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Domestic Buildings Cover Only 1.1 Percent Of Land In England


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HOLA441

I don't have a home, I rent.

If you build more houses you need to build the acommodating infrastructure to go with them. Roads to them, probably widening of existing roads, and local services like shops and schools. Depending upon the actual location some existing services in existing places may support the new building, to a degree. Also, large estates with no services aren't particularly good socially. Even ignoring the issue with having to travel a long way just to do your shopping you end up with a place with no community.

I've said several times that I reluctantly accept building more to sufficiently accommodate the existing population is needed, so I'm not sure what your issue is there. My point is that it's a sad thing that we need to do this, and we'd have a noticeably better quality of life if we didn't need to.

I'm talking about poison simply to illustrate the point that because a number is small percentage doesn't mean it can therefore be ignored. What is a small or large number depends entirely on the situation. Why is it right to say only 0.25% instead of as much as 0.25%? It's all about context.

Again you are thinking that more homes would mean more people! I think I am starting to see why. You mentioned a large estate. If you allow all these new houses in only one area, say one new large estate near one city, then yes, more people would move there from the surrounding towns or cities, of course. But if you allow a few more houses around all towns and around all cities, then people would not move around, and the existing infrastructures of these towns and cities would be just fine! There population would not increase.

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HOLA442

I wouldn't say it would be unpleasantly high levels of development, just development that we have put off for far too long, with no good reason.

Anyway even if you use the 10% urban figure in its entirety, with all the infrastructure needed, it houses some 64 million people! It is not going to take much to sort out the housing crisis.

I'm with ex-green on this, the NIMBY's have had it their way for too long. I'd rather have more homes built than krusty and Simon Jenkins dictate that everyone has to live in pods whilst they have second homes in the countryside,

It can be both unpleasantly high and needed to properly support the number of people we've got at the same time - hence my position of too many people. You also appear to be making the same erroneous assumption that I'm saying that some people should live in nice places and everyone else get stuffed into rabbit hutches. It appears to happen every time I post.

..Riedquat is always one of those arguing that development is evil. Cheers, Q

I can't get my head around why anyone wouldn't think that to be honest, unless they're living in the middle of a wilderness.

Again you are thinking that more homes would mean more people! I think I am starting to see why. You mentioned a large estate. If you allow all these new houses in only one area, say one new large estate near one city, then yes, more people would move there from the surrounding towns or cities, of course. But if you allow a few more houses around all towns and around all cities, then people would not move around, and the existing infrastructures of these towns and cities would be just fine! There population would not increase.

There would certainly need to be some extra infrastructure, and it wouldn't be evenly spread - the demand for housing isn't the same throughout the country after all, so there will inevitably be some large estates (and there are also plenty of existing ones which could be better served).

I'm not thinking that more homes means more people, but it will mean more people further removed from existing supporting infrastructure like shops. If you can achieve it without more than a couple of houses in any given village, a dozen in a small town etc. then you're probably right, but I'd be surprised.

Anyway, if you're saying no more population growth but build enough for what we've got now then let's stop arguing, because we both seem to agree with that! I don't like it, it doesn't seem to bother you, but neither of us are saying no.

edit: typos

Edited by Riedquat
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HOLA443
The effects of different levels of development are very noticeable - compare, say, the England and France. For some a French level of development (and corresponding population density - can't disentangle the two without having a housing quality issue, at best) would give a much greater quality of life, for others it wouldn't even be noticable.

Finally more building might be slightly more popular if most of what got built wasn't bloody awful.

Isn't there also a large qualitative difference in the type of development and not just the amount of development? Perhaps I'm mistaken but don't the French allow a lot more self build and fewer large scale commercially driven residential developments? So actually providing a demonstration of what it would be like under ex-green's idea of just allowing the people already resident to build new homes when needed around existing infrastructure:

But if you allow a few more houses around all towns and around all cities, then people would not move around, and the existing infrastructures of these towns and cities would be just fine! There population would not increase.

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HOLA444

But there "urban" doesn't include just gardens and parks, as we think! The boundaries they've used include farmland as well! They've pushed these official boundaries out, to exagerate the numbers, in my belief because of there green agenda.

But they couldn't do the same trick with the actual facts in the Technical Report.

I don't understand your example though. If the whole country was a megacity, 100 percent instead of the 6.8 percent we have now = 15 times more, then our population would be 15 times more to = 1 billion people!

And we would still have 80% green space! Yes, that is the fact! I know it sounds incredible, but it is true.

You have illustrated my point for me. In such a situation you would be telling people to ignore the evidence of their own eyes. You would be saying "stop moaning and listen to my statistics - the country's still 80% countryside" - whereas everyone else would be looking around them and noticing there was just one gigantic, oppressive urban sprawl. That's why I don't like using the 1.1% figure.

Edited by oldsport
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HOLA445

Isn't there also a large qualitative difference in the type of development and not just the amount of development? Perhaps I'm mistaken but don't the French allow a lot more self build and fewer large scale commercially driven residential developments? So actually providing a demonstration of what it would be like under ex-green's idea of just allowing the people already resident to build new homes when needed around existing infrastructure:

Certainly the type is also important. You've got both the local quality and the overal regional or national picture (and other geographical features too). Some methods of development are cerainly qualatively more appealing than others, and the self-build approach seems to be a better one for avoiding large, bland identical towns with all the character and appeal of living inside a ping-pong ball.

That said quite a lot of French architecture seems prettty bad, they seem to go in for ugly Soviet-style apartment blocks too.

Edited by Riedquat
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HOLA446

Certainly the type is also important. You've got both the local quality and the overal regional or national picture (and other geographical features too). Some methods of development are cerainly qualatively more appealing than others, and the self-build approach seems to be a better one for avoiding large, bland identical towns with all the character and appeal of living inside a ping-pong ball.

That said quite a lot of French architecture seems prettty bad, they seem to go in for ugly Soviet-style apartment blocks too.

True, perhaps the introduction of a greater right to self build for owner occupation with planning permission still needing to be met in terms of the quality/integration of the building would be the way to go? The current planning system seems to massively favour large scale building companies over self-buiders, which give us the worst of all possible worlds in terms of build quality, price fixing and distribution of development.

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HOLA447

Just 0.25 percent = A QUARTER OF 1 PERCENT would be enough for 1 MILLION HOUSES WITH BIG GARDENS!

Now that you know this numbers are you still against building them?

I didn't really understand the reply to my post so I'll respond to this instead. 1 million homes is very easy to visualise. Birmingham has a population of just over a million.. If we say two people per house as an average then we're talking about building a city twice the size of Birmingham.

And most houses in Birmingham aren't large with a big garden.

Edited by libspero
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HOLA448

I didn't really understand the reply to my post so I'll respond to this instead. 1 million homes is very easy to visualise. Birmingham has a population of just over a million.. If we say two people per house as an average then we're talking about building a city twice the size of Birmingham.

And most houses in Birmingham aren't large with a big garden.

But we don't need a whole new city, with all the other non domestic buildings like shops offices factories industrial parks retail parks schools hospitals government buildinds and roads and motorways to it, trains and everything. And people shouldn't be forced to move out of there places of birth near friends and families and jobs to move to a new city. We just need more houses where people live, like I wrote to Riedquat yesterday.

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HOLA449

But we don't need a whole new city, with all the other non domestic buildings like shops offices factories industrial parks retail parks schools hospitals government buildinds and roads and motorways to it, trains and everything. And people shouldn't be forced to move out of there places of birth near friends and families and jobs to move to a new city. We just need more houses where people live, like I wrote to Riedquat yesterday.

I see your reasoning.. but I think it might be unrealistic to argue that building a million homes will require no additional infrastructure.. not least because you are arguing from the position of building supply to meet demand. As the population grows and you fill your new suburban housing estates people are going to demand/need more government/private services in close proximity to their homes.

Also, by choosing expansion over new townships you are necessarily building around people who, by nature of where they choose to live, don't want to live in your new urban sprawl. At least by building new townships you are causing minimum disruption to others and not putting excess strain on existing infrastructure.

Over all though I think the only place our opinion really differs is were you (and many others) see more people/more homes as generally a positive trend, I view it as a necessary evil and if anything would prefer a more managed approach to migration (as in other countries) so that everyone has both more space AND more housing. It would have an immediate impact on demand and increase quality of living for everyone.

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HOLA4410

Hi ex-green. Firstly, welcome to the forum. Secondly, IMHO there's no need to stop being green while being for more housing. I am both. Finally, I think the reason you didn't get the response you were expecting was that most folk on the forum are well aware of these numbers (or similar ones). We have threads like this repeatedly, and Riedquat is always one of those arguing that development is evil. Cheers, Q

Hi Quicken. Thanks.

You are right about being green and in favour of more housing at the same time. Maybe I didn't chose my username well. What I felt was that the "green agenda" people distorted the real figures, to support their green agenda, and they ended up causing a huge housing crisis, and for no good reason, as we do have plenty of land! I got seriously Poed with them.

They just gave amunition to NIMBYs. I got really really really annoyed.

I did search this forum looking for these figures and I couldn't fing it. A few posts mentioned the National Ecosystem Assessment but not this main figures in the Technical Report about land used by houses. And I didn't find a topic about it. I thought it would help if this forum knew this figures.

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HOLA4411

I see your reasoning.. but I think it might be unrealistic to argue that building a million homes will require no additional infrastructure.. not least because you are arguing from the position of building supply to meet demand. As the population grows and you fill your new suburban housing estates people are going to demand/need more government/private services in close proximity to their homes.

Also, by choosing expansion over new townships you are necessarily building around people who, by nature of where they choose to live, don't want to live in your new urban sprawl. At least by building new townships you are causing minimum disruption to others and not putting excess strain on existing infrastructure.

Over all though I think the only place our opinion really differs is were you (and many others) see more people/more homes as generally a positive trend, I view it as a necessary evil and if anything would prefer a more managed approach to migration (as in other countries) so that everyone has both more space AND more housing. It would have an immediate impact on demand and increase quality of living for everyone.

Again I am not saying a million homes in the same place. I meant spreaded all over the country, of course, just a little more, everywhere. Maybe you will need a few more cornershops in this new areas, but that is all. If England has 20 million homes, and we allow 1 million more, this will be only 5 percent more in each place.

And like I wrote to you yesterday...

I am not saying we should bring in more people, or have more babies, just that we need more houses NOW, and that it is not true that these houses would "concrete over large swathes" of countryside, and that we have very little countryside left. These are two big LIES! If we have space, why not build now?

I agree that NIMBYs will be against it. But I think we should argue against them, as hard as we can.

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HOLA4412

You have illustrated my point for me. In such a situation you would be telling people to ignore the evidence of their own eyes. You would be saying "stop moaning and listen to my statistics - the country's still 80% countryside" - whereas everyone else would be looking around them and noticing there was just one gigantic, oppressive urban sprawl. That's why I don't like using the 1.1% figure.

Is farmland included in your vision of an oppressive urban sprawl?

They've included lots of farmland in London. And in every other city. (based on local authority boundaries) instead of the actual urban = city boundaries.That is how they've managed to say that more than 10% of england is URBAN. It is NOT! On Page 368 they say this ...

* Farmland is included in Urban greenspace classification.

See the real numbers...

-------------------------------------

Table 10.4 Proportion of built to greenspace in Urban environments (based on local authority boundaries). Source:

data from GLUD (2005).

City = London

Buildings (domestic & non-domestic) % = 13

Roads % = 12

Domestic gardens % = 24

Greenspace* % = 38

Water % = 3

Other (paths, railways, unclassified) % = 10

Birmingham 14 12 29 34 1 10

London 13 12 24 38 3 10

Newcastle upon Tyne 9 10 13 58 2 8

Northampton 11 11 21 46 3 8

Coventry 12 11 22 44 1 11

Liverpool 10 11 15 23 32 9

* Farmland is included in Urban greenspace classification.

-------------------------------------

I'm sorry I can't copy that table here. It goes weird like that. I've copied the London numbers though.

I just followed your own line of thought and proved to you that even if we had 1 BILLION people in Britain we would still have 80% greenspace! But OF COURSE I am NOT saying that we should or would get to a BILLION people here! Of course not! It was just to prove that allowing 1 or 2 million homes will take up very little space indeed!!!

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HOLA4413

You have illustrated my point for me. In such a situation you would be telling people to ignore the evidence of their own eyes. You would be saying "stop moaning and listen to my statistics - the country's still 80% countryside" - whereas everyone else would be looking around them and noticing there was just one gigantic, oppressive urban sprawl. That's why I don't like using the 1.1% figure.

I made the point about Surrey - it's one gigantic sprawl of countryside 30 min drive from the world's most overpriced city. But supply is not the only issue.

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HOLA4414

Domestic buildings cover only 1.1 percent of land in England.

I came across this official figure a while ago and thought it would change the debate on building homes. I expected this fact to be widely broadcasted and once and for all debunk the myth that the country is “concreted over”, as well as reduce opposition to house building. However, as this didn’t happen, I feel it’s important to put this fact out there and ask for help to spread it.

These are the actual numbers for England, they would be even lower for Britain.

(I'm sorry I don't know how to copy a table from a PDF to this post.)

Land use in England: rural and urban combined (Total):

Buildings and Roads:

Domestic buildings % = 1.1

Non-domestic buildings % = 0.65

Roads % = 2.22

Paths % = 0.1

Rail % = 0.13

Total "concreted over" = 4.2 percent

Green spaces:

Domestic gardens % = 4.26

Greenspace % = 87.46

Water % = 2.59

Other land % = 1.39

Total green spaces = 95.7 percent

This information is official, but unfortunately it's buried inside the Technical Report of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment 2011, the most comprehensive land survey ever done in Britain. Their press releases never mentioned this. Instead they went for some unclear classification of "urban" area, which is not what we understand as actually "urban", i.e. built-up. The press releases kept saying that "More than 6.8% of the UK’s land area is now classified as ‘urban’, with more than 10% of England", but in the technical report we see that almost 70% of these so called "urban" areas are actually GREEN spaces, and that less than a 20 percent of it is actually built up (covered by buildings, roads and streets), and even in London it's less than 30 percent. A footnote in the report even admits that even "Farmland is included in Urban greenspace classification".

Important to note that these figures are just for England. For Britain as a whole this number must be even lower, probably around 0.7 percent, since Britain's population density is 37% lower than England's (662/sq mi as opposed to 1054 according to Wikipedia).

These are the links to the report:

UKNEA front page: http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org/

But to find this information you have to go here: http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org/Resources/tabid/82/Default.aspx

scroll down to Technical Report, and download Chapter 10 Urban (FINAL PDF 4.9 MB)

The information on residential buildings is on page 368 table 10.3 Generalised Land Use Database (GLUD) for England: proportion of urban land by region. The bottom line of that table has the info I've copied above.

Please help spread this information. The most important information of all has not received its deserved attention in the national media. If all the homes in England, around 20 million homes, cover only 1.1 percent of its land, then of course we have plenty of space to build more homes for the young generation. Two million more homes would use only 0.1 percent of England's land! The NIMBYs and the so called "greens" would lose their main argument! Even if we also allowed 2 million gardens they would need less than 0.4 percent of England's land.

Please help, perhaps by contacting some journalists with access to the national media and pointing to this report and the breakdown of facts and figures, then perhaps they can spread this information far and wide to counter the mistaken general view / gut feeling the public has that England is concreted over.

These are the tables I was talking about. How much of what they call "urban" is in fact green. It even includes farmland! That is how they push the "urban" area up to 6.8% of the UK and 10% of England. In reality it is much less than that.

And at the bottom of table 10.3 we can see how little space domestic buildings - HOMES - actually use in England.

These tables are in the technical report of the UKNEA chapter 10 Urban page 368

http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org/Resources/tabid/82/Default.aspx

LandUseinEngland_zps34e5892f.png

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HOLA4415

I don't have a home, I rent.

I'm sorry i didn't reply to this point before. The honest reason was that I didn't know how to reply without being rude, because the truth is that i find it very hard to believe you. Because I have never encountered a tenant that thinks like you, it's always home owners, and old ones at that, I'm sorry.

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HOLA4416

Evening all,

I have tried like mad to get this onto one of the broadsheet websites. Guardian, Indy, Telegraph but it was head and brick wall syndrome I'm afraid.

I thought I'd nailed the Telegraph and then the dude who edits the blog, Damian Thompson, resigned/was sacked the next day.

So ... good old Moneyweek it is. It doesn't have the same reach, but it's a start - do try and spread the word if you can -

http://moneyweek.com/the-silver-bullet-to-fix-the-housing-market/

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HOLA4417
17
HOLA4418

Great piece. History will judge this period in Britain's history as the time when we truly threw it all away. Unless there's a revolution, we're heading for a big fall in living conditions and standing in the world. They're destroying the economy for the benefit of a few who can't bear to see the value of their property fall. Nothing more.

Madness.

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HOLA4419

UK faces 'significant' shortage of farmland by 2030.

Britain is running out of land for food and faces a potential shortfall of two million hectares by 2030 according to new research.

The report, from the University of Cambridge, says the growing population plus the use of land for energy crops are contributing to the gap.

It criticises the government's lack of a coherent vision on how to make the most of UK farm land.

The authors warn that tough choices may need to be made on future land use.

[continues...]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28003435

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HOLA4420

....very little land is used for fruit grain and veg for people to eat in this country......mostly used to graze and or feed animals for meat or biofuel crops......now seeing more wind and solar panel fields......they only use the land for what brings in the most money....and the government subsidizes certain land uses....make the polices and you get the behaviours to fit them.....woodland is being snapped up, wonder why? ;)

Edited by winkie
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HOLA4421
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HOLA4422
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HOLA4423

From your link:

Britain is running out of land for food and faces a potential shortfall of two million hectares by 2030 according to new research.

The report, from the University of Cambridge, says the growing population plus the use of land for energy crops are contributing to the gap.

It criticises the government's lack of a coherent vision on how to make the most of UK farm land.

The authors warn that tough choices may need to be made on future land use.

The total land area of the UK amounts to over 24 million hectares with more than 75% of that used for farming.

While self sufficient in products like barley, wheat, milk, lamb and mutton, the UK still imports large amounts of fruit and vegetables and other farm products including pork.

Overall the UK runs a food, feed and and drink trade deficit of £18.6bn.

Given the volume of land involved a few extra houses doesn't seem like it will make much difference either way. From the article it looks like the main problem is inefficient land use including increasing amounts of bio-fuel crops (we're probably going to have to learn to stop burning so much stuff at some point) and poor utilisation of the land under wind farms. The land shortfall therefore only occurs if we maintain inefficient practices, so we don't actually need more land we need better and more efficient land use.

Sounds like a brilliant argument for a Land Value Tax to encourage people to maximise the potential of the land they own, as well as a shake up to the Common Agricultural Policy to target more efficient land use in relation to food production. For instance we don't normally see intensive rational grazing or multi-tier cropping practiced here in the UK but both these systems produce more food per acreage (from reading J. Russell Smith and Andre Voisin between 150-400% production in relation to monoculture/free-grazing systems depending on underlying climatic/soil conditions). These systems can require more labour depending on how they're implemented, but labour isn't exactly at a prospective shortage, in fact it would be better for everyone if any rises in population were also met by rises in gainful employment.

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HOLA4424

Evening all,

I have tried like mad to get this onto one of the broadsheet websites. Guardian, Indy, Telegraph but it was head and brick wall syndrome I'm afraid.

I thought I'd nailed the Telegraph and then the dude who edits the blog, Damian Thompson, resigned/was sacked the next day.

So ... good old Moneyweek it is. It doesn't have the same reach, but it's a start - do try and spread the word if you can -

http://moneyweek.com/the-silver-bullet-to-fix-the-housing-market/

THANK YOU !!!!!

From your link...

-------------------------------------------------------

The survey you never heard about

The 2011 UK National Ecosystem Assessment made some startling findings about land in England. Unfortunately, in the deluge of data, they got ignored.

The key finding is this: domestic buildings cover just 1.1% of land.

Non-domestic buildings cover another 0.65% and roads make up 2.2%. Just 4% of English land is actually built on.

96% is not.

That 96% is made up of gardens (about 5%), water (about 3%). The rest is ‘green space’.

If England’s 20 million homes cover just 1.1% of its land, you could increase the housing stock by 20% – 4 million homes – and only build on another 0.2% of land. Surely, we can find the space to do this.

Even if you give each home a large garden, you’re still talking less than 1% of English land to increase the housing stock by 20%.

Fly over the UK and you see acre upon acre of barely used land. Some of it ecologically sensitive; some of it is beautiful, of course.

But a great deal of it isn’t. And ecological and aesthetic concerns can be addressed – as well they should be.

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HOLA4425

Nice one Frizzers. Shame the national press were not interested. Says a lot.

Totally agree.

I have tried like mad to get this onto one of the broadsheet websites. Guardian, Indy, Telegraph but it was head and brick wall syndrome I'm afraid.

What happened? What did they say? Tell more...

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