‘Meltdown’ Threat To Rural Services

[The Masked Tulip]

I have to say that this angers me.

The conservation lobby have had so many areas of Wales designated as national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty... which basically means that virtually no houses can be built in them... unless, of course, you are a land-owner who is able to get permission because you were born there... which allows you to knock up a house, live in it for X years and then flog it on to a Londonder for several hundred K profit.... and then do it again and again...

In other words, they stop large areas of Wales being viable, stop locals being able to afford to live there and then they complain about the areas becoming nothing more than ghost villages and towns.

Cake. Eating it.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/08/17/meltdown-threat-to-rural-services-in-the-face-of-cuts-91466-27074849/

In the Rural Challenge report the groups say they want the Government to ensure housing needs can be met, build local economies, deliver services, and create flourishing market towns.

Unless local people are able to improve their areas, services are at risk of meltdown in the face of spending cuts, it says.

Further, all but the wealthiest will be priced out of housing and wages will continue to lag up to 20% behind urban averages, the report claims..

Mr Ogden said parts of North-East Wales were already functioning as dormitory towns and villages for England.

He said: “In the Vale of Clwyd the north-east part of Flintshire and Denbighshire tend to have a dormitory function for Chester and Cheshire.

“People living in the Wrexham, Deeside and Chester areas tend to drift out and live in those parts of Flintshire and Denbighshire.

“And house prices and demand for houses in those rural parts of the Clwydian Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) tend to reflect that demand.”

Mr Ogden said those living in the dormitory areas tended to spend all their money in the places where they work rather than live.

[aa3]

Sad and stupid. I've seen many very beautiful towns where the locals are violently opposed to any development. Even(especially) houses for the young people from the town. So the reality is most of the young, and especially the smart and ambitious move on elsewhere - almost always to the mass centers. The town essentially has no future then. Just second homes for rich old people - who rarely spend anyting in the town.

Its why imo planning power needs to be taken away from local authorities and given to central authorities. Because local authorities are not providing adequate housing for their people, so imo abdicating responsibility.

If a NIMBY doesn't like the development plans then they can write a letter to a faceless planner in London. Where it will dutifully be filed in the recycling bin.

Edited August 17, 2010 by aa3

[theworknomad]

So lets just go ahead and ruin all countryside with thoughtless developments and turning villages into Thamesmead re-incarnations!

[Mega]

Do you think we should forcely MOVE people from high unemplyment areas to low unmplyment ares....Eg a load Liverpool shipped to Surrey?

Mike

[hilltop]

My village has many houses for sale. There has been very little sold over the last two years and we are less than anhours drive from Chester, 80 minutes from Liverpool.

And there are new houses going up.

We are though, just outside National Parks.

Bus service, village school, part time post office, pub.

A perfect place to come to die!

[Guillotine]

Do you think we should forcely MOVE people from high unemplyment areas to low unmplyment ares....Eg a load Liverpool shipped to Surrey?

Mike

As if that hasnt already happened.

[Mal Volio]

So lets just go ahead and ruin all countryside with thoughtless developments and turning villages into Thamesmead re-incarnations!

^This

The problem is that the economic reasons for living in these beautiful places have gone. Most of "the countryside" is a heritage museum supported by subsidy & tourism. Maybe we should recognise that as the US did with its National Parks, which have vastly tighter constraints on housebuilding than ours do.

[maxdiver]

Do you think we should forcely MOVE people from high unemplyment areas to low unmplyment ares....Eg a load Liverpool shipped to Surrey?

Mike

Yes!

Do you think that people lived in the industrial waste land that is the North of England 200 years ago?

NO, they moved from being farmers on the land to work in the industrial centres.

Now, there are no jobs for them and they should get on their bikes and move to where there is work.

I did it and didn't look back.

The amount of money that has been wasted on rejuvenation of terminally ill places like Middlesborough, Liverpool, Hull and Bradford is just appalling.

DO you ever wonder why there were a million Poles in the UK? It's because there's 5 million lazy Brits sitting at home in their council houses happily living off the state.

For places like Rural Wales or Scotland - there will be very few opportunities for young people.

Bar work/hotel work maybe?

But - the demographics of these areas means that there are very few children of school age - and that means that Teaching (one of the jobs that rural communities can usually bank on) - will not be an option.

It's demographic - it's horrible and it's inevitable.

[D.C.]

Yes!

Do you think that people lived in the industrial waste land that is the North of England 200 years ago?

NO, they moved from being farmers on the land to work in the industrial centres.

Not really, the peasants were happy with their common land and could be self sufficient. The Inclosure Acts drove them from the land and forced them to become dependent on factory owners for the ability to put food in their mouths.

The amount of money that has been wasted on rejuvenation of terminally ill places like Middlesborough, Liverpool, Hull and Bradford is just appalling.

DO you ever wonder why there were a million Poles in the UK? It's because there's 5 million lazy Brits sitting at home in their council houses happily living off the state.

You can not become a gas fitter/electrician etc in this country without getting a qualification from college to allow you to work.

The government sets a target for each college for how many places are available on courses, the college is not allowed to go over that limit, while we had an epic housing boom the government repeatedly cut all areas of adult education and further education with the sole exception of English as a Second Language course which were massively expanded.

Those 'lazy Brits' were queuing up to be allowed to educate themselves and be allowed to work but the government instead decided that instead of allowing the 'lazy Brit' to get that education at a cost of £1800 it would import a labourer and pay £1500 for them to learn English and pay many thousands out to the 'lazy Brit'.

We have just spent epic sums (sorry, committed to paying epic sums over the next 30 years) of PFI money building schools and hospitals around the country, do you really want to depopulate those areas where and all associated infrastructure to cram more people into the south and build more infrastructure there to support them?

Would it not be more sensible to incentivise businesses to locate themselves up north? By knocking a percentage point off corporation tax for each percent of unemployment say?

[lets get it right]

So lets just go ahead and ruin all countryside with thoughtless developments and turning villages into Thamesmead re-incarnations!

From the web site you plug in your signature ...

21 July 2010 - Welcome to our new website. If you live in Bristol or any of the surrounding districts then you have come to right the place to seek dating information.

Bristol Dating will be the number resource for dating in the city.

My ambitions in life are to enjoy myself, travel , learn as much as I can about myself and the world, think on my own, live according to my beliefs and never take orders or trade my time for money.

.... when you are tapping away on your laptop dreaming up more ways to entice people to follow the nomad (or whatever it is), I'd suggest you are trading your time for money. Or do people send you food parcels?

[goldbug9999]

DO you ever wonder why there were a million Poles in the UK? It's because there's 5 million lazy Brits sitting at home in their council houses happily living off the state.

I'm not sure the cause and effect is entirely that way round - remove the 1million poles and there will a lot more incentive for british people to work. As for brits being lazy compared to poles (or east europeans in general) thats a complete joke - east europeans are the laziest sons of b*****s on the planet given half an opportunity as anyone who has traveled there extensively (like I have) will tell you.

If you want to live a country where noone give a sh*t about anything outside their front door, where everything is falling down, litter thrown everywhere, where people serving you in shops can barely be ars*d to take your money, where ripping people off or conning them in anyway possible is the normal run of business, where you have to have security guards checking everyones bags against their receipts at supermarket checkouts, where millions of stray cats and dogs roam the streets because noone gives sh*t, yeah eastern europe is bl**dy marvelous and we should be going all out to ships tens of millions of them over here so they can trash our environment too.

Edited August 17, 2010 by goldbug9999

[winkie]

Sad and stupid. I've seen many very beautiful towns where the locals are violently opposed to any development. Even(especially) houses for the young people from the town. So the reality is most of the young, and especially the smart and ambitious move on elsewhere - almost always to the mass centers. The town essentially has no future then. Just second homes for rich old people - who rarely spend anyting in the town.

Its why imo planning power needs to be taken away from local authorities and given to central authorities. Because local authorities are not providing adequate housing for their people, so imo abdicating responsibility.

If a NIMBY doesn't like the development plans then they can write a letter to a faceless planner in London. Where it will dutifully be filed in the recycling bin.

Think about it, any home in a desirable area will demand a desirable price...a desirable area is an area that has desirable jobs close by to enable the purchase of the desirable home or someone that has enough cash to buy the desirable home in the desirable area.

[DeepLurker]

Its why imo planning power needs to be taken away from local authorities and given to central authorities. Because local authorities are not providing adequate housing for their people, so imo abdicating responsibility.

Is part of the problem that local authorities only get a fraction of the tax take from new residents? (and then have to beg central government to top-up the completely inadequate Council Tax).

My point being: if local councils have a financial interest in attracting new residents, they'll go for it.

[SNACR]

What is a town though in 21st century Britain?

A rash of identical new-build large developer built housing estates of little aesthetic merit interspersed with a retail park, a huge supermarket, a dying High St and a couple of schools that offer something that bears no more than a passing resemblance to a decent education. All this over the last 20 -ish years, including the bypass that encloses the whole thing and ensures that hardly anyone ever visits.

This is your typical British former market town of the 21st century. Town planning is the ultimate oxymoron, in fact, there's been little or no foresight and planning. I have a suspicion that one of the biggest mistakes might have been to actually listen to residents' petty whinges.

[The Masked Tulip]

^This

The problem is that the economic reasons for living in these beautiful places have gone. Most of "the countryside" is a heritage museum supported by subsidy & tourism. Maybe we should recognise that as the US did with its National Parks, which have vastly tighter constraints on housebuilding than ours do.

That is what three-quarters of Wales has become.

[Selling up]

I heard this argument a few years back and it's thought-provoking at least:

'Locals choose to sell their houses to weekending city residents. If they do so, they can't then complain that the village is becoming a ghost town. You don't want a ghost town? Only sell your houses to people who work locally.'

[DeepLurker]

I heard this argument a few years back and it's thought-provoking at least:

'Locals choose to sell their houses to weekending city residents. If they do so, they can't then complain that the village is becoming a ghost town. You don't want a ghost town? Only sell your houses to people who work locally.'

I've heard this argument many a time - but is it valid? One thing that villages are not short of is space - so they could easily release some of it for the local kids to build a new home on it.

Of course, when you get the weekenders objecting to every single new planning application, things go pear-shaped*. Maybe we need to change things so that only registered voters can object to planning applications, on the basis that you've already expressed your interest in participating in democratic life (and can only do it in one place).

* wasn't there a thread on here a while back about some place in the SW where the weekenders were objecting to a new pier for the local fishermen?

[Meat Puppet]

Is part of the problem that local authorities only get a fraction of the tax take from new residents? (and then have to beg central government to top-up the completely inadequate Council Tax).

My point being: if local councils have a financial interest in attracting new residents, they'll go for it.

Yes this is correct. Council tax is a minor part of local government finance and that's why Communities and Local Government has had to create separate house building targets for Local Authorities. The penalty for not meeting them was obviously trivial.

This contrasts with the American system in which you can actually have suburbs actively competing for new housing development to increase tax revenue. That system does, however, promote a lot of sprawl due to the incorrect pricing of roads and their externalities namely traffic congestion.

[huw]

Yes!

Do you think that people lived in the industrial waste land that is the North of England 200 years ago?

NO, they moved from being farmers on the land to work in the industrial centres.

Now, there are no jobs for them and they should get on their bikes and move to where there is work.

I did it and didn't look back.

That model has the entire population living in London and the South East, or as close to it as they can afford -- hardly an efficient use of the resource that is the UK.

We need to go deeper than "get on your bike" (though people should be prepared to do that, if genuinely necessary e.g. if their mining community has no reason to exist any more because the mine is played out).

We need to look at why London has developed into such an economic hub. Personally I believe that the answer can largely be stated in two words: Banking Licenses. If you modified all banking licenses to add the terms that the businesses must be substantially based in Manchester, Manchester would eventually become the economic hub of the UK because Manchester would be where credit was created, and eventually interest rates would be set there, too.

Which brings me to another part of the answer, the idea that Northern unemployment is a price worth paying to curb Southern inflation. That, together with the "on your bike" prescription, forces the Northerner to uproot themselves so that the Southerner can stay at home (though in increasingly expensive, unpleasant and crowded conditions).

Trade and wealth-creation in the UK needs to be re-balanced across the regions and out into rural areas. Among other things that means that new rural build should NOT be aimed at commuters (i.e. slave boxes and "executive" homes), they need to be designed along different lines, maybe live/work units, houses with substantial gardens for families and food-growing, basically places where people do more than store their commuting vehicle while they regenerate themselves for a distant, disconnected life of PAYE.

Edited August 18, 2010 by huw

[huw]

I heard this argument a few years back and it's thought-provoking at least:

'Locals choose to sell their houses to weekending city residents. If they do so, they can't then complain that the village is becoming a ghost town. You don't want a ghost town? Only sell your houses to people who work locally.'

Once they've done that, chances are they're not locals any more

i.e. they've asset-stripped their community and decamped to Spain or somewhere, leaving others -- including those who never had property in the first place -- living in the ghost town.

You won't correct the "problem" of human nature that leads people to behave in socially counter-productive ways during economic booms. You might be able to correct the imbalances that lead to the boom in the first place.

[right_freds_dead]

I have to say that this angers me.

The conservation lobby have had so many areas of Wales designated as national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty... which basically means that virtually no houses can be built in them... unless, of course, you are a land-owner who is able to get permission because you were born there... which allows you to knock up a house, live in it for X years and then flog it on to a Londonder for several hundred K profit.... and then do it again and again...

In other words, they stop large areas of Wales being viable, stop locals being able to afford to live there and then they complain about the areas becoming nothing more than ghost villages and towns.

Cake. Eating it.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/08/17/meltdown-threat-to-rural-services-in-the-face-of-cuts-91466-27074849/

+1

they want their exclusive homes and villages min wage scum free

- then complain theres no min wage corner shop.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

National Parks kill social cohesion.

Time for mass construction of affordable housing to meeting local need across rural Wales.

The language campaigners have been bought off. Not all of us have. We're still a pain in the ass of the powers that be .

And lets tax second homes out of existence while we're at it.

Edited August 18, 2010 by gruffydd

[Tired of Waiting]

I have to say that this angers me.

The conservation lobby have had so many areas of Wales designated as national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty... which basically means that virtually no houses can be built in them... unless, of course, you are a land-owner who is able to get permission because you were born there... which allows you to knock up a house, live in it for X years and then flog it on to a Londonder for several hundred K profit.... and then do it again and again...

In other words, they stop large areas of Wales being viable, stop locals being able to afford to live there and then they complain about the areas becoming nothing more than ghost villages and towns.

Cake. Eating it.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/08/17/meltdown-threat-to-rural-services-in-the-face-of-cuts-91466-27074849/

Yes, I think we will have the same problem here in the south, with the new South Downs National Park.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Tired of Waiting

[Tired of Waiting]

So lets just go ahead and ruin all countryside with thoughtless developments and turning villages into Thamesmead re-incarnations!

Of course not.

And nobody said that. You are distorting TMT's post.

[Tired of Waiting]

Think about it, any home in a desirable area will demand a desirable price...a desirable area is an area that has desirable jobs close by to enable the purchase of the desirable home or someone that has enough cash to buy the desirable home in the desirable area.

Only in relative terms. When the whole market went up, even less desirable houses went up too. And when bubbles burst, even more desirable houses go down as well. If you increase the supply of houses, and restrict credit, all prices come down. Including the more desirable houses.