Trying to Save the Countryside from Vandalism

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

All these problems come down to one very simple fact: there are too many people.

But the solution is far from simple.

[greenilex]

I am very much against unbridled development and in favour of intelligent redevelopment of city centres....I'm not sure why trendy Europeans are quite happy to live in flats (comfortable ones) while we have to have little cottages with gardens from the outset.

But of course I'd be reluctant to give up my terraced cottage...

And immigration is not the only factor increasing population. Marie Stopes was a wise woman.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And immigration is not the only factor increasing population. Marie Stopes was a wise woman.

Of course not. It's anyone, anywhere in the world, who has a large family. I know this will upset people with large families, but in the end, it comes down to simple mathematics.

[Serial_Apologist]

I am very much against unbridled development and in favour of intelligent redevelopment of city centres....I'm not sure why trendy Europeans are quite happy to live in flats (comfortable ones) while we have to have little cottages with gardens from the outset.

But of course I'd be reluctant to give up my terraced cottage...

And immigration is not the only factor increasing population. Marie Stopes was a wise woman.

We seem to have learned nothing in this country, other than how to find reasons for chucking previously itinerant people off land they have developed housing on in contravention of planning permission. Prescott's solution to the lack of new housing builds has too often resulted in developers building estates on previously (and in some cases still) polluted ex-industrial sites, and even flood plains , consisting largely of mock-early 19th century cottages with interiors lacking adequate storage and staircases too cramped to permit passage for even a single bedstead.

In the early '80s I remember a wonderful series of TV programmes - on Ch4 possibly - showing how Berlin was tackling the "greening of the city" question with imaginative apartment housing schemes. The blocks shown were rectangular in shape, with attractive central communal gardens, similar in some says to the communal gardens backing onto large Victorian properties in London's Notting Hill area, except this was high-density, not bourgeois accommodation, though you wouldn't know it. Another scheme shown around that time was a multi-tiered one in the Camden area of London - again as high-density as in the old 50s and 60s tower blocks, but with walled garden privacy inbuilt, and attractive public inter-walkways linking shops and homes with intervening landscaped mini-squares.

It is not as if the dearth of new home building could not be solved without green belt or rural incursion; But there again it is often a matter of architectural style more than anything else. Prince Charles's Chartbury (??) in Dorset doesn't have to be the solution. If we're talking "brownfield", from living in another London district in which beautiful, but nevertheless relatively low-maintenance landscaping, frames low, medium and high-rise (15 storeys) of modest architectural merit, I can vouch for the all-round feeling of friendliness engendered by urban planning resulting in places where people live in relative proximity compared to the countryside, within a good balance between privacy and communal contact/spirit, without recourse to Betjamen's misconstrued (imv) Metroland vision of suburbian arcadia.

If it can work within 2 miles of Camberwell, Peckham and Brixton, it could work anywhere.

S-A

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Simon the Tory controlled Rutland District County Council issued a very ill advised and locally disputed Strategic Vision which planned for edge estates on the two main towns, but none in the villages [and certainly not affordable housing there] .... middle kingdom villages are mostly dormitories for the well off with lots of parking for 4x4s and space to walk the dogs but there are still local residents who work locally on low wages ...such people can occupy the cheap end of the edge dumps so there is a plentiful supply of shop assistants, hairdressers, care workers for the aged etc [the actual words of a Tory Councillor] ... in consequence property values in the villages have risen relative too the market ... very few of the Tory Councillors either attended or sent there kids to state school .... they are not too bright eg they just do not get the link between quality of education and council income over the long term ... in their pursuit of narrow self interest [i forego reference to trust funds in the Bahamas etc out of deference to our learned friends] they encourage large peripheral developments built by the usual suspects the big builders .... so a local community and environment and environment created piecemeal over the centuries is vandalised in a few years ... without any compensating cultural or economic wealth accruing except for the rates beloved of the officials at the council ... no sense of a society and community, no sense of an environment unless it is their own dormitory bliss .... now do you understand me Simon?

..and what they do here is i believe what Cameron Osborne Letwin and Pickles want to do for their chums in the Land Companies, Builders and City .... keep Chipping Norton safe , make a loada dopsh, and screw Witney [eg]

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm not sure why trendy Europeans are quite happy to live in flats (comfortable ones) while we have to have little cottages with gardens from the outset.

We have some Spanish friends who live in very acceptable apartments in Madrid (high-rise flats to us). But there's more to it than that - they also have summer residences in Soto, Segova and Alicante. This is not uncommon.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

wel in this instance i am onside with the Rothermere Rag and the Telegraph

stitch up or what?

[Lateralthinking1]

I think the main points I would want to emphasise from the article on numbers are -

740,000 homes currently empty - 25% in London

3,000,000 new homes could be built on current brownfield land -160,000 acres - without any changes to the rules, according to the Homes and Communities Agency

[teamsaint]

There is plenty of land in the UK. Go up in a plane.

People with land want it kept in short supply for the rest of us.

What this country needs is good quality houses for its people.We need good urban environments so that city dwelling for families becomes attractive.
We need one home per family and BIG taxes on second and third homes....including buy to let.

Protecting the land near us is always an issue....I don't want my locality over built either.
Housing should be a right not a privilege.
And i will believe that renting is a really great idea when I see cabinet ministers kids doing it instead of buying.
Lets use urban and brownfield sites ..but if we have to build on fields(which are often next to useless monocultures environmentally speaking)then so be it.

[Serial_Apologist]

What this country needs is good quality houses for its people.We need good urban environments so that city dwelling for families becomes attractive.
We need one home per family and BIG taxes on second and third homes....including buy to let.

Absolutely.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yeah but this is what they will get

[ahinton]

What this country needs is good quality houses for its people.We need good urban environments so that city dwelling for families becomes attractive.
We need one home per family and BIG taxes on second and third homes....including buy to let.

But if buy-to-let gets heavinly taxed, rents will skyrocket as a direct consequence, thereby making housing less affordable for more and more people; is that wise? or even what you'd really advocate?

[eighthobstruction]

At one time wasn't there a Fair Rent Tribunal Panel per Local Authority....????

[teamsaint]

But if buy-to-let gets heavinly taxed, rents will skyrocket as a direct consequence, thereby making housing less affordable for more and more people; is that wise? or even what you'd really advocate?

you are assuming a lot.
long term , the reasons for buy to let thriving are that they are a relatively good bet tax wise, and that the shortage of property means that money is flowing into the sector.
improve the supply of housing, and create a sensible tax regime, and costs of property, both to buy and rent, will fall.

I am against wealthy people owning the property stock and renting it out at a premium to the less well off.
The wealthy always squeal about taxes, even whern their incomes are rocketing while everybody elses are falling.

[Serial_Apologist]

Reading lately of business magnates fessing up that they are prepared to cough up more on the tax front reminds us just what a self-serving clique the British ruling class is, and mostly always has been, with a few notable exceptions, eg. the Cadburys.