The Real Target For Our Campaign

[no accountant]

In my mind, this is becoming more and more straightforward. I want build a house in an empty field on outskirts of a city in the south east. If i spend 250k on the construction I could have a lovely home (and garden) in which to raise a family. A quality home made from the best materials. 1 year after I finish my dream home the council will come and bulldoze it down. My family will have nowhere to live.

Why does this happen? It's because the majority of residents are the not-in-my-back-yard types who have more sway on the local council (sometimes they are the local council) and won't let a small incoming minority spoil their lovely field.

The disparity in land use can be illustrated by the price. I'm prepared to pay £2m per hectare. The current land use only raises £5,000 per hectare. This is the difference between what I want to do with the land and the impediments that are put in the way to stop me.

Who is putting this impediments in the way? It's groups like CPRE that campaign to stop me using the land. It has 60,000 member (orders of magnitude bigger than HPC). They have a depressing What We've Achieved page that explained how they've managed to keep us cooped up in overpriced 2-bed high-rise flats for so long. They've done well, in fact they've won. This page is a tribute to their victory. The country is almost untouched in the last few decades. The cities have lost their playing fields and gardens and parks, and greenspaces, but their fields still grow wheat. They've won. They have 90% of the land and they're not giving any of it to me. B@stards.

What can we do about it? Can we do anything about it? Probably not.

I feel like building anyway and spending 20k on a second hand russian tank to deal with the bulldozers. Is there any other way? We are the minority.

These thought have come from the excellent article linked from here previously:

Policy Excange - better homes, greener cities

[pricedout]

Yep - I've met some of these people at council meetings and their motivation is dubious to say the least.

This is one group dominated by established middle class people who own nice plaes in the country with nice views, don't you know - and don't want the likes of you and I spoiling their "1950s Ealing Studios rural idyll" or property values - if ever there was a group for which the acronym NIMBY was created, then this is it.

If it moves - they'll object.

As I have posted before, there is no shortage of land in the UK, just a shortage of building plots - we need massive reform of the planning laws now ( ie scrap the T&CPA) - maybe this is what we should be lobbying for ??

If you expanded the housing stock in every town and village by less than 5% then there would be no need for this site - hardly concreteing over the coutryside - and waht does our beloved Government do? - invade Iraq after talking to god -

Minor rant over

PO

[delboypass]

Thought arable land was around £9000 a hectare - yes completely agree that we should be getting out into the green land and building nice houses!!

Too many people with too many agendas in your way!!

If you were rich, it would be no problem though!!

[apom]

In my mind, this is becoming more and more straightforward. I want build a house in an empty field on outskirts of a city in the south east. If i spend 250k on the construction I could have a lovely home (and garden) in which to raise a family. A quality home made from the best materials. 1 year after I finish my dream home the council will come and bulldoze it down. My family will have nowhere to live.

Why does this happen? It's because the majority of residents are the not-in-my-back-yard types who have more sway on the local council (sometimes they are the local council) and won't let a small incoming minority spoil their lovely field.

The disparity in land use can be illustrated by the price. I'm prepared to pay £2m per hectare. The current land use only raises £5,000 per hectare. This is the difference between what I want to do with the land and the impediments that are put in the way to stop me.

Who is putting this impediments in the way? It's groups like CPRE that campaign to stop me using the land. It has 60,000 member (orders of magnitude bigger than HPC). They have a depressing What We've Achieved page that explained how they've managed to keep us cooped up in overpriced 2-bed high-rise flats for so long. They've done well, in fact they've won. This page is a tribute to their victory. The country is almost untouched in the last few decades. The cities have lost their playing fields and gardens and parks, and greenspaces, but their fields still grow wheat. They've won. They have 90% of the land and they're not giving any of it to me. B@stards.

What can we do about it? Can we do anything about it? Probably not.

I feel like building anyway and spending 20k on a second hand russian tank to deal with the bulldozers. Is there any other way? We are the minority.

These thought have come from the excellent article linked from here previously:

Policy Excange - better homes, greener cities

There was a lady who had three homes... she was one of the lead campaigners against any new builds for the young..

Evil bit*h if you ask me, quite happy for her to live the countryside idil.. had some paltry job where she had family money and timing on her side..

but she would quite happily sacrifice the young....

three homes..

[BuyingBear]

I had never considered the CPRE in this context

The fact a Labour government does their bidding is pretty amazing, they're basically in the process of doing to house building what they've successfully done to road building. It doesn't matter whether you like cars or not, you can't fail to notice that it's basically impossible to build anything now, and a minister would rather be caught naked in a barn than attend a road openning these days. They are trying to ensure that housing attains the same taboo, where people should actually live is an unresolved question that isn't their problem, undoubtedly with overtones of the CPRE's anti-immigration stance.

Their anti-homes allies are the same as in the anti-roads days, it's an unholy alliance, you see lefty cohorts in the Friends of the Earth singing the same tune as CPRE reactionaries headed by Max Hastings, it's a sight to behold, the CPRE are very adept and co-opt useful idiots whenever they see them, be it ramblers, twitchers, RSPCA, though I think things turned sour with Greenpeace following a fallout over wind turbines.

The CPRE should really be called "Very Conservative People for Stalinist Planning Policies"

Since 2000, Government policy on planning for housing has secured important and valuable successes, including an increase in the proportion of new housing on previously developed ('brownfield') urban sites to over 70% and less wasteful use of housing land, with the average density rising to 40 dwellings per hectare

In other words they mean "CPRE policy on planning for housing has secured important and valuable successes with Government". We are the only country in Europe to be building progressively smaller homes, we have amongst the most compact homes already, and they're getting smaller! Not to mention more expensive.

Edited March 15, 2006 by BuyingBear

[VacantPossession]

Yes, great post. However, everything is relative. The various "rural" protection lobbies always campaigned for keeping their own advantages to the fore, but your budget for building is quite high isn't it? Would you honestly support the right of others less fortunate than yourself doing exactly the same thing on a much smaller budget?

I completely agree that the bogus and discredited excuse for shutting out vast numbers of people from a good quality of life is down to those who already have manipulated the property market in their favour in order to establish a fortress rural lifestyle. I also agree that it is disgraceful how many of these people have quite dishonestly claimed a rural high ground purely through financial and selfish advantage.

You only have to look at the prime example in the uK: South Devon, particularly the borders of Dartmoor, which have now become a virtual ghetto populated by retired judges, lawyers, advertising execs and other business people who for the previous 40 years of their lives had no interest whatsoever in the arts, the countryside, green wellies or walks on the moor. This is an exclusive club that keeps out the "riff raff" through one method: PRICE.

VP

Edited March 15, 2006 by VacantPossession

[?...!]

There's only one law you need to change here.

It goes thus;

A planning application can be submitted to your local planning comittee at the cost of £15.

The comittee must discuss all applicaions and give clear, concise and valid reasons for refusing any application.

Amen

[Mr Blek]

Did anyone what that BBC programme with John Snow - "Who owns England?"

Apparently this Govt gave the aristrocracy some lifeline which gave them a huge incentive to keep the land rather than sell it. I'll have to dig out the details.

[Smell the Fear]

There's only one law you need to change here.

It goes thus;

A planning application can be submitted to your local planning comittee at the cost of £15.

The comittee must discuss all applicaions and give clear, concise and valid reasons for refusing any application.

Amen

can you spell out the implications of this? It sounds like how I thought the system currently operates. Or are you saying that this process should be abandoned?

[BuyingBear]

There's only one law you need to change here.

It goes thus;

A planning application can be submitted to your local planning comittee at the cost of £15.

The comittee must discuss all applicaions and give clear, concise and valid reasons for refusing any application.

Central government should simply zone an area of land, permission would be implicit and irreversible, the only grounds for objection from the local 'buchers bakers and candlestick makers' brigade would be over-development, such as wanting to plant a 10 storey building in the middle of a nice big, tree-lined low density housing estate, with massive gardens where children could happily play for hours!

Alas, you shall be condemned to a life in a horrible grubby little over-priced high density flat with cardboard walls where the only place your children can play is the neighbouring motorway junction, sewerage farm or electrical sub-station. Such are the wonders of high-density 'brownfield' developments.

[RobertPaulson]

the current planning system will need a radical overhaul for the government to get a new generation of nuclear reactors built, which is damn near a certainty to happen

link

should make new housing projects a damn sight easier to get through though

Edited March 15, 2006 by RobertPaulson

[malco]

CPRE and their like gain a great deal from the belief (to some extent true) that more housing means more traffic. There IS a lot of truth to this. I saw this in Bearsden where I grew up. New housing was added to the outer reaches of the area, but in the absence of any effort to enhance infrastructure like railways and local shops. The result is that the place is dying under traffic congestion. The new housing has improved greatly over the years, all quite attractive, but opposition to new developments has been based on current traffic congestion, not against the new housing per se.

I would be sceptical that many people are against tasteful new developments that are fairly self-contained in terms of schools, shops, public transport and so forth. But the issue of traffic is a serious one that brings the CPRE a lot of support it probably would not get. The problem is the way that new housing is developed. So far as I can tell, developers are under no obligation to consider other than how to cram as many houses into the released land as they possibly can and s0d the consequences to the local roads.

Perhaps an oblique way of undermining CPRE is to address this issue of coordinating development in an intelligent way. It is not in anybody's interest to live at the edge of some town and have to get in a car to go get a tin of drinking chocolate from the nearest Tescos two miles away.

This will become a serious issue as fuel imports and prices increase. You'll be onto a winning wicket pushing this one.

[BuyingBear]

the current planning system will need a radical overhaul for the government to get a new generation of nuclear reactors built, which is damn near a certainty to happen

link

should make new housing projects a damn sight easier to get though

Indeed, I've said before that the present antiquated planning system will undermine basic government energy, transport and economic growth policies. Brown has even indicated that planning the main reason why productivity in the retail sector is 25% below that of the US.

The current planning system is simply unreconcilable with everything else they want to achieve. I find it amusing that Prescott has imposed some new rules, if a councillor publicly speaks out against a given planning application then they cannot vote on the matter as they are deemed to have a vested interest and therefore cannot be impartial.

In reality the whole system needs ripping up and replacing with a handful of centrally controlled planning boards in each region that can set out plans for housing and infrastructure above the heads of the nimby elite.

I would be sceptical that many people are against tasteful new developments that are fairly self-contained in terms of schools, shops, public transport and so forth. But the issue of traffic is a serious one that brings the CPRE a lot of support it probably would not get. The problem is the way that new housing is developed. So far as I can tell, developers are under no obligation to consider other than how to cram as many houses into the released land as they possibly can and s0d the consequences to the local roads.

Indeed, this is just an affect of stupidly high densities, the land used for an interwar suburban estate of say 50 houses would now be expected to support 250 dwellings. If you look at the very latest estates you will notice that even expensive family homes are now built as terraces on three levels! It's suffocatingly compact. The inter-war area would have about 100 cars in with wide roads and large cul-de-sacs, with greenspaces in the center. The modern equivalent on the same plot of land is horrible little compact estates sporting 400 cars, with no supporitng trunk roads to collect traffic.

Edited March 15, 2006 by BuyingBear

[right_freds_dead]

i hear all your beefs on this, but lets remember the real enemy of this crisis.

the BTL...!!

there is enough homes here already. suitable homes. family home. homes that were 2 thirds less in price 4 years ago...FOUR YEARS AGO.

dont lose track of the ball. without BTL absorbing the stock there was enough to go around,. just not enough to go around AND feed the greed. this country went property mad - and still is. lies. debt and profiteering. all for nothing. you will get the same sized house whastever the price. wages have hardly risen. some have gone down.

no need to go burn down the squires gaffs. if we could STOP BTL then things would go back roughly to how they were FOUR YEARS AGO.

lets not get distracted.

quick theres TTRTT....get him......

(i was going to put the benny hill yakkety sax music here, but ive decided to go for floyds dark side of the moon instead - enjoy)

[Guest Charlie The Tramp]

i hear all your beefs on this, but lets remember the real enemy of this crisis.

the BTL...!!

What no vitrole against the baby boomers tonight fred.

[Smell the Fear]

quick theres TTRTT....get him......

(i was going to put the benny hill yakkety sax music here, but ive decided to go for floyds dark side of the moon instead - enjoy)

Pink Floyd's "money" seems to be the soundtrack at the moment:

"Money, get back.

I’m all right jack keep your hands off of my stack.

Money, it’s a crime.

Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie.

Money, so they say

Is the root of all evil today."

[BuyingBear]

i hear all your beefs on this, but lets remember the real enemy of this crisis.

the BTL...!!

there is enough homes here already. suitable homes. family home. homes that were 2 thirds less in price 4 years ago...FOUR YEARS AGO.

Indeed, lax monetary policy is a factor, however the fact remains that supply of new housing has been well below household formation levels for over a decade, development is virtually impossible and our towns cannot expand. Prices are set on the margins so as soon as there's a shortage or perceived shortage prices will be driven higher and rampant speculation will follow, we've seen this with the oil market over recent months, and in that case supplies barely exceed demand let alone fall below. The fact that new housing is such a densely packed and socially engineered mess also adds to the problem, some of the most desirable property is two centuries old, things should improve over time and not regress!

Every good bubble needs a germ of truth, and supply is that factor.

[right_freds_dead]

BuyingBear:

true. building is down, but its no more down than it was four years ago. mildly down with a lack of council building. i would agree to that.

Smell the Fear

are you sure those were floyds lyrics you had there. sounded more like rick astleys 'never gonna give you up' to me.??

Charlie The Tramp"

no. not tonight. they had bad pension news, plus the sight of the 26 tangerine bottomed nude pensioner protesters made be think twice before engaging them.

they could be aged swingers......good thing or bad ?

no wonder there was a program on old parents tonight. they are at it like rabbits. they had all that 1950s sexual frustration building up inside. the past brushes against girls while doing the 'mashed potato' or the 'bullys dad'. viagra. your to blame. i blame pele.

[BuyingBear]

BuyingBear:

true. building is down, but its no more down than it was four years ago. mildly down with a lack of council

And as each year passes the accumulated deficit of housing is larger, the 50,000 new household formations that were not provided for last year don't just simply disappear into the ether as the CPRE would like them to.

[right_freds_dead]

And as each year passes the accumulated deficit of housing is larger, the 50,000 new household formations that were not provided for last year don't just simply disappear into the ether as the CPRE would like them to.

this was a policy of thatchers adopted by new conservative.

burning the candle at both ends.

there are enough empty properties right now to house every renter. - how come i know this ? they live in them at the moment. they do not own them. only mathematics and finance runs through it. sits between the people and the homes. in between there is 'free' profit. and thats whats going on now.

granted. more shoeboxes will help, but the population isnt crowded or short of housing like say the 50s ro 60s. this is a financial shortage. our houses are there,. they are just 3x the price they should be.

plus. build more and what happens. they will get full of flippers, btlrs and pension investors. ftbs will still get shafted. i cant see it making prices shift. correcting this btl menace would have a fast effect on this crisis.

i dont feel there is an army of masses 'liderally homeless. i think more like priced out.

[BuyingBear]

this was a policy of thatchers adopted by new conservative.

burning the candle at both ends.

Blah, it goes right back to the 1947 planning act and has since been propped by various hues of government that support it for their own reasons. The Tories want to keep the great (Labour voting) unwashed out of their countryside and Labour want to keep their electorate packed in the cities instead of being dispersed into the Tory voting countryside.

Not even Atlee could foresee the sort of paralysis his act would induce.

[right_freds_dead]

well at least it was an act. before that it was were we are heading right now. right back to edwardian times.

its going to upstairs, chavstaris pretty soon.

we need more forced acts. perhaps a % proportion per population ratio on local association building - NO MATTER WHAT THE GREEN AGENDAS. a genuine shortage is a genuine shortage, but its all a waste of time if out of control lending and BTL investing is not curtailed.

and this is whats changed recently. so im thinking this is the true / main cause,.btl

[BuyingBear]

well at least it was an act. before that it was were we are heading right now. right back to edwardian times.

its going to upstairs, chavstaris pretty soon.

You need to remember that the right to develop land was nationalised along with everything else at the time, yet planning has remained so right up until today.

Some of the nicest developments, no doubt now occupied by nimbies, were developed under the old open system, not least nearly all of the the garden cities and medium density towns with all their trees and open spaces.

Edited March 16, 2006 by BuyingBear

[right_freds_dead]

i still dont beleive its underbuilding thats causes this.

its btl and im sticking to it like a dead fly on a superglue windscreen.

[BuyingBear]

i still dont beleive its underbuilding thats causes this.

its btl and im sticking to it like a dead fly on a superglue windscreen.

There is no single causality, there is a whole series of longrunning deep seated underlying issues. Nothing is ever so simple as to have a single cause and effect, even the issue of lax monetary policy is multifaceted, is this due to mopping up after the last dotcom bubble, maybe it's due to 9/11 or Enron, the deflationary effect of china, nothing is ever that simple. From a logical point of view BTL was more attractive a decade ago when properties were cheaper and yields higher, despite higher rates, yet it took a tanking stock market and collapsing pension system for people to realise this. The world is chaotic and unpredictable however the long running trends are obvious, if you constrain the release of land for development for over three decades then it eventually leads to problems.

Edited March 16, 2006 by BuyingBear