The principal concern about growing population numbers is the limited capacity of infrastructure - water, transport, energy, health service, support services etc - particularly in London and the South East. For example, Victoria underground station is closed daily at regular intervals during the rush hour. That is needed so that people are crushed in crowds on the outside of the station rather than falling onto the rails inside it. Frequently it prevents other travellers from being able to leave the mainline station.
On biodiversity, while it is a wonderful thing, and should always be advanced, policy makers need to recognise first and foremost the needs of humans in conservation. Green spaces and unspoilt attractive looking places are almost certainly valued more highly by the public, even if in science terms they are without merit. Psychological health across society is dependent on them.
On housing:
1. Whatever the economists say, I see no automatic correlation between house prices and supply and demand. Both supply and demand varied enormously between 1957 and 1987. House prices rose throughout the period.
2. There are 930,00 empty homes in Britain. 350,000 of them are long term empty. 720,000 of them are in England and a large number of those are in London and the South East of England.
3. In 2007 the shortfall of new homes being built annually (185,000) to new additional annual demand for homes (223,000) was 38,000. The current 930,000 existing empty homes could meet that kind of annual shortfall for 25 years with no new build.
4. Of the homes to be built, Labour's target of 60% at brownfield sites was woefully conservative. The HCA estimated that there are around 64,000 hectares of brownfield land – enough to build over 2 million homes at 35 to the hectare. I believe that the basic permissions for most of that building already exist and have done so for many years.
5. HCA argued that the number of households is set to grow by nearly 6 million by 2033. It concluded that means we have to build at least 5 million homes to meet demand and redress past under-supply, hence that 60%. This doesn't make sense in the context of Fact 2. The Government is notoriously awry in all of its economic projections.
On biodiversity, while it is a wonderful thing, and should always be advanced, policy makers need to recognise first and foremost the needs of humans in conservation. Green spaces and unspoilt attractive looking places are almost certainly valued more highly by the public, even if in science terms they are without merit. Psychological health across society is dependent on them.
On housing:
1. Whatever the economists say, I see no automatic correlation between house prices and supply and demand. Both supply and demand varied enormously between 1957 and 1987. House prices rose throughout the period.
2. There are 930,00 empty homes in Britain. 350,000 of them are long term empty. 720,000 of them are in England and a large number of those are in London and the South East of England.
3. In 2007 the shortfall of new homes being built annually (185,000) to new additional annual demand for homes (223,000) was 38,000. The current 930,000 existing empty homes could meet that kind of annual shortfall for 25 years with no new build.
4. Of the homes to be built, Labour's target of 60% at brownfield sites was woefully conservative. The HCA estimated that there are around 64,000 hectares of brownfield land – enough to build over 2 million homes at 35 to the hectare. I believe that the basic permissions for most of that building already exist and have done so for many years.
5. HCA argued that the number of households is set to grow by nearly 6 million by 2033. It concluded that means we have to build at least 5 million homes to meet demand and redress past under-supply, hence that 60%. This doesn't make sense in the context of Fact 2. The Government is notoriously awry in all of its economic projections.
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