Uk House Building

[TheCountOfNowhere]

I've been doing some miles in my car the last two weeks, been to Wales,somerset and round northamptonshire, bucks amd bedfordshire.

Wilt strikes me is how fantastic the old towns and villages are. What also strikes me is the number of copycat new build soulless housing estate filled with square shoe box houses. The estate have no local facilities and you really need to drive to exist there.

There places look like slums of the future.

The cause seems obvious. The old towns and villages were created by individuals and groups before planners got involved and before we were forced to buy houses off of shoe box builders.

if you are going to build a house for yourself you would build it well. Make it nice. Build it to last. People would build shops nearby. People would build a decent world.

the solution is simple. Sell land to people. Let us build ourselves a decent life. Run the country for our benefit not the politicians public sector and big business.

It really is sad, the UK really is a mess.

Edited March 18, 2012 by TheCountOfNowhere

[The Eagle]

you will get yourself shot with ideas like that.

Common sense has already been shot dead a long time ago.

[long time lurking]

Aye land the government own should be sold to FTB at a discount you would then have diverse and well built estates ,and the money spent building them would filter down directly into the local`ish economy rather than getting invested in the land banks of the big builders

[Unsafe As Houses]

I've been doing some miles in my car the last two weeks, been to Wales,somerset and round northamptonshire, bucks amd bedfordshire.

Wilt strikes me is how fantastic the old towns and villages are. What also strikes me is the number of copycat new build soulless housing estate filled with square shoe box houses. The estate have no local facilities and you really need to drive to exist there.

There places look like slums of the future.

The cause seems obvious. The old towns and villages were created by individuals and groups before planners got involved and before we were forced to buy houses off of shoe box builders.

if you are going to build a house for yourself you would build it well. Make it nice. Build it to last. People would build shops nearby. People would build a decent world.

the solution is simple. Sell land to people. Let us build ourselves a decent life. Run the country for our benefit not the politicians public sector and big business.

It really is sad, the UK really is a mess.

I wouldn't advocate giving locals more say over what gets built and how it gets built in their local area

Town planning has always been piss poor - I don't think we can look back to a period in history and say that's the way it should be done.

[DeepLurker]

I've been doing some miles in my car the last two weeks, been to Wales,somerset and round northamptonshire, bucks amd bedfordshire.

Wilt strikes me is how fantastic the old towns and villages are. What also strikes me is the number of copycat new build soulless housing estate filled with square shoe box houses. The estate have no local facilities and you really need to drive to exist there.

There places look like slums of the future.

The cause seems obvious. The old towns and villages were created by individuals and groups before planners got involved and before we were forced to buy houses off of shoe box builders.

if you are going to build a house for yourself you would build it well. Make it nice. Build it to last. People would build shops nearby. People would build a decent world.

the solution is simple. Sell land to people. Let us build ourselves a decent life. Run the country for our benefit not the politicians public sector and big business.

It really is sad, the UK really is a mess.

+1

[wherebee]

I've lived in some great places in the UK that were the result of central planning - individuals chose which house type to pay for/build, but the infrastructure (roads/shops/pubs/postoffice) were put in by the state. What I don;t understand is how, since about 1970, that joined up thinking has disappeared. Look at pre- and post-war suburbia up until that time - awesome planning!

[man o' the year]

All comes down to £ IMHO

In times past development was in order to house work forces and houses built with comparatively cheap labour on cheap land so the sizes of the houses and quality of build was good.

Now land and labour are expensive so new builds are small and poor quality.

This means that I have no confidence in planning.

A result is that greed and land prices means that money is to be made by corruption in the planning process and the granting of planning on green belt land and inappropriate development for the few is lining the pockets of councillors who because of this become more powerful and corrupt.

There are numerous examples near me.

My own planning application was approved in the parish but turned down by district yet others on the council have large schemes approved, in competition to my business, and others simply ignore planning and go ahead anyway with no consequence.

Result is our own area of Somerset is becoming a sh1th*le and a wasteland bereft of jobs structured purpose.

This is mirrored across the land and in many respects our own retreat to rural Somerset was an attempt to escape from the scurge which was more rapid elsewhere.

[winkie]

Houses used to be built on roads that led somewhere...now they are built on cramped estates with no-way-out.

Edited March 18, 2012 by winkie

[cashinmattress]

Building houses has never been cheaper for the big developers.

Advances in hybrids, polymers, and synthetics have done away with the traditional base materials.

Labour is cheap, non-union, disposable.

Banks are wholly complicit, and our politico's manifestos are being designed on the whims of said developers, politicians and banks.

[winkie]

Building houses has never been cheaper for the big developers.

Advances in hybrids, polymers, and synthetics have done away with the traditional base materials.

Labour is cheap, non-union, disposable.

Banks are wholly complicit, and our politico's manifestos are being designed on the whims of said developers, politicians and banks.

That is why new homes should be much cheaper than they are now....it can't cost much to build a house and land is not that expensive...the figures do not add up....big profits are being made somewhere.

[Ulfar]

That is why new homes should be much cheaper than they are now....it can't cost much to build a house and land is not that expensive...the figures do not add up....big profits are being made somewhere.

The problem is Land with planning consent is expensive. If you aren't a large company you have sod all chance of getting planning permission to build your own home.

[winkie]

The problem is Land with planning consent is expensive. If you aren't a large company you have sod all chance of getting planning permission to build your own home.

so who makes out of the difference of before and after....the land is the same....if it is the permission that costs so much, permission is a signature on a piece of paper, that can't cost much.

Edited March 18, 2012 by winkie

['Bart']

The estate have no local facilities and you really need to drive to exist there.

There places look like slums of the future.

You are James Howard Kunstler and I claim my five silver quarters (World Made by Hand in-joke).

[ChumpusRex]

so who makes out of the difference of before and after....the land is the same....if it is the permission that costs so much, permission is a signature on a piece of paper, that can't cost much.

Whoever is lucky enough to own the land at the time permission is granted gets the windfall.

However, the permission is very difficult to obtain, and the section 106 feesbribes needed are usually very, very expensive - potentially reaching £500k per acre.

[winkie]

Whoever is lucky enough to own the land at the time permission is granted gets the windfall.

However, the permission is very difficult to obtain, and the section 106 feesbribes needed are usually very, very expensive - potentially reaching £500k per acre.

...is there a way around this so as to discourage such blatant profits both by the land owner and the eventual purchaser of the land with permission.......what if a house was built, it was forbidden to sell it on for more than the total cost of the land with PP that should not be more than land without PP plus the building cost...if ever sold only annual rpi inflation could be added to the sale price no more...that would bring the prices down.

PP should not make land more expensive.....PP should still be considered very carefully within same rules.

But something like that would open the doors of corruption and money under the table I would imagine....same old same old.

[happy_renting]

The flaw in the OP is that plenty of crap buildings were put up in the past. They're the ones that have fallen down or been pulled down.

[ChumpusRex]

...is there a way around this so as to discourage such blatant profits both by the land owner and the eventual purchaser of the land with permission.......what if a house was built, it was forbidden to sell it on for more than the total cost of the land with PP that should not be more than land without PP plus the building cost...if ever sold only annual rpi inflation could be added to the sale price no more...that would bring the prices down.

PP should not make land more expensive.....PP should still be considered very carefully within same rules.

But something like that would open the doors of corruption and money under the table I would imagine....same old same old.

Well, capital gains tax is payable on any uplift in land value when the land is sold.

The fact that PP raises land value so much is not so much the cause, as a symptom of the planning regulations being excessively restrictive, and therefore insufficient land being available for building. If someone wants to build a home, they have to buy hand where planning permission is likely (or take a huge risk, and attempt a very expensive process of attempting to get PP). This is what makes land with PP so valuable.

The problem is you have had central government enforcing "green belt" land, where PP simply cannot be given (councils don't have the power to grant PP on green belt land) - which has actually been very helpful in preventing urban sprawl, but what has been troubling has been the lack of review of this, now that a serious building land shortage is apparent.

Following that, there were further restrictions on PP - the nulabour changed the law to blanket ban PP in certain circumstances (e.g. fewer than 15 homes per acre - i.e. if a developer has a 1 acre plot and submitted a planning application for 10 houses, then the council would be legally obliged to reject the application without further consideration, until the developer resubmitted with 15 or more houses).

More recently, councils were allowed to charge developers when giving planning permission, for any "loss of amenity" or new infrastructure required. This means that if a developer wanted to build 100 flats, then the council could go - "Oh. But the roads nearby will be made busier, oh, and how will the schools cope, and we'll need more city centre car parking spaces - this will cost us £5 million to sort out. Therefore your planning permission will be contingent on a payment of £5 million".

[winkie]

Interesting, thank you.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

The flaw in the OP is that plenty of crap buildings were put up in the past. They're the ones that have fallen down or been pulled down.

Fair point. Over a few generations though the good houses stay up and the bad ones are replaced so over the years this is why we have ended up with some fantastic places in the UK. Now we just have sh*te.

[AndyAndy]

I'm building a house for myself on a plot I've bought after giving up looking at all the crud for sale. I have quite a lot of cash; I'll have a lot of the equity when I'm done but I have encountered a number of points so far pertinent to this post.

1) Large housebuilders get the "value add" by building houses of bricks and morter with men on site. They are notgeared up for nor can make a profit from building most of their houses in factories like those fools the Germans with the Huff house and all. The great British public like this; its traditional isn't it. But these days most houses elsewhere would not be built like this. Think about it, we dig porus clay out of the ground, dry it, cart it to a site and build up with it so we have an inflexible high maintenance structure. The insulation is terrible, it ultimately will leak and the result with the typical cheap factory engineering brick and cheap nasty tiles is horrible. SIP, Formwork, Timber Frame Block and Render etc etc are all much better systems. No one built with these techniques 200 years ago because they not been invented; neither had the cure for small pox or television. I'm going for lined SIP - level 5 code for sustainable living - the estimated heating costs for my 200m sq house are £200 pa. Oh yes and we do like filling our houses with 8 baths of water for the plaster so that can do loads of damage to the rest of the new built structure too rather than dry lining - but hey thats traditional too - like hanging children for stealing food.

2) The mortgage deals for self build are rubbish. I needed engineering drawings, useless warrenty from NHBC (£2500!!) full PP to get the mortgage and I have £300k of the £450k build cost (inc land) in cash already.

3) Planning office are a disgrace; slow pathetic, dishonest (lie about where things are). I have kept a file and I am going to copy it and send it to Shaps, Pickles, Cameron, Leader of Council, Councillers asking if anyone thinks their behaviour is on all fours with sense, policy or any human care. My site came with full PP. I actually wanted a smaller house than the existing PP on the same footprint to a design taking into account the locality and neighbours concerns over the original eyesore planned - and its still taken4 months.

4) Section 106 development charge for a single property - in government guidance its not supposed to be a payment for Planning Permission - pull the other one. This scam is being pulled now to be replaced by similar one (CIC) but at least its coming clean on being a windfall tax. I guess I'm not paying VAT on the build.

5) Organising services - it takes months to get the approval and the authroities can want to review the trench 5 times - the inspections are paid for by the housebuilder.

6) Self build industry and particularly package factory build which is what many would favour is ramping up but its still quite small.

Only in the UK are there companies like the national housebuilders. They just do not exist in other countries to the same extent as UK. Overseas a far larger proportion of houses are self build, often in packaged sites but still with room for individuality, taste and quality.

[phead]

1) Large housebuilders get the "value add" by building houses of bricks and morter with men on site. They are notgeared up for nor can make a profit from building most of their houses in factories like those fools the Germans with the Huff house and all. The great British public like this; its traditional isn't it. But these days most houses elsewhere would not be built like this. Think about it, we dig porus clay out of the ground, dry it, cart it to a site and build up with it so we have an inflexible high maintenance structure. The insulation is terrible, it ultimately will leak and the result with the typical cheap factory engineering brick and cheap nasty tiles is horrible. SIP, Formwork, Timber Frame Block and Render etc etc are all much better systems. No one built with these techniques 200 years ago because they not been invented; neither had the cure for small pox or television. I'm going for lined SIP - level 5 code for sustainable living - the estimated heating costs for my 200m sq house are £200 pa. Oh yes and we do like filling our houses with 8 baths of water for the plaster so that can do loads of damage to the rest of the new built structure too rather than dry lining - but hey thats traditional too - like hanging children for stealing food.

Is our building method really that bad? I ask as whenever I see american timber framed houses on TV they are always rotten, full of bugs and need a new roof every 10 years. I know our methods are old school, but are the new methods really time tested?

[scottbeard]

if you are going to build a house for yourself you would build it well. Make it nice. Build it to last. People would build shops nearby. People would build a decent world.

Not most people. They ignore local shops and drive to Morrison's because it's cheaper. Then the local shops close.

The lack of local shops is fairly and squarely the people's own fault.

The flaw in the OP is that plenty of crap buildings were put up in the past. They're the ones that have fallen down or been pulled down.

+1

And those gorgeous looking cottages tend to have wonky floors, draughty walls and nowhere for the dishwasher. Lovely to drive past but not somewhere I'd ever want to live.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

Not most people. They ignore local shops and drive to Morrison's because it's cheaper. Then the local shops close.

The lack of local shops is fairly and squarely the people's own fault.

+1

And those gorgeous looking cottages tend to have wonky floors, draughty walls and nowhere for the dishwasher. Lovely to drive past but not somewhere I'd ever want to live.

They were built with the tools and the materials of the time. Times have moved on.