had. Not to sure that peak oil is here yet - maybe in a hundred years or so.
19. mark wadsworth said...
NickB, please don't get me going with this 'food security' nonsense.
1. The best kind of food security is free trade, open markets and a productive economy to be able to buy stuff from abroad if need be. If we have a crop failure (the only serious worry) because of weather, blight, foot and mouth etc, then the chances are that this will not affect other parts of the world.
2. The UK could easily be self sufficient in food if we were prepared to accept a more boring diet (more veg, less meat).
3. We could easily build 3 million new homes on about 1% of farmland etc.
4. While our farmers (who employ barely one per cent of the working age population) do a splendid job in terms of food grown per cost of capital input, they are far from the possible maximum in terms of food grown per acre of land. All you have to do is look at what some people can grow on a humble allotment with how much is being grown on a strip of farmland of the same size.
5. And why not give young people a choice: here's a tenth of an acre of farmland - what do you want to do, rent it to a farmer for £5 or build a nice house on it (and maybe have the fun of growing your own in your sizeable back garden).
6. If it is WRONG to build more houses on farmland, then by reverse logic, it must be RIGHT to demolish all houses that back onto farmland to expand the Hallow Greenbelt.
20. flashman said...
str 2007: Joking aside, the basement would usually be best utilised as garaging and storage. All families have an avalanche of bicycles, garden tools and cars etc. It would be more land efficient to put the garage and 'shed' under the house than next to the house (its quite easy to slope a driveway down to it). Most of these houses would have room in the basement for a double garage, storage area and utility room. They would be family houses with two flights of stairs. If your legs are dodgy, you can put the children on the top floor! The house I built for myself (the one I described in that article) a few years ago has a developed roof and it was sometimes nice to get separation from the family hubbub. Obviously they are not suitable for codgers but it is families who need spacious houses with large gardens.
21. letthemfall said...
Is the problem a shortage of housing to meet the housing needs of the population, or an apparent shortage due to empty homes from 2nd ownership, financial advantage, lack of refurbishment, etc? Shouldn't that be established before we worry about where to build another set of boxes?
22. flashman said...
lethemfall: There are, of course, many properties that could be refurbished or better utilised. However what we really need is better quality (larger houses and gardens), more choice and better value. Only the building of at least a million high quality houses will give us choice, quality and value. We should actually aim for a slight surplus because then we could get of some of the dross that many Brits are forced to live in. I can't lay my hands on the numbers, but I think we have the smallest houses in Europe?
23. titaniccaptain said...
I'm with The Artilleryman!!!!!!!
Get your spades out chaps!
24. uncle tom said...
One of the main differences between left and right wing politics is the desire of the left to force people to do one thing or another, while the right prefer gentle persuasion.
Personally, I prefer the persuasive route to most issues, as it is far less likely to result in unintended consequences, or punish the innocent in pursuit of the guilty.
Thus it is with housing. Labour love top down diktat and micromanagement, while the Tories prefer a carrot and stick approach.
You only have to take a train journey somewhere to see just how much derelict land there is that could only be improved by residential development. The best way to bring this wasteland into use is not through grand regional strategies, but to allow local govt a large degree of autonomy in deciding the best use for land within their own community; with rewards (carrots) for welcoming new development, and commensurate penalties (sticks) if they elect to do nothing.
The size of the carrot and stick can then be increased or decreased to ensure that the desired level of construction activity takes place.
25. str 2007 said...
letthenfall
I have to agree with flashman on that one in the main part. If there is a focus it should be on how much banks are lending and the actual cost of the building land with planning permission. Both are intertwined and variable.
The cost of building a house if the fixed element of the project with vary in specification altering the price.
Fresh building could be implemented quite quickly and injects real life into the economy.
2nd homes & BTL have been a huge strain on the market with the banks facilitating the price bubble. Unrestrained immigration has of course added fuel to the fire over the last decade. Amazingly we seem to have no idea how many people have entered/left the UK under the last government which again adds to he complication of working out requirements.
A few changes to policy/taxation could flush out quite a few empty 2nd homes and empty homes. But frankly where I live there are very few 2nd homes (we're not a holiday area) and I don't think any empty homes.
So while you can juggle with those you need to be building alot more, I really don't think there's any doubt about that.
What is important though is that all these 'new' houses are for families to live in not speculators to 'buy of plan' to flip and/or buy up to let out as then the current problem is simply being spread and magnified.
26. flashman said...
uncle tom: Quiet right. The government don't need to do much. Just facilitate the release of a bit of land and private money will build an avalanche of new homes. Mind you, if you've ever built a house you'll be a bit dubious about the intentions of any local government. The prevention of building is very deeply ingrained in these people. We might need a bit more stick than carrot in their case.
27. mark wadsworth said...
The tax that is not mentioned in polite company would be exactly the stick and carrot that is needed to get people to put land and available housing to their optimum use.
I'd be perfectly happy for people to be NIMBYs if we had a tax in place that made them pay for the costs that they imposed on others.
28. letthemfall said...
Agree with the points about rotten and pokey housing and the potential of all the derelict sites around the country. Let's hope it happens while ensuring the problems str2007 points out don't persist (not optimistic on that).
uncle tom
I think your assessment of left vs right politics is a bit of a caraciture. Nothing gentle or persuasive about Mrs T for instance. I'd say the left are after equality, while the right are inclined to preserve privilege. But we can't look at recent examples: we haven't had a politically left govt for many years.
Incidentally, on councils and planning, my experience is that controls are strictest in the wealthiest areas, and more relaxed in the cheaper communities - where of course there is far less space.
29. flashman said...
"my experience is that controls are strictest in the wealthiest areas"
I only have experience of building in the wealthier parts of Surrey (and not much of that). The planning officers have always been absolute nazis, so in my limited experience, I would have to agree. I always assumed they were brutes everywhere but do you have an anecdotal that shows why that might not be the case in somewhere like Bradford?
I was once asked to change a cast iron door knocker because it was matt lacquered instead of waxed. Subsequent owners could do what they wanted with the knocker, so you have to ask if these planners were serving us well with the two visits and three letters that were written on the subject, at tax payer’s expense
30. orcusmaximus said...
Flash @4 - love the idea. Must run it past my new MP.
nickb@ 14 - I half agree. However, I read somewhere that our most efficient agricultural productivity (during the modern age) was during WWII when people were using their own gardens as allotments. Apparently it's more productive (albeit at a higher cost in man hours) to grow your own than it is for farmers to grow it for you. So peak oil could be used as an argument for building houses with big gardens on farm land.
31. orcusmaximus said...
letthemfall @27
My view of left vs right politics is the lefties want to spend your money for you, the righties want to let you spend it yourself. Obviously extremes of either side are bad, with the last government being a good (bad?) example.
32. the number cruncher said...
Lettthemfall - very well observed my sentiments exactly
My consultancy arm has some of its fingers in the development business and Mrs Number Cruncher works in the planning system as a advisor to local Government and we have encountered lots of projects where the defining factor is how well off the local NIMBBYS are as to whether a planning proposal goes through. The best example of this is the Save Wye campaign. I was asked by the people behind it to give them advice. http://www.save-wye.org/
They thought that their best argument to prevent the development was to protect wildlife; my analysis was the housing estate would have had no impact on local wildlife. The members of this bunch of NIMBBYS where apoplectic with rage with me, when I pionted this out. A few of them where shaking with rage and started shouting at me for daring to pop one of the misguided beliefs.
The truth was they did not need the wildlife argument, they used their organisation skills, and their will power to protect their very high property values to motivate the village. This is complex, but this bunch of upper-middle class solicitors and academics unseated a Tory MP, caused the local Tory councillors, who where running scared, to sack (or assist to early retirement) the senior council staff involved. I had a lot of sympathy for those staff as they tried to do their job as professionally as possible and after support from their political masters they where soundly stabbed in the back and made a scapegoat.
I am not saying the development was a good idea, but less than 5 miles, next to a poor neighbourhood, gigantic housing estates have been built on flood plain, destroying far more wildlife than the Wye proposal. By the way, those housing estates are where our friend Fergus Wilson ploughs his disreputable trade.
33. greenmind said...
I dont subscribe to the view that planning and development constraints are bad. Yes we need to build more houses, but we need to ensure that new devlopment happens in the right locations and are nice places to live in. We need to protect valuable natural areas and we need to take account of peak oil, transport, congestion etc.
Lassez faire build what you like where you like is not the answer. Give credit to urban designers and planners who know what they are talking about. Dont leave it entirely up to the man in the street, market forces and the big developer seeking profits. Suburban spawl wastes valuable finite resources. England is a densly populated country and getting denser. I dont agree with the "looking out of the plane window" view expressed above.
High density development, while not for everyone, can be attractive when done well. High spec. appartments (modest scale, spacious, big balconies etc) can offer good quality of life when built in a well designed urban area. The problem is that developers are not skilled in what they do (Im with Prince Charles here).
What I advocate is a middle way: yes, accelaerate the rate of housebuilding, but not by giving numb nuts free reign. Allow experts to deploy their expertise.
Recaptcha: "Kiwi rain" - and im from NZ!
34. the number cruncher said...
titaniccaptain @ 22
As a kid I loved the artwork in the box of war of the worlds and daydreamed of the 'brave new world' and fighting the tripods
The images where brilliant - these probably started the steam-punk movement
http://www.id-wall.com/images/large/TW010007%20Brave%20New%20World.jpg
There is of course a big problem with basements - real basement are expensive and add considerably to the cost of new builds, walk in basements are OK and can form a part of cheaply built new-builds.
One of my business partners installed a basement swimming pool to his very desirable seafront terraced house. It now sometimes floods with seawater and backed up sewage as does the basement flat of one of my staff who rents down the road. Very smelly, at least they can escape to the yacht club next door.
Also in the villages along our valley the week before last, lots of properties had their gardens and basements filled with backed up raw sewage. Very nasty.
35. mark wadsworth said...
Greenmind: "England is a densly populated country and getting denser."
Completely and utterly untrue, mass immigration aside which is a separate topic. Like any other country, it has very densely populated areas (towns and suburbs) and the rest (85% in our case) of it is fields and the occasional farmhouse or hamlet.
In any event, this is an irrelevant consideration: as a thought experiment, imagine that Greater London became a separate country. That would cut the average population density of 'England' by about 15 per cent and Greater London's population density would be about fifiteen times as high as The Rest Of England. Which country would be wealthier per capita - Greater London or The Rest Of England?
"I dont agree with the "looking out of the plane window" view expressed above."
Are you scared of heights or scared of the truth?
36. orcusmaximus said...
the number cruncher @13:
"There is of course a big problem with basements - real basement are expensive and add considerably to the cost of new builds"
I would contest that the extra cost of a basement would not be great compared to the cost of the land (unless you are retrofitting the basement like your business partner). Unfortunately I don't have any figures to back this assertion. Flash?
37. orcusmaximus said...
mark wadsworth @34
If the rest of England slapped a food import tax on Greater London, then it's per capita wealth would decline rather fast :-)
Re Captcha: war condors
38. orcusmaximus said...
Edit: it's wealth would decline rather fast. As only the rich could live there, it's per capita wealth would perversely rise.
39. greenmind said...
mark wadsworth @34
Not scared of anything. Its just that I see a whole lot of built up areas. Of course there are plenty of green areas in between, but it would be gone very quickly if we just to let development rip. This aint the Arizona desert we are talking about. But I would sign up to using one or 2 percent of farmland for housing, with provisos I noted in my ealier post.
40. Sarah said...
errrr, given that the overwhelming majority of the fuel reserves, water supply, food production and pretty much all actual wealth generation occurs outside of London then the wealth of the rest of the Country would increase substantially and London would die. It is the ownership of the Country's wealth that currently resides in London, so I'd vote for any party that got rid of London from this Country and took away the ownership thereof. Of course after the separation, everyone in London could pretend they're still wealthy by selling ever more expensive houses to each other...
said hags
41. flashman said...
On the subject of basements. The Victorians built basements by the million with a fraction of the technology and machinery that we have available today. They are often considered expensive because the great British builder SAYS they are expensive. Basically a digger makes a bigger hole and a bit more concrete is poured. There are so many cheap materials and methods of 'tanking' and ventilation these days that it really is not a problem. Before I actually built a basement, I received all sorts of ridiculous quotes and comments from builders and architects. The cost of a basement is almost an urban myth these days and I was pleasantly surprised when I disgarded the opinions of the dodgy geezers who inhabit the construction trade. In America they build them all the time. The actual cost per square foot is a little higher but when you factor in the more efficient use of expensive and scarce land, it is a cheap and sensible option
42. titaniccaptain said...
Basements and swimming pools........hmmmm got me thinking (always a dangerous thing after 6 cups of coffee).....shouldn't we make them compulsory for new builds?
After all we are getting fatter as a nation and I am taking much of the national average for man boobs at the moment...
Trouble is can you imagine a swimming pool under your average Barratt home? it would be like having a rather large bath.
We do need to get rid of these bloomin new planning regulations that prevent you from building anything out of the norm....especially if your in the national parks.
We should however have a ministry of character when it comes to new builds to ensure that any house built must be palatable to a Hobbit's taste.
the Victorians were masters of building..even in cities the imagination and aesthetic beauty always managed to work hand in hand with practicality....if only we could take a leaf from their book with our 21st century technology and concepts....
43. Happyrenter said...
no basements, no developing on true brownfield sites that require cleaning/landscaping etc, thin walled Hutches crammed into as small a space as possible - you might think builders were trying to maximise profits rather than create really good housing?
44. the number cruncher said...
Chaps - the Victorians where master builders, I agree, but most of what remains was their best buildings - not their worst, and the basements where for the servants.
I have just had a 25 foot deep water treatment facility build and it was a dam site more than just a big digger - It was pumps - concrete & shuttering, a special type of concrete - which is more expensive, a lot of man hours.
The continentals do a good job of making walk in basements where they do not dig a hole but put up retaining walls and landscape around, so it looks a bit like a basement.