What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
I don't see how you can have a 60 sq meters semi detached house. That's only about 20-25 sq meters of usable space per floor.
Now, 60 sq meters is fine for an apartment/flat, but there you don't lose space to stairs.
"Hamas does not kill civilians on purpose. It focuses on the soldiers. Period."
Yeah, right. That's exactly what we saw a fortnight ago.
And as for hostages: "We will use them to empty the (Israeli) prisons".
This is the sort of person Corbyn was friends with. Someone who is willing to see the entire region explode into violence that could kill millions as long as he gets rid of the Jews.
Corbyn enjoyed a "takeaway dinner" with the person being interviewed.
"Well, frankly it was a normal dinner. We talked about the weather, and how our kids are doing. And how millions of deaths are justified in order to free their lands of the Jews. I was most taken aback by his choice of the chow mein as a starter..."
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
It is.
Deal with the planning issue that adds 1000% to the cost of unplanned land on average, and the problem is solved.
Its been done in countries around the planet.
Getting the state involved in housebuilding is no solution and just further politicises that which needs to be depoliticised. Getting the state to fix the problem blocking housebuilding is a solution.
Agree about loosening up planning. As for the argument in general - your central thrust is strong and not wrong but you simplify and overegg like Malmesbury, so I refer you to my conversation with him, otherwise I'll be typing out almost duplicate posts, which nobody wants to see.
It must be really chastening for Rishi Sunak, who by any odds has had a remarkably successful and lucrative career, to realise he just isn’t any good at this. Oxford. Fulbright Scholar. Goldman Sachs. Chancellor. First Asian-extraction British PM.
And he just can’t do it. Whatever he tries doesn’t work. How do you get up every morning and start work knowing you’re not going to succeed?
I've been harsh on Sunak in the past and I once said he was a man who had never failed at anything or had known defeat. If you go into politics there's a fair chance that will change.
It could be a positive and character building experience for him and remember he's only 43 (Blair's age in 1997). In twenty years time opinions of him could be very different and he might be the respected elder statesman.
The truth is there may be nothing as ex as an ex-MP (as someone once said) but there's really nothing as ex as an ex-PM. Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Truss, Johnson - all still with us, all still able to contribute to the national debte but do they? If they do, does anyone listen or are their past sins thrown back at them and used as an excuse to ignore them?
Nope in 20 years time his screwing round with HS2 will be regarded as a sign of utter incompetency highlighting the reduction of the UK's status as it's seen as incompetent...
One of the very first things I was taught in my economics degree was that knowledge is everything so if a skill set is required retaining that knowledge is very important.
Which means that you should have a continual set of projects going (rail electrification. nuclear power station developments, roads....) so that you aren't starting afresh all the time needing to import foreign expertise because no-one in the UK has done this in x0 years
That works fine when the projects you want to build are both economially viable and necessary. There were lots of programmes that could apply to. HS2 was not one of them and indeed it sucked money away from other more important and useful projects.
It’s possible (reasonable even) to argue that HS2 itself was misconceived from the start. But the fact remains that rail transport in this country, both passenger & freight, would benefit greatly from a N<->S high speed passenger rail line. The other routes are full to capacity - the demand is clearly there.
The underlying problem seems to be that we are completely unable to build projects that are of clear economic benefit at all thanks to a Treasury that cannot see beyond the next budget & a planning system that drives up the cost beyond all reasonable measure. The only way to get HS2 through parliament at all was to turn it into some gold-plated national monument to Britain. It’s no way to run a railway, or an economy for that matter.
A high speed rail project like HS2 should cost something like a third the HS2 budget: the HS2 costs are a symptom of wider problems in the UK economy. Every major infrastructure project spends interminable years trapped in a planning system that not only imposes insane costs all by itself, it drives up the cost of the final project by $billions.
The problem being that we need East/West and intra-region capacity a lot more than we need North/South (which actually just means London to the rest of the country). We could find far more useful and viable projects for every penny of that which was going to be spent on HS2 - whether it was the original £37.5 billion or the pre-abandonment £180 billion.
HS2 was the infrastructure equivalent of that old problem that plagues politics.
We must do something This is something We must do it.
The question you should be asking is not: why HS2? But rather: why is it apparently impossible to build these other projects?
I note in passing that a country which had built these other projects would probably be one that would happily build another north-south train line as the economic advantages would be obvious & unarguable & we would have an economy which could more easily afford the interest costs.
I think the answer to that one is obvius although sad. WHatever they might say, the London-centric politicians simply don't care about the North and don't want to waste money on it. That applied to Labour for years because they thought the North would vote for them anyway and to the Tories because they knew the North would never vote for them. (The Brexit effect being the exception).
The other thing is the absurd costs.
Once a project gets “unique mega project” status, it inevitably gets turned into a football.
HS2 should have been the “National rail investment plan, section 16, project 4”
Absolutely. Korea's rail plan had the concept of a 'half day country' - which means being able to get from any one place to another in half a day - and worked from there.
The construction of their national road network, which started back in the 70s, was similarly consistent.
Of course they make mistakes, encounter problems, and have corruption like everywhere else. But having a consistent, and persistent plan works.
I talked with a councillor a couple of days ago, at a Police-meets-the-locals event.
His reaction to my point about needing continual development to go with a continually growing population was interesting.
He seemed to be trying to call me racist. Because in his mind, there should be no development - some re-development of sites (this is London). But nothing new. So he (at first) assumed I was arguing for zero immigration. Because no-one wants development.
Tbf (and I don't mean with you) this point is frequently used in that way by wily operators of the hard right. The idea is you start with the assumption that people instinctively don't want lots more development in our Green and Pleasant - typically amping this prospect up with a bit of 'new Birmingham every fortnight' type rhetoric - and then you say, well we simply have to do it (build a new Birmingham every fortnight) because of all this immigration we have ('have' here is subliminally 'allow' not 'need'). The desired effect of the conversation (when embarked on in this spirit) is that your audience thinks (although maybe doesn't always say), ah well maybe we should stop letting all these foreigners in then, our country is full, and hey so *that's* why I can't see a GP or get a council house or a place at the nursery etc etc.
Well, if you put pint and half in a pint pot, shit will go sideways.
Buy a bigger fucking pot.
Not sure who I like less - the zero immigration crowd or the "We love immigration. Just not places for immigrants to live, work, sleep"
When I become unDictator, they will be providing shade for the roads. Maybe on opposite sides of the road? Hmmmmmm.....
Yes but let me ask you a searingly honest direct question - seeing as we know each other and so you won't take it the wrong way:
Do you - YOU - genuinely want to see masses of new development happening all over our country? Would you vote for it?
Or is your affection for this line of argument (with the stressed link to immigration) more that it allows you to unsettle those 'love immigration in the abstract' types who annoy you as much as racists do?
I want to build a Birmingham every fucking year. Until everyone has a fucking enormous house. You know, one of those vast mansions where you have one bedroom per adult/child.
As opposed to the arseholes who seem to think that immigration is wonderful as long as they live in barracks on the Latifundium or something.
Ok. Terrific. But your 1st point stands nicely on its own so why that 2nd 'immigration' comment again? It's like you're saying the 1st thing mainly in order to say the 2nd.
That's the sense I get.
It's about choices
1) Immigration and infrastructure increase to match 2) Zero Immigration and no infrastructure increase 3) Immigration and no infrastructure increase
We are doing 3). This won't work. Physically. Reality says no.
1) will work. 2) will work.
The moral and social arguments between 1 and 2 are separate. I prefer 1. Turning the country into Japan is also *possible* - but I don't *want* that.
It is also a fact that as a result of doing 3) we *have* to do the infrastructure to match, or stagger on in a continual edge-of-failure mode.
Quite a lot of Greens claim they want 3) - but I wonder which way they will break when the reality hits.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
There are a few points here. Size - 70sqm is the minimum possible size for a 2 storey house under the technical housing standards. Most family sized houses are more like 90-100 sqm. The build cost calculator you linked to is from a website marketing tradesmans services. A better one is on the website 'build-it' linked to below. But the figure of £1700/£1800 sqm is generally possible in theory in the North. The increase though is exponential with 10 years ago, they have doubled.
Build costs are only technically about building, you still have to resolve other issues, like services, in addition to land. Obviously there are planning payments/contributions as well IE through the community infrastructure levy, but if you remove them, how do you fund for the new roads/motorways?
60-70 sqm is fine for a flat as a starter home, which as we've determined is from less than £90k build costs, including labour. So can you get a 60-70 sqm flat in London or Manchester for not that much more than £90k? Or a 100sqm semi from not much more than £140k?
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
We need to BUILD MORE HIGH QUALITY AND ATTRACTIVE HOUSES WHERE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE. If we just focus on numbers, like we did in the 50s and 60s, we'll just end up with prefab slums, many of which are either barely inhabitable or have to be pulled down in a few decades, and all of which are eyesores. Big developers and government only care about short-term profits and numbers respectively.And if we build them places where nobody wants to live (e.g. much of the North), we'll just attract the dregs and they'll become sink estates.
Whitehall is so captured by the big developers and so contempuous of the people who pay its salaries that this staggeringly obvious solution isn't on the agenda, but it's difficult to see how to fix the housing crisis sustainably and long-term without a big expansion of self-build, from 10% now to the levels seen in France or Germany (60%) or Austria (80%).
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
I don't see how you can have a 60 sq meters semi detached house. That's only about 20-25 sq meters of usable space per floor.
Now, 60 sq meters is fine for an apartment/flat, but there you don't lose space to stairs.
Here is a 50 sqm house - with about 20% of the floor area being lost to stairs.
A one bedroom “house”. I’d call this a granny-flat.
I'd buy it if I could afford it! It's freehold and has a living room separate from the kitchen. You sleep in the living room, lodger in the bedroom, £625pcm from your lodger for 4 nights a week, tax free and short occupancy not affecting your council tax, job's a good-un. I have seen a lot worse.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
If the Tories have any sense they'd do well to listen to this kind of analysis. Mind you, if the Tories had any sense neither they nor the country would be in the absolute state they are now.
Translation: I'd never vote Tory, but I'd like them to align with all my political views, and then lose bigly in the election so my guy can come in, kthxbye.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
It's a bit like tulips. Mad scarcity vs demand and they become a financial instrument. Sufficient supply and they go back to being nice flowers.
These losses that Ukraine claims Russia suffered yesterday are massive. They can probably take the loss of men but how can 120 IFVs and 55 tanks be sustainable? I have a small hope that Russia is making one last throw of the dice in their recent offensives, like the Battle of the Bulge in WW2, but so far they have not achieved anything.
It’s only 300k men and 5,000 tanks, did they think war would be easy?
The discussions of the past few weeks have been that the Russians have been bringing forward an awful lot of men and kit, to either defend existing lines or to push them forward, and that they’re going to keep doing this until winter bogs everything down and they can resupply. The risk is that they end up with nothing behind the front line, and suffer a total collapse of dozens of kilometres of ground in very short order, if the defenders can get past a few strategic minefields and trenches.
Putin's spin on ATACMS sounded pretty desperate. I wouldn't be surprised if they have to make another tactical retreat soon.
ATACMS is a proper game-changer. There’s nowhere in occupied Ukraine that’s safe from them, so ammo dumps and command posts need to be moved back all the way to Russia if they don’t want to get blown up.
There’s good reason that Zelensky was asking for it 18 months ago.
Maybe. But on the other hand it seems as though they've only sent the cluster munition version of ATACMS. So that was great for hitting exposed targets at the airfield outside Berdyansk, but it won't be so good at hitting a hardened ammunition dump or command post that is out of Storm Shadow range...
That is possibly as much to do with funding authorisation as anything else. The cluster munition version is due for disposal, so has little or no (perhaps even negative) book value.
That is quite breathtakingly cynical of the US.
Yes, their daily politics is about the value of stuff sent to Ukraine, but with no discussion about how their valuations are derived.
A bunch of stuff that was going to be scrapped next year anyway, is worth nothing to any company that does accounts. Shipping it to Ukraine costs a few tens of thousands, not tens of billions. So send every ATACMS and HIMARS left in the stocks, we’ve already seen how good they are in theatre in Ukraine.
Yes a bunch of clowns. Claiming the billions they have supposedly spent when in fact most of what they have sent is zero cost as it was to be scrapped and has actually saved them money. They could have really helped the Ukranians a lot more instead of shilly shallowing and dargging out every item. Germany are another lot that take forever to do anything.
"Tamworth and Mid Beds by-election defeats tell us nothing, No 10 insiders claim. Rishi Sunak plans to double down on his political strategy despite a double by-election blow casting doubt on his election plans.
"A source told i: 'What did we learn? Absolutely nothing. Polls show retention at around 60 per cent and minimal switching, which is exactly what happened. There is no great meaning to be taken from it.'"
The 40% who can't be bothered to vote aren't rampant right wingers they are likely to be middle of the road centralist voters who aren't that bothered by SKS winning and Labour being in power from 2024 onwards.
So why on earth are the Tory party seeking right wing voters at the expense of the middle of the road centralist former Tory voter...
Worth remembering that to most people, a crazed political anorak is someone who knows the name of their MP.
To the "normal" people, the mood music is on "The Conservatives are shit" and "Labour are quietly OK".
there's not much that can change that now - certainly not going down weird byways like the woke comedy.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
If the Tories have any sense they'd do well to listen to this kind of analysis. Mind you, if the Tories had any sense neither they nor the country would be in the absolute state they are now.
Translation: I'd never vote Tory, but I'd like them to align with all my political views, and then lose bigly in the election so my guy can come in, kthxbye.
Dude, they're going to lose bigly with their current nonsense. Who are you trying to kid ?
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
If the Tories have any sense they'd do well to listen to this kind of analysis. Mind you, if the Tories had any sense neither they nor the country would be in the absolute state they are now.
Translation: I'd never vote Tory, but I'd like them to align with all my political views, and then lose bigly in the election so my guy can come in, kthxbye.
There is a common feeling of despair among habitual Conservative voters despite 13 years in government. This is curious but I *think* that these voters feel that although their party has long been in government it has not been in power. If that makes any sense?
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
It's all the land. I remember reading somewhere that in the 1930s the land was 2% of the cost of a house, while today it's 60-70% on average. Nor is there any mystery as to why, because when you get planning permission to build on farmland, its value can rise by 1000x. The pricing mechanism is telling us that we desperately need houses, and don't really need farmland, yet for some reason in this country we make building houses fantastically difficult and subsidise and protect virtually useless farmers.
An investigation into the damage to the Balticonnector gas pipeline is currently focused on the role of the Chinese NewNew Polar Bear container vessel, Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said on Friday.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
Not all octopuses are antisemitic, but they can be used in an antisemitic way.
The fact she's put out an apology would suggest she doesn't think it was an unfortunate coincidence.
You really must be pretty stupid if you can say that, having read that she said she "was completely unaware of" the antisemitic interpretation.
But I don't want to make any unwarranted assumptions. Maybe you can't read or something.
Fair enough. I think she should be braver and leave it up in that case.
You're really too thick to understand someone not wanting to offend people, even unintentionally?
I know this is a bit circular, but as @kyf_100 notes, the rest of it was pretty offensive too.
What, specifically, about it was "pretty offensive"?
I mean what in this photo is "pretty offensive", apart from the soft toy?
At first glimpse I did think Metallica had gone all political.
And looking at the clothes the members of the band are wearing, the Nazi references are extremely clear.
And by extension, that clearly makes Greta Thunberg a Nazi too.
I apologise for ever doubting it. I must confess I didn't understand how the new social media logic worked!
Worse than a Nazi, Greta's a hypocrite. She wants us to stand with Gaza but she is sitting down.
Piece of advice about Metallica. Be careful. Or their drummer will come round your house with 10,000 lawyers.
Their litigiousness led to one of one of my bits of schaudenfraude ever, in which their own live stream was replaced by 8 bit elevator music due to DMCA legislation.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
If the Tories have any sense they'd do well to listen to this kind of analysis. Mind you, if the Tories had any sense neither they nor the country would be in the absolute state they are now.
Translation: I'd never vote Tory, but I'd like them to align with all my political views, and then lose bigly in the election so my guy can come in, kthxbye.
There is a common feeling of despair among habitual Conservative voters despite 13 years in government. This is curious but I *think* that these voters feel that although in government their party has not been in power. If that makes any sense?
Which comes down to dangerous conspiracist nonsense to excuse the failures of Conservative government.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
It's all the land. I remember reading somewhere that in the 1930s the land was 2% of the cost of a house, while today it's 60-70% on average. Nor is there any mystery as to why, because when you get planning permission to build on farmland, its value can rise by 1000x. The pricing mechanism is telling us that we desperately need houses, and don't really need farmland, yet for some reason in this country we make building houses fantastically difficult and subsidise and protect virtually useless farmers.
100%
Return land back to circa 2% of the cost of the house and your average house would cost about £100k.
Today's housing costs just make no sense, economically or otherwise.
Who knew you could have a fury wank over a kid's stuffed octopus? Never ever underestimate PB.
Makes you wonder what PB would do if I put a pic of my stuffed koala on.
I really hope that's not a euphemism...
No, it really exists (actually my mum's, dad brouight it back from Oz when in the navy). I do wonder what hidden meanings our Wokehunters would discern in it.
JUST IN: Rishi Sunak's first comments on the pair of by-election defeats. "Obviously disappointing results"
“It’s important to remember the context. Mid-term by-elections are always difficult for incumbent governments and of course there are also local factors at play here"
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
If the Tories have any sense they'd do well to listen to this kind of analysis. Mind you, if the Tories had any sense neither they nor the country would be in the absolute state they are now.
Translation: I'd never vote Tory, but I'd like them to align with all my political views, and then lose bigly in the election so my guy can come in, kthxbye.
Reminds me of the PB Tories of yore, when they wanted the LDs to replace the Labour party while simultaneously agreeing with Tory policies.
Can someone help? Here's a question I've been pondering of late. King Charles III got the III bit because, obviously, there were two kings called Charles before him. But who or what gets to decide who officially counts as a historical monarch or not? For example, it's surely debatable whether Edward V should count as a genuine king, but it's been decided that he was, and there must be other borderline cases throughout history. So what's the official criteria?
We already had a Charles III north of the wall...
And south, certainly in Derby.
There's a surprisingly kind cairn near Swarkestone Bridge / Causeway (itself very special) in memory of Charles Edward Stuart's about turn.
Piccies:
Local Schoolchildren are less kind. No idea about why the actual decision was made:
"Bonnie Prince Charlie came this way And ran away on washing day."
A colleague used to work for a Derby operation - I used to see him at conferences and rib him over a beer on how so unspeakably awful Derby was that CES at the head of an all-conquering blitzkrieg could only take one look and turn back.
I'd call Derby a Curate's Egg - good parts and bad parts. Some truly awful roads, but also Rolls-Royce (1200 new jobs from Aukus, if dodgy Rishi doesn't burn that down as well) and the Peak District corridor.
But they have just put *this* in the middle one of their key strategic cycling and walking routes, so totally in hock to motor-normativity.
A numpty at the Derbyshire County Council Planning Department conditioned the mast with a pathway extension to make it a bit less dangerous, but then accepted a drawing with no dimensions on it so can do bugger all to enforce anything, and something was built that is massively below national standards. Attention to detail totally missing.
Situated on the key Pentagon Island active travel route, Derby’s newest sculptural installation “Middle Finger” provides deep & emotional insight into the true feelings of the council’s planning department towards all those walking, wheeling & cycling in the city. https://twitter.com/tandemkate/status/1710701505064354227
I'm curious what the heck in your mind the relationship is between that idiocy, and what you call as "motor-normativity"?
Do you think they should have built it in the middle of the road instead?
Its got nothing to do with motoring, its got to do with an imbecilic attitude towards investment and maintenance of transportation routes. It should be neither in the footpath, nor the road, it should be to the side of either. Hell I can see grass next to it, it could have gone in. Indeed in that same picture there's not one but two lamp posts, both of which miraculously are neither in the road, nor the footpath, but the grass instead.
Not everything is a matter of motorists vs active travel, in fact really both should be on the same side.
It's OK to put it in a path but not in the middle of the road. That's the entire point.
There is enough room for pedestrians to walk beside the phone mast, and probably wheelchair users too. Cyclists should be in the road imo and not terrorising pedestrians but in any case there is enough space for them too, even if they have to slow down and pass in single file.
It is a show, a blind man would have located it better. Must have been a moron of the highest order that installed that.
(OK, being fair to him is that actually true? It's 3yrs and 10mths since GE2019. Is this technically "mid-term"?)
It might very well be the mid-point of his term as PM given he's been in post since October 2022, and October 2024 is pretty heavily tipped as General Election month.
These losses that Ukraine claims Russia suffered yesterday are massive. They can probably take the loss of men but how can 120 IFVs and 55 tanks be sustainable? I have a small hope that Russia is making one last throw of the dice in their recent offensives, like the Battle of the Bulge in WW2, but so far they have not achieved anything.
It’s only 300k men and 5,000 tanks, did they think war would be easy?
The discussions of the past few weeks have been that the Russians have been bringing forward an awful lot of men and kit, to either defend existing lines or to push them forward, and that they’re going to keep doing this until winter bogs everything down and they can resupply. The risk is that they end up with nothing behind the front line, and suffer a total collapse of dozens of kilometres of ground in very short order, if the defenders can get past a few strategic minefields and trenches.
Putin's spin on ATACMS sounded pretty desperate. I wouldn't be surprised if they have to make another tactical retreat soon.
ATACMS is a proper game-changer. There’s nowhere in occupied Ukraine that’s safe from them, so ammo dumps and command posts need to be moved back all the way to Russia if they don’t want to get blown up.
There’s good reason that Zelensky was asking for it 18 months ago.
Maybe. But on the other hand it seems as though they've only sent the cluster munition version of ATACMS. So that was great for hitting exposed targets at the airfield outside Berdyansk, but it won't be so good at hitting a hardened ammunition dump or command post that is out of Storm Shadow range...
That is possibly as much to do with funding authorisation as anything else. The cluster munition version is due for disposal, so has little or no (perhaps even negative) book value.
That is quite breathtakingly cynical of the US.
Yes, their daily politics is about the value of stuff sent to Ukraine, but with no discussion about how their valuations are derived.
A bunch of stuff that was going to be scrapped next year anyway, is worth nothing to any company that does accounts. Shipping it to Ukraine costs a few tens of thousands, not tens of billions. So send every ATACMS and HIMARS left in the stocks, we’ve already seen how good they are in theatre in Ukraine.
Yes a bunch of clowns. Claiming the billions they have supposedly spent when in fact most of what they have sent is zero cost as it was to be scrapped and has actually saved them money. They could have really helped the Ukranians a lot more instead of shilly shallowing and dargging out every item. Germany are another lot that take forever to do anything.
If so, its possibly a mistake. It's allowing the nutcase MAGA Republicans to zero in the cost as an excuse for pulling support.
JUST IN: Rishi Sunak's first comments on the pair of by-election defeats. "Obviously disappointing results"
“It’s important to remember the context. Mid-term by-elections are always difficult for incumbent governments and of course there are also local factors at play here"
Seems a nigh on certainty Starmer will be the PM after the next GE.
So that'll be 14 years of power for the Tories, having followed 13 years for Labour and prior to that 18 years for the blue team.
So... judging by historic principles the next Tory PM will be back in around 2037 or 8.
I don't think that's necessarily the case.
The long run of Labour government from 1997 to 2010 was mostly down to the popularity of Tony Blair and for most of their run they had a good economy yielding plenty of revenue so they could spend on pubic services and people were quickly able to see the results.
Neither of these factors will be true in the 2024>2029 Parliament.
The Conservatives could get back within one term IMO, but a lot will depend on how they react to being in opposition. If they spin off to the hard right (as Labour ten to spring off to the hard left when they lose powert) they will consign themselves to a decade or more in Opposition.
Depends more on the economy. Thatcher was considered the hard right candidate when she won the leadership in 1975, yet 5 years later because of the poor economy she beat the more centrist Callaghan.
Even if the Tories had elected the centrist Clarke in 1997 Blair would still have been re elected comfortably in 2001 as he and Brown managed the economy relatively well in their first term.
Remember too even Foot and Ed Miliband had poll leads initially despite being the leftwing candidates for the Labour leadership due to the economic situation
I thought Maggie was pretty "centrist" in her early years (advocating EEC membership, etc?)
Thatcher was well right of where Heath had been, certainly on the economy and immigration and even right of where Whitelaw would have been.
She was considered unelectable in 1975
Bullshit. If she had been considered unelectable the Tory MPs would never have voted her leader.
The Old Guard and Wets didn't, they largely voted for Heath and Whitelaw.
It was the party right that got her elected. The media coverage against her initially saw her as unelectable and lightweight and extreme and Callaghan was expected to beat her comfortably
That’s not how I remember it. And I was there.
Thatcher was the most rightwing Tory leader since at least Bonar Law when she was elected, that is just the reality. Few gave her a hope of beating Wilson or then Callaghan when she became leader.
Indeed a year or 2 into her leadership some Tory MPs even wanted to bring back Ted Heath
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
I don't see how you can have a 60 sq meters semi detached house. That's only about 20-25 sq meters of usable space per floor.
Now, 60 sq meters is fine for an apartment/flat, but there you don't lose space to stairs.
An investigation into the damage to the Balticonnector gas pipeline is currently focused on the role of the Chinese NewNew Polar Bear container vessel, Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said on Friday.
That is worrying, if China is joining Russia is sabotaging Western infrastructure.
It’s likely the Tories might head even further to the right if they feel threatened by the Reform Party .
Which means we should expect more hate and division peddling by this cesspit government.
Hopefully they lose more sane Tories and that costs them .
I think having Sunak as leader rather caps the number of Reform voters they can win back.
True but the more Tories lose voters to Reform and stay home, not just Labour or LD, the more the Conservatives will move further right in opposition to try and win them back
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
There are a few points here. Size - 70sqm is the minimum possible size for a 2 storey house under the technical housing standards. Most family sized houses are more like 90-100 sqm. The build cost calculator you linked to is from a website marketing tradesmans services. A better one is on the website 'build-it' linked to below. But the figure of £1700/£1800 sqm is generally possible in theory in the North. The increase though is exponential with 10 years ago, they have doubled.
Build costs are only technically about building, you still have to resolve other issues, like services, in addition to land. Obviously there are planning payments/contributions as well IE through the community infrastructure levy, but if you remove them, how do you fund for the new roads/motorways?
60-70 sqm is fine for a flat as a starter home, which as we've determined is from less than £90k build costs, including labour. So can you get a 60-70 sqm flat in London or Manchester for not that much more than £90k? Or a 100sqm semi from not much more than £140k?
If not, why not?
Could the answer be . . . land + consent?
Another squadron of pigs flew past my window, when will they sedate you. Like a broken record.
In DC, Jim Jordan being nominated for Speaker by . . . wait for it . . . Kevin McCarthy.
This oughta be good . . . in some manner of speak(er)ing.
Remind me of how, in the May 1940 "Norway Debate" in HoC, the closing speech in support of Neville Chamberlain was give by . . . Winston Churchill.
Except that back then, WSC was on the way up . . . whereas KMcC is on the path to . . .
Already lost with plenty of votes to go, and Brian Fitzpatrick confirmed as a further loss by Jordan (as he'd indicated yesterday).
Jordan has lost three more Republicans.
Another episode of Shitshow beckons.
I'm not sure there's a way forward for him with 194 votes on that one, down from 200 and 199 in the first two. McCarthy never dropped below 200 in the 15 votes in his Speaker battle in January. The very aggressive tactics have also clearly deeply upset a group of Republicans. It's hard to see a route, and I wonder if Jordan is gone.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
There are a few points here. Size - 70sqm is the minimum possible size for a 2 storey house under the technical housing standards. Most family sized houses are more like 90-100 sqm. The build cost calculator you linked to is from a website marketing tradesmans services. A better one is on the website 'build-it' linked to below. But the figure of £1700/£1800 sqm is generally possible in theory in the North. The increase though is exponential with 10 years ago, they have doubled.
Build costs are only technically about building, you still have to resolve other issues, like services, in addition to land. Obviously there are planning payments/contributions as well IE through the community infrastructure levy, but if you remove them, how do you fund for the new roads/motorways?
60-70 sqm is fine for a flat as a starter home, which as we've determined is from less than £90k build costs, including labour. So can you get a 60-70 sqm flat in London or Manchester for not that much more than £90k? Or a 100sqm semi from not much more than £140k?
If not, why not?
Could the answer be . . . land + consent?
Another squadron of pigs flew past my window, when will they sedate you. Like a broken record.
There is no reason other than politics for our current housing crisis or insane housing prices.
So its entirely apt for a political discussion.
Worth noting that at that price level house to income ratios would return back to what they were . . . in the 1990s. Not exactly a century ago.
In DC, Jim Jordan being nominated for Speaker by . . . wait for it . . . Kevin McCarthy.
This oughta be good . . . in some manner of speak(er)ing.
Remind me of how, in the May 1940 "Norway Debate" in HoC, the closing speech in support of Neville Chamberlain was give by . . . Winston Churchill.
Except that back then, WSC was on the way up . . . whereas KMcC is on the path to . . .
McCarthy knows that Jordan will not be elected Speaker, and is therefore sensibly burnishing his conservative credentials by nominating him. If Jordan continues to lose votes, then the (eventually) the Republicans will be forced to look for a compromise candidate who with the impeccable credentials of having backed Jordan.
Step forward Kevin McCarthy.
At least, that I think is McCarthy's plan.
Agree with the burnishing part, no so much with the step forward bit.
Most interesting number from today vote = 6 = number of GOPers who voted for Patrick McHenry (aka KMcC's Mini-Me).
Which (I think) which I think is a signal in favor of making him Acting Speaker, so that House can actually do something other than sit around waiting for yet another performance of the Rabid Squirrel Flying Circus.
JUST IN: Rishi Sunak's first comments on the pair of by-election defeats. "Obviously disappointing results"
“It’s important to remember the context. Mid-term by-elections are always difficult for incumbent governments and of course there are also local factors at play here"
What else can he say? He's the biggest serial loser in British politics since Gordon Brown and his "response" is very Brownian...
In DC, Jim Jordan being nominated for Speaker by . . . wait for it . . . Kevin McCarthy.
This oughta be good . . . in some manner of speak(er)ing.
Remind me of how, in the May 1940 "Norway Debate" in HoC, the closing speech in support of Neville Chamberlain was give by . . . Winston Churchill.
Except that back then, WSC was on the way up . . . whereas KMcC is on the path to . . .
Already lost with plenty of votes to go, and Brian Fitzpatrick confirmed as a further loss by Jordan (as he'd indicated yesterday).
Jordan has lost three more Republicans.
Another episode of Shitshow beckons.
I'm not sure there's a way forward for him with 194 votes on that one, down from 200 and 199 in the first two. McCarthy never dropped below 200 in the 15 votes in his Speaker battle in January. The very aggressive tactics have also clearly deeply upset a group of Republicans. It's hard to see a route, and I wonder if Jordan is gone.
Jim Jordan (aka Coach Jockstrap) is a WRECKER impure & simple, that's what his entire political career is all about.
Don't bet on him folding his toxic tent anytime soon . . . unless you get VERY good odds, or it some kind of fancy spread betting thing.
In DC, Jim Jordan being nominated for Speaker by . . . wait for it . . . Kevin McCarthy.
This oughta be good . . . in some manner of speak(er)ing.
Remind me of how, in the May 1940 "Norway Debate" in HoC, the closing speech in support of Neville Chamberlain was give by . . . Winston Churchill.
Except that back then, WSC was on the way up . . . whereas KMcC is on the path to . . .
Already lost with plenty of votes to go, and Brian Fitzpatrick confirmed as a further loss by Jordan (as he'd indicated yesterday).
Jordan has lost three more Republicans.
Another episode of Shitshow beckons.
I'm not sure there's a way forward for him with 194 votes on that one, down from 200 and 199 in the first two. McCarthy never dropped below 200 in the 15 votes in his Speaker battle in January. The very aggressive tactics have also clearly deeply upset a group of Republicans. It's hard to see a route, and I wonder if Jordan is gone.
Seems a nigh on certainty Starmer will be the PM after the next GE.
So that'll be 14 years of power for the Tories, having followed 13 years for Labour and prior to that 18 years for the blue team.
So... judging by historic principles the next Tory PM will be back in around 2037 or 8.
I don't think that's necessarily the case.
The long run of Labour government from 1997 to 2010 was mostly down to the popularity of Tony Blair and for most of their run they had a good economy yielding plenty of revenue so they could spend on pubic services and people were quickly able to see the results.
Neither of these factors will be true in the 2024>2029 Parliament.
The Conservatives could get back within one term IMO, but a lot will depend on how they react to being in opposition. If they spin off to the hard right (as Labour ten to spring off to the hard left when they lose powert) they will consign themselves to a decade or more in Opposition.
Depends more on the economy. Thatcher was considered the hard right candidate when she won the leadership in 1975, yet 5 years later because of the poor economy she beat the more centrist Callaghan.
Even if the Tories had elected the centrist Clarke in 1997 Blair would still have been re elected comfortably in 2001 as he and Brown managed the economy relatively well in their first term.
Remember too even Foot and Ed Miliband had poll leads initially despite being the leftwing candidates for the Labour leadership due to the economic situation
I thought Maggie was pretty "centrist" in her early years (advocating EEC membership, etc?)
Thatcher was well right of where Heath had been, certainly on the economy and immigration and even right of where Whitelaw would have been.
She was considered unelectable in 1975
Bullshit. If she had been considered unelectable the Tory MPs would never have voted her leader.
The Old Guard and Wets didn't, they largely voted for Heath and Whitelaw.
It was the party right that got her elected. The media coverage against her initially saw her as unelectable and lightweight and extreme and Callaghan was expected to beat her comfortably
That’s not how I remember it. And I was there.
Thatcher was the most rightwing Tory leader since at least Bonar Law when she was elected, that is just the reality. Few gave her a hope of beating Wilson or then Callaghan when she became leader.
Indeed a year or 2 into her leadership some Tory MPs even wanted to bring back Ted Heath
I can remember that there was a sense that Labour were doing OK under Callaghan who seemed experienced and reassuring. The Winter of Discontent did for that, and for him. Nothing inevitable at all about Mrs T winning in 79. The hubris of the unions is wot won it.
It must be really chastening for Rishi Sunak, who by any odds has had a remarkably successful and lucrative career, to realise he just isn’t any good at this. Oxford. Fulbright Scholar. Goldman Sachs. Chancellor. First Asian-extraction British PM.
And he just can’t do it. Whatever he tries doesn’t work. How do you get up every morning and start work knowing you’re not going to succeed?
I've been harsh on Sunak in the past and I once said he was a man who had never failed at anything or had known defeat. If you go into politics there's a fair chance that will change.
It could be a positive and character building experience for him and remember he's only 43 (Blair's age in 1997). In twenty years time opinions of him could be very different and he might be the respected elder statesman.
The truth is there may be nothing as ex as an ex-MP (as someone once said) but there's really nothing as ex as an ex-PM. Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Truss, Johnson - all still with us, all still able to contribute to the national debte but do they? If they do, does anyone listen or are their past sins thrown back at them and used as an excuse to ignore them?
Nope in 20 years time his screwing round with HS2 will be regarded as a sign of utter incompetency highlighting the reduction of the UK's status as it's seen as incompetent...
One of the very first things I was taught in my economics degree was that knowledge is everything so if a skill set is required retaining that knowledge is very important.
Which means that you should have a continual set of projects going (rail electrification. nuclear power station developments, roads....) so that you aren't starting afresh all the time needing to import foreign expertise because no-one in the UK has done this in x0 years
That works fine when the projects you want to build are both economially viable and necessary. There were lots of programmes that could apply to. HS2 was not one of them and indeed it sucked money away from other more important and useful projects.
It’s possible (reasonable even) to argue that HS2 itself was misconceived from the start. But the fact remains that rail transport in this country, both passenger & freight, would benefit greatly from a N<->S high speed passenger rail line. The other routes are full to capacity - the demand is clearly there.
The underlying problem seems to be that we are completely unable to build projects that are of clear economic benefit at all thanks to a Treasury that cannot see beyond the next budget & a planning system that drives up the cost beyond all reasonable measure. The only way to get HS2 through parliament at all was to turn it into some gold-plated national monument to Britain. It’s no way to run a railway, or an economy for that matter.
A high speed rail project like HS2 should cost something like a third the HS2 budget: the HS2 costs are a symptom of wider problems in the UK economy. Every major infrastructure project spends interminable years trapped in a planning system that not only imposes insane costs all by itself, it drives up the cost of the final project by $billions.
The problem being that we need East/West and intra-region capacity a lot more than we need North/South (which actually just means London to the rest of the country). We could find far more useful and viable projects for every penny of that which was going to be spent on HS2 - whether it was the original £37.5 billion or the pre-abandonment £180 billion.
HS2 was the infrastructure equivalent of that old problem that plagues politics.
We must do something This is something We must do it.
Shouldn't have been an either/or! If the UK properly cracked down on the benefit scrounging pensioners (if you want to be voluntarily unemployed fine, but the state shouldn't pay for it) and put the state pension back to 19/20 levels we'd be able to build a new Crossrail every year with the savings.
Just shows where the Tories have gone wrong this parliament - prioritised benefits for the bone idle boomers over capital spending.
Even if it wasn't an either/or it was/is still an unecessary white elephant finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems.
"finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems"
LOL. You keep on saying that, and it gives me a good laugh. Thanks.
If high-speed rail is "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", then why are most major economies in the world (aside from the USA) investing heavily in it? What do you know that they don't?
The pandemic hurt railway usage; but the rebound has been quite staggering. And working from home or telecommuting has not hurt it as much as I feared either. AIUI, long-distance travel is actually up since the end of the pandemic.
Because they are much larger countries where it makes a difference. I am all in favour of a huge expansion in railcapacity but it should not be the High Speed white elephant and it should not be all focused on London. Build more lines going where people want and need to go - more cross country and intra-region. Build more lines suitable for frieght and get stuff off the roads.
That's a different argument, and one I think is also wrong. But it has zero bearing on stupid phrases like "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", that you are so attached to. HSR is not yesterday's solution, and it is very much trying to help this century's problems in every country where it is built.
"Build more lines going where people want and need to go"
The capacity problem on the southern WCML show that's exactly where people want and need to go. Now, that does not mean I'm against other projects such as NPR or EWR - quite the opposite. We should build them all as part of an integrated network.
"Your desperate attachment to HS2 is illogical and damaging to the economy. "
As if my belief that HS2 is a good idea has any influence! But if you extend that honour to me, I shall do the same to you: your irrational dislike of the project is irrational and hurts the country.
And as for your utter devotion to Brexit over decades - that's hurt the country, financially, politically and economically, orders of magnitude more than any infrastructure project.
Yeah, you just keep believing that. You have consistently ignored the arguments against the economic benefits of HS rail because they don't fit your pre-conceived ideas so I certainly don't expect you to change now. Just like you never changed when you kept denying the massive projected cost increases even when it becaume obvious that they themselves were huge underestinates. I well remember you scorning the idea that costs for it could get anywhere near £85 billion. That seems positively cheap now compared to the final projected costs for the whole thing.
The only good thing out of all of this is that we have finally broken the narrative which was forcing us down the road of a ridiculously expensive waste of money. One thing (perhaps the only one) that I can praise Sunak for. It is just a shame he didn't do it sooner and cancel the whole thing.
I constantly ignore the arguments on the economic benefits of HS rail, as you put it, because many of them are rubbish, pulled out of various anti's odorous posteriors.
Again, if the economic benefits of HS rail are so poor, as you think, then why is every major country, bar the US, building them? What do you know that they do not?
Also remember that the WCML Upgrade of the early 2000s was delivered years late after massive disruption, under-specification (*) and ten times over budget.
(*) No new signalling system and no 140MPH running
LOL. I never knew the OECD was oderous anti. Nor the EU. Both of whom have produced reports showing that HS rail systems in France such as the TGV Mediterranean had little to no impact on overalll GDP and certainly nothing recordable for the region itself.
And just to remind you that you were the one pouring your normal scorn on the £85 billion cost projection a couple of years ago - which is now considered to be an underextomate even by the most ardent advocates of the programme.
Why should we trust you on this when you have been so consistently wrong?
JUST IN: Rishi Sunak's first comments on the pair of by-election defeats. "Obviously disappointing results"
“It’s important to remember the context. Mid-term by-elections are always difficult for incumbent governments and of course there are also local factors at play here"
What else can he say? He's the biggest serial loser in British politics since Gordon Brown and his "response" is very Brownian...
Well we are 13 years into a Tory government as Brown was 13 years into a Labour government in 2010, the only other time a government got under 30% this century (as polls suggest Sunak's will).
Sunak has more money in retirement however than Gordon did
NYT live blog - The eight Republicans led by Matt Gaetz of Florida who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker have sent a letter to their colleagues saying they are willing to accept some form of punishment if that will move holdouts to vote in favor of Jim Jordan.
SSI - likely reply from their colleagues (I paraphase) - Go eat (more) shit and bark at the moon!
Seems a nigh on certainty Starmer will be the PM after the next GE.
So that'll be 14 years of power for the Tories, having followed 13 years for Labour and prior to that 18 years for the blue team.
So... judging by historic principles the next Tory PM will be back in around 2037 or 8.
I don't think that's necessarily the case.
The long run of Labour government from 1997 to 2010 was mostly down to the popularity of Tony Blair and for most of their run they had a good economy yielding plenty of revenue so they could spend on pubic services and people were quickly able to see the results.
Neither of these factors will be true in the 2024>2029 Parliament.
The Conservatives could get back within one term IMO, but a lot will depend on how they react to being in opposition. If they spin off to the hard right (as Labour ten to spring off to the hard left when they lose powert) they will consign themselves to a decade or more in Opposition.
Depends more on the economy. Thatcher was considered the hard right candidate when she won the leadership in 1975, yet 5 years later because of the poor economy she beat the more centrist Callaghan.
Even if the Tories had elected the centrist Clarke in 1997 Blair would still have been re elected comfortably in 2001 as he and Brown managed the economy relatively well in their first term.
Remember too even Foot and Ed Miliband had poll leads initially despite being the leftwing candidates for the Labour leadership due to the economic situation
I thought Maggie was pretty "centrist" in her early years (advocating EEC membership, etc?)
Thatcher was well right of where Heath had been, certainly on the economy and immigration and even right of where Whitelaw would have been.
She was considered unelectable in 1975
Bullshit. If she had been considered unelectable the Tory MPs would never have voted her leader.
The Old Guard and Wets didn't, they largely voted for Heath and Whitelaw.
It was the party right that got her elected. The media coverage against her initially saw her as unelectable and lightweight and extreme and Callaghan was expected to beat her comfortably
That’s not how I remember it. And I was there.
Thatcher was the most rightwing Tory leader since at least Bonar Law when she was elected, that is just the reality. Few gave her a hope of beating Wilson or then Callaghan when she became leader.
Indeed a year or 2 into her leadership some Tory MPs even wanted to bring back Ted Heath
I can remember that there was a sense that Labour were doing OK under Callaghan who seemed experienced and reassuring. The Winter of Discontent did for that, and for him. Nothing inevitable at all about Mrs T winning in 79. The hubris of the unions is wot won it.
In hindsight, it is easy to believe the Unions were doing it on purpose.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
We need to BUILD MORE HIGH QUALITY AND ATTRACTIVE HOUSES WHERE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE. If we just focus on numbers, like we did in the 50s and 60s, we'll just end up with prefab slums, many of which are either barely inhabitable or have to be pulled down in a few decades, and all of which are eyesores. Big developers and government only care about short-term profits and numbers respectively.And if we build them places where nobody wants to live (e.g. much of the North), we'll just attract the dregs and they'll become sink estates.
Whitehall is so captured by the big developers and so contempuous of the people who pay its salaries that this staggeringly obvious solution isn't on the agenda, but it's difficult to see how to fix the housing crisis sustainably and long-term without a big expansion of self-build, from 10% now to the levels seen in France or Germany (60%) or Austria (80%).
35 years ago, just under 40% of all new houses were built by SME housebuilders. Now that figure is 10%. A major issue is that the red tape surrounding the whole process is so gargantuan and expensive that only the largest housebuilders can cope. Planning only forms one part of this, and focussing on this alone will not solve the overriding issue.
Large housebuilders will focus only on very large developments (where numbers of units are in their 100s), and, yes, sure, these sort of plots are becoming harder to find. But there are massive numbers of smaller plots (where, say, 20-50 houses could be built) that SMEs could buy, obtain planning and develop, were it made viable for them to do so.
The biggest thing a government can do is to make it an attractive option for people to set up small housebuilding companies, and make it easier for current SMEs to cope with the ever burgeoning regulations. Get that ratio between large/small housebuilders back up from 90/10 to 75/25 Sadly, I don't see either main party remotely grasping this, and suspect it'll only get worse.
It must be really chastening for Rishi Sunak, who by any odds has had a remarkably successful and lucrative career, to realise he just isn’t any good at this. Oxford. Fulbright Scholar. Goldman Sachs. Chancellor. First Asian-extraction British PM.
And he just can’t do it. Whatever he tries doesn’t work. How do you get up every morning and start work knowing you’re not going to succeed?
I've been harsh on Sunak in the past and I once said he was a man who had never failed at anything or had known defeat. If you go into politics there's a fair chance that will change.
It could be a positive and character building experience for him and remember he's only 43 (Blair's age in 1997). In twenty years time opinions of him could be very different and he might be the respected elder statesman.
The truth is there may be nothing as ex as an ex-MP (as someone once said) but there's really nothing as ex as an ex-PM. Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Truss, Johnson - all still with us, all still able to contribute to the national debte but do they? If they do, does anyone listen or are their past sins thrown back at them and used as an excuse to ignore them?
Nope in 20 years time his screwing round with HS2 will be regarded as a sign of utter incompetency highlighting the reduction of the UK's status as it's seen as incompetent...
One of the very first things I was taught in my economics degree was that knowledge is everything so if a skill set is required retaining that knowledge is very important.
Which means that you should have a continual set of projects going (rail electrification. nuclear power station developments, roads....) so that you aren't starting afresh all the time needing to import foreign expertise because no-one in the UK has done this in x0 years
That works fine when the projects you want to build are both economially viable and necessary. There were lots of programmes that could apply to. HS2 was not one of them and indeed it sucked money away from other more important and useful projects.
It’s possible (reasonable even) to argue that HS2 itself was misconceived from the start. But the fact remains that rail transport in this country, both passenger & freight, would benefit greatly from a N<->S high speed passenger rail line. The other routes are full to capacity - the demand is clearly there.
The underlying problem seems to be that we are completely unable to build projects that are of clear economic benefit at all thanks to a Treasury that cannot see beyond the next budget & a planning system that drives up the cost beyond all reasonable measure. The only way to get HS2 through parliament at all was to turn it into some gold-plated national monument to Britain. It’s no way to run a railway, or an economy for that matter.
A high speed rail project like HS2 should cost something like a third the HS2 budget: the HS2 costs are a symptom of wider problems in the UK economy. Every major infrastructure project spends interminable years trapped in a planning system that not only imposes insane costs all by itself, it drives up the cost of the final project by $billions.
The problem being that we need East/West and intra-region capacity a lot more than we need North/South (which actually just means London to the rest of the country). We could find far more useful and viable projects for every penny of that which was going to be spent on HS2 - whether it was the original £37.5 billion or the pre-abandonment £180 billion.
HS2 was the infrastructure equivalent of that old problem that plagues politics.
We must do something This is something We must do it.
Shouldn't have been an either/or! If the UK properly cracked down on the benefit scrounging pensioners (if you want to be voluntarily unemployed fine, but the state shouldn't pay for it) and put the state pension back to 19/20 levels we'd be able to build a new Crossrail every year with the savings.
Just shows where the Tories have gone wrong this parliament - prioritised benefits for the bone idle boomers over capital spending.
Even if it wasn't an either/or it was/is still an unecessary white elephant finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems.
"finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems"
LOL. You keep on saying that, and it gives me a good laugh. Thanks.
If high-speed rail is "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", then why are most major economies in the world (aside from the USA) investing heavily in it? What do you know that they don't?
The pandemic hurt railway usage; but the rebound has been quite staggering. And working from home or telecommuting has not hurt it as much as I feared either. AIUI, long-distance travel is actually up since the end of the pandemic.
Because they are much larger countries where it makes a difference. I am all in favour of a huge expansion in railcapacity but it should not be the High Speed white elephant and it should not be all focused on London. Build more lines going where people want and need to go - more cross country and intra-region. Build more lines suitable for frieght and get stuff off the roads.
That's a different argument, and one I think is also wrong. But it has zero bearing on stupid phrases like "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", that you are so attached to. HSR is not yesterday's solution, and it is very much trying to help this century's problems in every country where it is built.
"Build more lines going where people want and need to go"
The capacity problem on the southern WCML show that's exactly where people want and need to go. Now, that does not mean I'm against other projects such as NPR or EWR - quite the opposite. We should build them all as part of an integrated network.
"Your desperate attachment to HS2 is illogical and damaging to the economy. "
As if my belief that HS2 is a good idea has any influence! But if you extend that honour to me, I shall do the same to you: your irrational dislike of the project is irrational and hurts the country.
And as for your utter devotion to Brexit over decades - that's hurt the country, financially, politically and economically, orders of magnitude more than any infrastructure project.
Yeah, you just keep believing that. You have consistently ignored the arguments against the economic benefits of HS rail because they don't fit your pre-conceived ideas so I certainly don't expect you to change now. Just like you never changed when you kept denying the massive projected cost increases even when it becaume obvious that they themselves were huge underestinates. I well remember you scorning the idea that costs for it could get anywhere near £85 billion. That seems positively cheap now compared to the final projected costs for the whole thing.
The only good thing out of all of this is that we have finally broken the narrative which was forcing us down the road of a ridiculously expensive waste of money. One thing (perhaps the only one) that I can praise Sunak for. It is just a shame he didn't do it sooner and cancel the whole thing.
I constantly ignore the arguments on the economic benefits of HS rail, as you put it, because many of them are rubbish, pulled out of various anti's odorous posteriors.
Again, if the economic benefits of HS rail are so poor, as you think, then why is every major country, bar the US, building them? What do you know that they do not?
Also remember that the WCML Upgrade of the early 2000s was delivered years late after massive disruption, under-specification (*) and ten times over budget.
(*) No new signalling system and no 140MPH running
LOL. I never knew the OECD was oderous anti. Nor the EU. Both of whom have produced reports showing that HS rail systems in France such as the TGV Mediterranean had little to no impact on overalll GDP and certainly nothing recordable for the region itself.
And just to remind you that you were the one pouring your normal scorn on the £85 billion cost projection a couple of years ago - which is now considered to be an underextomate even by the most ardent advocates of the programme.
Why should we trust you on this when you have been so consistently wrong?
Um I love to know where you are getting your figures from because HS2 costs haven't actually increased. Most people who understand the finances of the project know that Rishi is playing incredibly fast and loose with the finances to justify cancelling HS2.
I really did think you were far more intelligent and far less likely to be taken in than your posts today on HS2 have shown....
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
We need to BUILD MORE HIGH QUALITY AND ATTRACTIVE HOUSES WHERE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE. If we just focus on numbers, like we did in the 50s and 60s, we'll just end up with prefab slums, many of which are either barely inhabitable or have to be pulled down in a few decades, and all of which are eyesores. Big developers and government only care about short-term profits and numbers respectively.And if we build them places where nobody wants to live (e.g. much of the North), we'll just attract the dregs and they'll become sink estates.
Whitehall is so captured by the big developers and so contempuous of the people who pay its salaries that this staggeringly obvious solution isn't on the agenda, but it's difficult to see how to fix the housing crisis sustainably and long-term without a big expansion of self-build, from 10% now to the levels seen in France or Germany (60%) or Austria (80%).
35 years ago, just under 40% of all new houses were built by SME housebuilders. Now that figure is 10%. A major issue is that the red tape surrounding the whole process is so gargantuan and expensive that only the largest housebuilders can cope. Planning only forms one part of this, and focussing on this alone will not solve the overriding issue.
Large housebuilders will focus only on very large developments (where numbers of units are in their 100s), and, yes, sure, these sort of plots are becoming harder to find. But there are massive numbers of smaller plots (where, say, 20-50 houses could be built) that SMEs could buy, obtain planning and develop, were it made viable for them to do so.
The biggest thing a government can do is to make it an attractive option for people to set up small housebuilding companies, and make it easier for current SMEs to cope with the ever burgeoning regulations. Get that ratio between large/small housebuilders back up from 90/10 to 75/25 Sadly, I don't see either main party remotely grasping this, and suspect it'll only get worse.
In other countries houses aren't built (or more importantly rebuilt) 20-50 at a time, or 100+ at a time, but more 1 at a time.
Which means houses are built for those who want them, to their specs and cost, where they want them, not for the demands of others.
Seems a nigh on certainty Starmer will be the PM after the next GE.
So that'll be 14 years of power for the Tories, having followed 13 years for Labour and prior to that 18 years for the blue team.
So... judging by historic principles the next Tory PM will be back in around 2037 or 8.
I don't think that's necessarily the case.
The long run of Labour government from 1997 to 2010 was mostly down to the popularity of Tony Blair and for most of their run they had a good economy yielding plenty of revenue so they could spend on pubic services and people were quickly able to see the results.
Neither of these factors will be true in the 2024>2029 Parliament.
The Conservatives could get back within one term IMO, but a lot will depend on how they react to being in opposition. If they spin off to the hard right (as Labour ten to spring off to the hard left when they lose powert) they will consign themselves to a decade or more in Opposition.
Depends more on the economy. Thatcher was considered the hard right candidate when she won the leadership in 1975, yet 5 years later because of the poor economy she beat the more centrist Callaghan.
Even if the Tories had elected the centrist Clarke in 1997 Blair would still have been re elected comfortably in 2001 as he and Brown managed the economy relatively well in their first term.
Remember too even Foot and Ed Miliband had poll leads initially despite being the leftwing candidates for the Labour leadership due to the economic situation
I thought Maggie was pretty "centrist" in her early years (advocating EEC membership, etc?)
Thatcher was well right of where Heath had been, certainly on the economy and immigration and even right of where Whitelaw would have been.
She was considered unelectable in 1975
Bullshit. If she had been considered unelectable the Tory MPs would never have voted her leader.
The Old Guard and Wets didn't, they largely voted for Heath and Whitelaw.
It was the party right that got her elected. The media coverage against her initially saw her as unelectable and lightweight and extreme and Callaghan was expected to beat her comfortably
That’s not how I remember it. And I was there.
Thatcher was the most rightwing Tory leader since at least Bonar Law when she was elected, that is just the reality. Few gave her a hope of beating Wilson or then Callaghan when she became leader.
Indeed a year or 2 into her leadership some Tory MPs even wanted to bring back Ted Heath
I can remember that there was a sense that Labour were doing OK under Callaghan who seemed experienced and reassuring. The Winter of Discontent did for that, and for him. Nothing inevitable at all about Mrs T winning in 79. The hubris of the unions is wot won it.
In hindsight, it is easy to believe the Unions were doing it on purpose.
There was a major breakdown in relations. The whole point of Callaghan was that he was close to the unions and would bring industrial peace. He was the one who torpedoed In Place of Strife, of course. And the country was bruised after the Three Day Week under the previous Tory Govt. The Winter of Discontent completely did for that. What was the point of Labour now?
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
We need to BUILD MORE HIGH QUALITY AND ATTRACTIVE HOUSES WHERE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE. If we just focus on numbers, like we did in the 50s and 60s, we'll just end up with prefab slums, many of which are either barely inhabitable or have to be pulled down in a few decades, and all of which are eyesores. Big developers and government only care about short-term profits and numbers respectively.And if we build them places where nobody wants to live (e.g. much of the North), we'll just attract the dregs and they'll become sink estates.
Whitehall is so captured by the big developers and so contempuous of the people who pay its salaries that this staggeringly obvious solution isn't on the agenda, but it's difficult to see how to fix the housing crisis sustainably and long-term without a big expansion of self-build, from 10% now to the levels seen in France or Germany (60%) or Austria (80%).
35 years ago, just under 40% of all new houses were built by SME housebuilders. Now that figure is 10%. A major issue is that the red tape surrounding the whole process is so gargantuan and expensive that only the largest housebuilders can cope. Planning only forms one part of this, and focussing on this alone will not solve the overriding issue.
Large housebuilders will focus only on very large developments (where numbers of units are in their 100s), and, yes, sure, these sort of plots are becoming harder to find. But there are massive numbers of smaller plots (where, say, 20-50 houses could be built) that SMEs could buy, obtain planning and develop, were it made viable for them to do so.
The biggest thing a government can do is to make it an attractive option for people to set up small housebuilding companies, and make it easier for current SMEs to cope with the ever burgeoning regulations. Get that ratio between large/small housebuilders back up from 90/10 to 75/25 Sadly, I don't see either main party remotely grasping this, and suspect it'll only get worse.
I saw this below the other day and it looked like the sort of cul de sac development that would hopefully be acceptable on the edge of villages in nice country areas to assuage the horror of nimby objectors. I like the way each house is oriented to have a view without seeming to be on top of the other houses but nice use of natural stone whilst also having a low profile but lots of natural light.
As you know, several famous film directors are in their late-period and their latest/upcoming film may be their last. Spielberg underperformed with The Fabelmans, Ridley Scott may I think drop a big huge steaming fetid one with Napoleon, Michael Mann could go either way with Ferrari, but Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon is out and the reviews, whilst not stellar, are good. I can breathe out a little bit.
JUST IN: Rishi Sunak's first comments on the pair of by-election defeats. "Obviously disappointing results"
“It’s important to remember the context. Mid-term by-elections are always difficult for incumbent governments and of course there are also local factors at play here"
What else can he say? He's the biggest serial loser in British politics since Gordon Brown and his "response" is very Brownian...
Well we are 13 years into a Tory government as Brown was 13 years into a Labour government in 2010, the only other time a government got under 30% this century (as polls suggest Sunak's will).
Sunak has more money in retirement however than Gordon did
Indeed only 3 UK PMs in British history have seen their party fall below 30% when losing power at a general election.
Brown's in 2010 and Wellington's in 1832 (and arguably Lloyd George's in 1922). Looks like Sunak may make it a 4th.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
We need to BUILD MORE HIGH QUALITY AND ATTRACTIVE HOUSES WHERE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE. If we just focus on numbers, like we did in the 50s and 60s, we'll just end up with prefab slums, many of which are either barely inhabitable or have to be pulled down in a few decades, and all of which are eyesores. Big developers and government only care about short-term profits and numbers respectively.And if we build them places where nobody wants to live (e.g. much of the North), we'll just attract the dregs and they'll become sink estates.
Whitehall is so captured by the big developers and so contempuous of the people who pay its salaries that this staggeringly obvious solution isn't on the agenda, but it's difficult to see how to fix the housing crisis sustainably and long-term without a big expansion of self-build, from 10% now to the levels seen in France or Germany (60%) or Austria (80%).
35 years ago, just under 40% of all new houses were built by SME housebuilders. Now that figure is 10%. A major issue is that the red tape surrounding the whole process is so gargantuan and expensive that only the largest housebuilders can cope. Planning only forms one part of this, and focussing on this alone will not solve the overriding issue.
Large housebuilders will focus only on very large developments (where numbers of units are in their 100s), and, yes, sure, these sort of plots are becoming harder to find. But there are massive numbers of smaller plots (where, say, 20-50 houses could be built) that SMEs could buy, obtain planning and develop, were it made viable for them to do so.
The biggest thing a government can do is to make it an attractive option for people to set up small housebuilding companies, and make it easier for current SMEs to cope with the ever burgeoning regulations. Get that ratio between large/small housebuilders back up from 90/10 to 75/25 Sadly, I don't see either main party remotely grasping this, and suspect it'll only get worse.
In other countries houses aren't built (or more importantly rebuilt) 20-50 at a time, or 100+ at a time, but more 1 at a time.
Which means houses are built for those who want them, to their specs and cost, where they want them, not for the demands of others.
Don't disagree Bart, but this is a long term aim when there needs to be a short term fix as well. It's going to be much easier to get 1500 SMEs to build an extra 100 houses each per year than find 150,000 people a year from a stanidng start. It'll take decades, so - while it's absolutely a long term plan worthy of consideration - we also need a short term fix. Empowering SMEs offers that, and if the process becomes easier for SMEs, it'll also become easier for individuals.
It must be really chastening for Rishi Sunak, who by any odds has had a remarkably successful and lucrative career, to realise he just isn’t any good at this. Oxford. Fulbright Scholar. Goldman Sachs. Chancellor. First Asian-extraction British PM.
And he just can’t do it. Whatever he tries doesn’t work. How do you get up every morning and start work knowing you’re not going to succeed?
I've been harsh on Sunak in the past and I once said he was a man who had never failed at anything or had known defeat. If you go into politics there's a fair chance that will change.
It could be a positive and character building experience for him and remember he's only 43 (Blair's age in 1997). In twenty years time opinions of him could be very different and he might be the respected elder statesman.
The truth is there may be nothing as ex as an ex-MP (as someone once said) but there's really nothing as ex as an ex-PM. Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Truss, Johnson - all still with us, all still able to contribute to the national debte but do they? If they do, does anyone listen or are their past sins thrown back at them and used as an excuse to ignore them?
Nope in 20 years time his screwing round with HS2 will be regarded as a sign of utter incompetency highlighting the reduction of the UK's status as it's seen as incompetent...
One of the very first things I was taught in my economics degree was that knowledge is everything so if a skill set is required retaining that knowledge is very important.
Which means that you should have a continual set of projects going (rail electrification. nuclear power station developments, roads....) so that you aren't starting afresh all the time needing to import foreign expertise because no-one in the UK has done this in x0 years
That works fine when the projects you want to build are both economially viable and necessary. There were lots of programmes that could apply to. HS2 was not one of them and indeed it sucked money away from other more important and useful projects.
It’s possible (reasonable even) to argue that HS2 itself was misconceived from the start. But the fact remains that rail transport in this country, both passenger & freight, would benefit greatly from a N<->S high speed passenger rail line. The other routes are full to capacity - the demand is clearly there.
The underlying problem seems to be that we are completely unable to build projects that are of clear economic benefit at all thanks to a Treasury that cannot see beyond the next budget & a planning system that drives up the cost beyond all reasonable measure. The only way to get HS2 through parliament at all was to turn it into some gold-plated national monument to Britain. It’s no way to run a railway, or an economy for that matter.
A high speed rail project like HS2 should cost something like a third the HS2 budget: the HS2 costs are a symptom of wider problems in the UK economy. Every major infrastructure project spends interminable years trapped in a planning system that not only imposes insane costs all by itself, it drives up the cost of the final project by $billions.
The problem being that we need East/West and intra-region capacity a lot more than we need North/South (which actually just means London to the rest of the country). We could find far more useful and viable projects for every penny of that which was going to be spent on HS2 - whether it was the original £37.5 billion or the pre-abandonment £180 billion.
HS2 was the infrastructure equivalent of that old problem that plagues politics.
We must do something This is something We must do it.
Shouldn't have been an either/or! If the UK properly cracked down on the benefit scrounging pensioners (if you want to be voluntarily unemployed fine, but the state shouldn't pay for it) and put the state pension back to 19/20 levels we'd be able to build a new Crossrail every year with the savings.
Just shows where the Tories have gone wrong this parliament - prioritised benefits for the bone idle boomers over capital spending.
Even if it wasn't an either/or it was/is still an unecessary white elephant finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems.
"finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems"
LOL. You keep on saying that, and it gives me a good laugh. Thanks.
If high-speed rail is "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", then why are most major economies in the world (aside from the USA) investing heavily in it? What do you know that they don't?
The pandemic hurt railway usage; but the rebound has been quite staggering. And working from home or telecommuting has not hurt it as much as I feared either. AIUI, long-distance travel is actually up since the end of the pandemic.
Because they are much larger countries where it makes a difference. I am all in favour of a huge expansion in railcapacity but it should not be the High Speed white elephant and it should not be all focused on London. Build more lines going where people want and need to go - more cross country and intra-region. Build more lines suitable for frieght and get stuff off the roads.
That's a different argument, and one I think is also wrong. But it has zero bearing on stupid phrases like "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", that you are so attached to. HSR is not yesterday's solution, and it is very much trying to help this century's problems in every country where it is built.
"Build more lines going where people want and need to go"
The capacity problem on the southern WCML show that's exactly where people want and need to go. Now, that does not mean I'm against other projects such as NPR or EWR - quite the opposite. We should build them all as part of an integrated network.
"Your desperate attachment to HS2 is illogical and damaging to the economy. "
As if my belief that HS2 is a good idea has any influence! But if you extend that honour to me, I shall do the same to you: your irrational dislike of the project is irrational and hurts the country.
And as for your utter devotion to Brexit over decades - that's hurt the country, financially, politically and economically, orders of magnitude more than any infrastructure project.
Yeah, you just keep believing that. You have consistently ignored the arguments against the economic benefits of HS rail because they don't fit your pre-conceived ideas so I certainly don't expect you to change now. Just like you never changed when you kept denying the massive projected cost increases even when it becaume obvious that they themselves were huge underestinates. I well remember you scorning the idea that costs for it could get anywhere near £85 billion. That seems positively cheap now compared to the final projected costs for the whole thing.
The only good thing out of all of this is that we have finally broken the narrative which was forcing us down the road of a ridiculously expensive waste of money. One thing (perhaps the only one) that I can praise Sunak for. It is just a shame he didn't do it sooner and cancel the whole thing.
I constantly ignore the arguments on the economic benefits of HS rail, as you put it, because many of them are rubbish, pulled out of various anti's odorous posteriors.
Again, if the economic benefits of HS rail are so poor, as you think, then why is every major country, bar the US, building them? What do you know that they do not?
Also remember that the WCML Upgrade of the early 2000s was delivered years late after massive disruption, under-specification (*) and ten times over budget.
(*) No new signalling system and no 140MPH running
LOL. I never knew the OECD was oderous anti. Nor the EU. Both of whom have produced reports showing that HS rail systems in France such as the TGV Mediterranean had little to no impact on overalll GDP and certainly nothing recordable for the region itself.
And just to remind you that you were the one pouring your normal scorn on the £85 billion cost projection a couple of years ago - which is now considered to be an underextomate even by the most ardent advocates of the programme.
Why should we trust you on this when you have been so consistently wrong?
I suggest you read that thread i linked to, and think about something called inflation.
If we're talking about fallacious arguments, perhaps I should remind you how you thought remote working would kill off the need fir rail. The pandemic hasn't shown that to be true. Patterns changed, that's all, and rail usage is far higher than it was few years before the pandemic.
But I guess we should remember that you know better than all those governments building her....
So looks like Democrats and Independents want to still send weapons only to Ukraine not Israel while Republicans want to switch weapons being sent to Ukraine and send them to Israel instead.
It must be really chastening for Rishi Sunak, who by any odds has had a remarkably successful and lucrative career, to realise he just isn’t any good at this. Oxford. Fulbright Scholar. Goldman Sachs. Chancellor. First Asian-extraction British PM.
And he just can’t do it. Whatever he tries doesn’t work. How do you get up every morning and start work knowing you’re not going to succeed?
I've been harsh on Sunak in the past and I once said he was a man who had never failed at anything or had known defeat. If you go into politics there's a fair chance that will change.
It could be a positive and character building experience for him and remember he's only 43 (Blair's age in 1997). In twenty years time opinions of him could be very different and he might be the respected elder statesman.
The truth is there may be nothing as ex as an ex-MP (as someone once said) but there's really nothing as ex as an ex-PM. Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Truss, Johnson - all still with us, all still able to contribute to the national debte but do they? If they do, does anyone listen or are their past sins thrown back at them and used as an excuse to ignore them?
Nope in 20 years time his screwing round with HS2 will be regarded as a sign of utter incompetency highlighting the reduction of the UK's status as it's seen as incompetent...
One of the very first things I was taught in my economics degree was that knowledge is everything so if a skill set is required retaining that knowledge is very important.
Which means that you should have a continual set of projects going (rail electrification. nuclear power station developments, roads....) so that you aren't starting afresh all the time needing to import foreign expertise because no-one in the UK has done this in x0 years
That works fine when the projects you want to build are both economially viable and necessary. There were lots of programmes that could apply to. HS2 was not one of them and indeed it sucked money away from other more important and useful projects.
It’s possible (reasonable even) to argue that HS2 itself was misconceived from the start. But the fact remains that rail transport in this country, both passenger & freight, would benefit greatly from a N<->S high speed passenger rail line. The other routes are full to capacity - the demand is clearly there.
The underlying problem seems to be that we are completely unable to build projects that are of clear economic benefit at all thanks to a Treasury that cannot see beyond the next budget & a planning system that drives up the cost beyond all reasonable measure. The only way to get HS2 through parliament at all was to turn it into some gold-plated national monument to Britain. It’s no way to run a railway, or an economy for that matter.
A high speed rail project like HS2 should cost something like a third the HS2 budget: the HS2 costs are a symptom of wider problems in the UK economy. Every major infrastructure project spends interminable years trapped in a planning system that not only imposes insane costs all by itself, it drives up the cost of the final project by $billions.
The problem being that we need East/West and intra-region capacity a lot more than we need North/South (which actually just means London to the rest of the country). We could find far more useful and viable projects for every penny of that which was going to be spent on HS2 - whether it was the original £37.5 billion or the pre-abandonment £180 billion.
HS2 was the infrastructure equivalent of that old problem that plagues politics.
We must do something This is something We must do it.
Shouldn't have been an either/or! If the UK properly cracked down on the benefit scrounging pensioners (if you want to be voluntarily unemployed fine, but the state shouldn't pay for it) and put the state pension back to 19/20 levels we'd be able to build a new Crossrail every year with the savings.
Just shows where the Tories have gone wrong this parliament - prioritised benefits for the bone idle boomers over capital spending.
Even if it wasn't an either/or it was/is still an unecessary white elephant finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems.
"finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems"
LOL. You keep on saying that, and it gives me a good laugh. Thanks.
If high-speed rail is "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", then why are most major economies in the world (aside from the USA) investing heavily in it? What do you know that they don't?
The pandemic hurt railway usage; but the rebound has been quite staggering. And working from home or telecommuting has not hurt it as much as I feared either. AIUI, long-distance travel is actually up since the end of the pandemic.
Because they are much larger countries where it makes a difference. I am all in favour of a huge expansion in railcapacity but it should not be the High Speed white elephant and it should not be all focused on London. Build more lines going where people want and need to go - more cross country and intra-region. Build more lines suitable for frieght and get stuff off the roads.
That's a different argument, and one I think is also wrong. But it has zero bearing on stupid phrases like "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", that you are so attached to. HSR is not yesterday's solution, and it is very much trying to help this century's problems in every country where it is built.
"Build more lines going where people want and need to go"
The capacity problem on the southern WCML show that's exactly where people want and need to go. Now, that does not mean I'm against other projects such as NPR or EWR - quite the opposite. We should build them all as part of an integrated network.
"Your desperate attachment to HS2 is illogical and damaging to the economy. "
As if my belief that HS2 is a good idea has any influence! But if you extend that honour to me, I shall do the same to you: your irrational dislike of the project is irrational and hurts the country.
And as for your utter devotion to Brexit over decades - that's hurt the country, financially, politically and economically, orders of magnitude more than any infrastructure project.
Yeah, you just keep believing that. You have consistently ignored the arguments against the economic benefits of HS rail because they don't fit your pre-conceived ideas so I certainly don't expect you to change now. Just like you never changed when you kept denying the massive projected cost increases even when it becaume obvious that they themselves were huge underestinates. I well remember you scorning the idea that costs for it could get anywhere near £85 billion. That seems positively cheap now compared to the final projected costs for the whole thing.
The only good thing out of all of this is that we have finally broken the narrative which was forcing us down the road of a ridiculously expensive waste of money. One thing (perhaps the only one) that I can praise Sunak for. It is just a shame he didn't do it sooner and cancel the whole thing.
I constantly ignore the arguments on the economic benefits of HS rail, as you put it, because many of them are rubbish, pulled out of various anti's odorous posteriors.
Again, if the economic benefits of HS rail are so poor, as you think, then why is every major country, bar the US, building them? What do you know that they do not?
Also remember that the WCML Upgrade of the early 2000s was delivered years late after massive disruption, under-specification (*) and ten times over budget.
(*) No new signalling system and no 140MPH running
LOL. I never knew the OECD was oderous anti. Nor the EU. Both of whom have produced reports showing that HS rail systems in France such as the TGV Mediterranean had little to no impact on overalll GDP and certainly nothing recordable for the region itself.
And just to remind you that you were the one pouring your normal scorn on the £85 billion cost projection a couple of years ago - which is now considered to be an underextomate even by the most ardent advocates of the programme.
Why should we trust you on this when you have been so consistently wrong?
Um I love to know where you are getting your figures from because HS2 costs haven't actually increased. Most people who understand the finances of the project know that Rishi is playing incredibly fast and loose with the finances to justify cancelling HS2.
I really did think you were far more intelligent and far less likely to be taken in than your posts today on HS2 have shown....
So basically you're calling Richard thick and gullible.
As you no doubt think the Guardian's Transport Correspondent is.
From last month, before the cancellation: "When it was first given the go-ahead by the government in 2012, the whole network was supposed to cost £32.7bn, including a north-eastern leg going to Leeds. Exact figures now are hard to pin down but the latest published Department for Transport update said the cost could reach £71bn, at 2019 prices – without any north-eastern leg. Given the official commitment to a spur to the east Midlands, and general inflation since 2019, a current estimated cost of about £100bn at 2023 prices seems reasonable. And that’s before you buy trains. Others believe it could be much higher." https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/25/why-has-hs2-ended-up-being-so-expensive
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
We need to BUILD MORE HIGH QUALITY AND ATTRACTIVE HOUSES WHERE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE. If we just focus on numbers, like we did in the 50s and 60s, we'll just end up with prefab slums, many of which are either barely inhabitable or have to be pulled down in a few decades, and all of which are eyesores. Big developers and government only care about short-term profits and numbers respectively.And if we build them places where nobody wants to live (e.g. much of the North), we'll just attract the dregs and they'll become sink estates.
Whitehall is so captured by the big developers and so contempuous of the people who pay its salaries that this staggeringly obvious solution isn't on the agenda, but it's difficult to see how to fix the housing crisis sustainably and long-term without a big expansion of self-build, from 10% now to the levels seen in France or Germany (60%) or Austria (80%).
35 years ago, just under 40% of all new houses were built by SME housebuilders. Now that figure is 10%. A major issue is that the red tape surrounding the whole process is so gargantuan and expensive that only the largest housebuilders can cope. Planning only forms one part of this, and focussing on this alone will not solve the overriding issue.
Large housebuilders will focus only on very large developments (where numbers of units are in their 100s), and, yes, sure, these sort of plots are becoming harder to find. But there are massive numbers of smaller plots (where, say, 20-50 houses could be built) that SMEs could buy, obtain planning and develop, were it made viable for them to do so.
The biggest thing a government can do is to make it an attractive option for people to set up small housebuilding companies, and make it easier for current SMEs to cope with the ever burgeoning regulations. Get that ratio between large/small housebuilders back up from 90/10 to 75/25 Sadly, I don't see either main party remotely grasping this, and suspect it'll only get worse.
I saw this below the other day and it looked like the sort of cul de sac development that would hopefully be acceptable on the edge of villages in nice country areas to assuage the horror of nimby objectors. I like the way each house is oriented to have a view without seeming to be on top of the other houses but nice use of natural stone whilst also having a low profile but lots of natural light.
One entrance in, one exit out. A single bastich at the bottleneck can make the entire close hellish. No footpaths to alternate routes out.
Every flat should have its own front door to the external world (no shared hallways) with its own letter box. Each front door should have at least two distinct routes to exit the estate and a safe place to park the car that you can walk to without crossing somebody else's land. Bad people should not be able to find a choke point on the paths. Green spaces eventually develop desire paths so look out for them.
It must be really chastening for Rishi Sunak, who by any odds has had a remarkably successful and lucrative career, to realise he just isn’t any good at this. Oxford. Fulbright Scholar. Goldman Sachs. Chancellor. First Asian-extraction British PM.
And he just can’t do it. Whatever he tries doesn’t work. How do you get up every morning and start work knowing you’re not going to succeed?
I've been harsh on Sunak in the past and I once said he was a man who had never failed at anything or had known defeat. If you go into politics there's a fair chance that will change.
It could be a positive and character building experience for him and remember he's only 43 (Blair's age in 1997). In twenty years time opinions of him could be very different and he might be the respected elder statesman.
The truth is there may be nothing as ex as an ex-MP (as someone once said) but there's really nothing as ex as an ex-PM. Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Truss, Johnson - all still with us, all still able to contribute to the national debte but do they? If they do, does anyone listen or are their past sins thrown back at them and used as an excuse to ignore them?
Nope in 20 years time his screwing round with HS2 will be regarded as a sign of utter incompetency highlighting the reduction of the UK's status as it's seen as incompetent...
One of the very first things I was taught in my economics degree was that knowledge is everything so if a skill set is required retaining that knowledge is very important.
Which means that you should have a continual set of projects going (rail electrification. nuclear power station developments, roads....) so that you aren't starting afresh all the time needing to import foreign expertise because no-one in the UK has done this in x0 years
That works fine when the projects you want to build are both economially viable and necessary. There were lots of programmes that could apply to. HS2 was not one of them and indeed it sucked money away from other more important and useful projects.
It’s possible (reasonable even) to argue that HS2 itself was misconceived from the start. But the fact remains that rail transport in this country, both passenger & freight, would benefit greatly from a N<->S high speed passenger rail line. The other routes are full to capacity - the demand is clearly there.
The underlying problem seems to be that we are completely unable to build projects that are of clear economic benefit at all thanks to a Treasury that cannot see beyond the next budget & a planning system that drives up the cost beyond all reasonable measure. The only way to get HS2 through parliament at all was to turn it into some gold-plated national monument to Britain. It’s no way to run a railway, or an economy for that matter.
A high speed rail project like HS2 should cost something like a third the HS2 budget: the HS2 costs are a symptom of wider problems in the UK economy. Every major infrastructure project spends interminable years trapped in a planning system that not only imposes insane costs all by itself, it drives up the cost of the final project by $billions.
The problem being that we need East/West and intra-region capacity a lot more than we need North/South (which actually just means London to the rest of the country). We could find far more useful and viable projects for every penny of that which was going to be spent on HS2 - whether it was the original £37.5 billion or the pre-abandonment £180 billion.
HS2 was the infrastructure equivalent of that old problem that plagues politics.
We must do something This is something We must do it.
Shouldn't have been an either/or! If the UK properly cracked down on the benefit scrounging pensioners (if you want to be voluntarily unemployed fine, but the state shouldn't pay for it) and put the state pension back to 19/20 levels we'd be able to build a new Crossrail every year with the savings.
Just shows where the Tories have gone wrong this parliament - prioritised benefits for the bone idle boomers over capital spending.
Even if it wasn't an either/or it was/is still an unecessary white elephant finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems.
"finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems"
LOL. You keep on saying that, and it gives me a good laugh. Thanks.
If high-speed rail is "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", then why are most major economies in the world (aside from the USA) investing heavily in it? What do you know that they don't?
The pandemic hurt railway usage; but the rebound has been quite staggering. And working from home or telecommuting has not hurt it as much as I feared either. AIUI, long-distance travel is actually up since the end of the pandemic.
Because they are much larger countries where it makes a difference. I am all in favour of a huge expansion in railcapacity but it should not be the High Speed white elephant and it should not be all focused on London. Build more lines going where people want and need to go - more cross country and intra-region. Build more lines suitable for frieght and get stuff off the roads.
That's a different argument, and one I think is also wrong. But it has zero bearing on stupid phrases like "finding yesterday's solutions for the last century's problems", that you are so attached to. HSR is not yesterday's solution, and it is very much trying to help this century's problems in every country where it is built.
"Build more lines going where people want and need to go"
The capacity problem on the southern WCML show that's exactly where people want and need to go. Now, that does not mean I'm against other projects such as NPR or EWR - quite the opposite. We should build them all as part of an integrated network.
"Your desperate attachment to HS2 is illogical and damaging to the economy. "
As if my belief that HS2 is a good idea has any influence! But if you extend that honour to me, I shall do the same to you: your irrational dislike of the project is irrational and hurts the country.
And as for your utter devotion to Brexit over decades - that's hurt the country, financially, politically and economically, orders of magnitude more than any infrastructure project.
Yeah, you just keep believing that. You have consistently ignored the arguments against the economic benefits of HS rail because they don't fit your pre-conceived ideas so I certainly don't expect you to change now. Just like you never changed when you kept denying the massive projected cost increases even when it becaume obvious that they themselves were huge underestinates. I well remember you scorning the idea that costs for it could get anywhere near £85 billion. That seems positively cheap now compared to the final projected costs for the whole thing.
The only good thing out of all of this is that we have finally broken the narrative which was forcing us down the road of a ridiculously expensive waste of money. One thing (perhaps the only one) that I can praise Sunak for. It is just a shame he didn't do it sooner and cancel the whole thing.
I constantly ignore the arguments on the economic benefits of HS rail, as you put it, because many of them are rubbish, pulled out of various anti's odorous posteriors.
Again, if the economic benefits of HS rail are so poor, as you think, then why is every major country, bar the US, building them? What do you know that they do not?
Also remember that the WCML Upgrade of the early 2000s was delivered years late after massive disruption, under-specification (*) and ten times over budget.
(*) No new signalling system and no 140MPH running
LOL. I never knew the OECD was oderous anti. Nor the EU. Both of whom have produced reports showing that HS rail systems in France such as the TGV Mediterranean had little to no impact on overalll GDP and certainly nothing recordable for the region itself.
And just to remind you that you were the one pouring your normal scorn on the £85 billion cost projection a couple of years ago - which is now considered to be an underextomate even by the most ardent advocates of the programme.
Why should we trust you on this when you have been so consistently wrong?
Um I love to know where you are getting your figures from because HS2 costs haven't actually increased. Most people who understand the finances of the project know that Rishi is playing incredibly fast and loose with the finances to justify cancelling HS2.
I really did think you were far more intelligent and far less likely to be taken in than your posts today on HS2 have shown....
So basically you're calling Richard thick and gullible.
As you no doubt think the Guardian's Transport Correspondent is.
From last month, before the cancellation: "When it was first given the go-ahead by the government in 2012, the whole network was supposed to cost £32.7bn, including a north-eastern leg going to Leeds. Exact figures now are hard to pin down but the latest published Department for Transport update said the cost could reach £71bn, at 2019 prices – without any north-eastern leg. Given the official commitment to a spur to the east Midlands, and general inflation since 2019, a current estimated cost of about £100bn at 2023 prices seems reasonable. And that’s before you buy trains. Others believe it could be much higher." https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/25/why-has-hs2-ended-up-being-so-expensive
But the thing to remember is that the WCML sahows that improving existing lines is beyond painful so you need to create completely new ones as that allows you to increase capacity.
And regardless of any desire for a East West connections all 3 North South lines are at capacity so the greatest need is there. Other lines can then follow later...
HS2 to Manchester was a manifesto commitment in 2019.
I had forgotten that.
Sunak breaks manifesto.
Pretty sure social care fix was also. Again cancelled by Sunak.
I’m loathe to defend him as he is shit, but circumstances at the time of writing that manifesto are very different now, the pandemic and war have seen to that. And let’s be honest - do you actually believe manifesto promises?
HS2 to Manchester was a manifesto commitment in 2019.
I had forgotten that.
Sunak breaks manifesto.
Pretty sure social care fix was also. Again cancelled by Sunak.
I’m loathe to defend him as he is shit, but circumstances at the time of writing that manifesto are very different now, the pandemic and war have seen to that. And let’s be honest - do you actually believe manifesto promises?
All parties committed to HS2 - the fact the promise was broken just shows how incompetent we are as a country for all the reasons I've posted multiple times today.
Things that could be easily fixed if we had a medium or long term plan with teams of people starting project 1 and then moving on to child projects 2,3, 4 and 5 so the skills and knowledge was used in subsequent projects rather than getting lost.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
We need to BUILD MORE HIGH QUALITY AND ATTRACTIVE HOUSES WHERE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE. If we just focus on numbers, like we did in the 50s and 60s, we'll just end up with prefab slums, many of which are either barely inhabitable or have to be pulled down in a few decades, and all of which are eyesores. Big developers and government only care about short-term profits and numbers respectively.And if we build them places where nobody wants to live (e.g. much of the North), we'll just attract the dregs and they'll become sink estates.
Whitehall is so captured by the big developers and so contempuous of the people who pay its salaries that this staggeringly obvious solution isn't on the agenda, but it's difficult to see how to fix the housing crisis sustainably and long-term without a big expansion of self-build, from 10% now to the levels seen in France or Germany (60%) or Austria (80%).
35 years ago, just under 40% of all new houses were built by SME housebuilders. Now that figure is 10%. A major issue is that the red tape surrounding the whole process is so gargantuan and expensive that only the largest housebuilders can cope. Planning only forms one part of this, and focussing on this alone will not solve the overriding issue.
Large housebuilders will focus only on very large developments (where numbers of units are in their 100s), and, yes, sure, these sort of plots are becoming harder to find. But there are massive numbers of smaller plots (where, say, 20-50 houses could be built) that SMEs could buy, obtain planning and develop, were it made viable for them to do so.
The biggest thing a government can do is to make it an attractive option for people to set up small housebuilding companies, and make it easier for current SMEs to cope with the ever burgeoning regulations. Get that ratio between large/small housebuilders back up from 90/10 to 75/25 Sadly, I don't see either main party remotely grasping this, and suspect it'll only get worse.
I saw this below the other day and it looked like the sort of cul de sac development that would hopefully be acceptable on the edge of villages in nice country areas to assuage the horror of nimby objectors. I like the way each house is oriented to have a view without seeming to be on top of the other houses but nice use of natural stone whilst also having a low profile but lots of natural light.
One entrance in, one exit out. A single bastich at the bottleneck can make the entire close hellish. No footpaths to alternate routes out.
Every flat should have its own front door to the external world (no shared hallways) with its own letter box. Each front door should have at least two distinct routes to exit the estate and a safe place to park the car that you can walk to without crossing somebody else's land. Bad people should not be able to find a choke point on the paths. Green spaces eventually develop desire paths so look out for them.
They were built in 1963, and seem a major success. While I like a walled courtyard as an idea, it does seem less social.
NYT live blog - [in response to "offer" by GOP mega-MAGA-maniac brigade behind Jim Jordan]
> Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida, another Jordan holdout, said their stance was based on principle. "There’s nothing we want,” he said, “so there’s nothing he can offer us.” Gimenez added that grinding through more ballots will only lose Jordan support, and that some members may leave Washington for the weekend, shaking up Jordan’s math.
> Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, one of the holdouts, says: “There’s nothing that people can give us. There’s nothing that people can trade. That’s not what this is about.”
> House Republicans are about to meet behind closed doors in the basement to try to figure out next steps.
SSI -
Theater of the Absurd 1953 - Waiting for Godot Theater of the Absurd 2023 - Waiting for Speaker
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
It's a bit like tulips. Mad scarcity vs demand and they become a financial instrument. Sufficient supply and they go back to being nice flowers.
Oh no you couldn't leave it, could you. I gave you an elegant judicious closer but you have to say something else.
Ok, cute analogy but Yes and No. It's not just the supply deficit that has led to our bizarre unhealthy irrational approach to residential property. There are those other factors I've mentioned. They're important. Trust me they are.
HS2 to Manchester was a manifesto commitment in 2019.
I had forgotten that.
Sunak breaks manifesto.
Pretty sure social care fix was also. Again cancelled by Sunak.
I’m loathe to defend him as he is shit, but circumstances at the time of writing that manifesto are very different now, the pandemic and war have seen to that. And let’s be honest - do you actually believe manifesto promises?
All parties committed to HS2 - the fact the promise was broken just shows how incompetent we are as a country for all the reasons I've posted multiple times today.
Things that could be easily fixed if we had a medium or long term plan with teams of people starting project 1 and then moving on to child projects 2,3, 4 and 5 so the skills and knowledge was used in subsequent projects rather than getting lost.
Indeed.
David Cameron used to tout "long term economic plan" and that's exactly what we need with infrastructure too, a long term plan.
Not a single white elephant that is "too big to fail [or succeed]".
For instance on transportation we should have a half dozen plus entirely new major motorways getting built across the country. But not all at once, build a few mile stretches at a time starting where they'll have an immediate impact [like the original "Preston bypass"] that eventually hook up into each other completing the long-term vision.
When one is close to finishing completion, we should be in the final stages of considering what the next one will be after that, rather than resting on our laurels.
Comments
https://check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk/alerts-and-warnings
New York judge threatens to jail Trump for ‘blatantly’ violating gag order
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/20/new-york-judge-threatens-jail-trump-gag-order
I’d call this a granny-flat.
"Well, frankly it was a normal dinner. We talked about the weather, and how our kids are doing. And how millions of deaths are justified in order to free their lands of the Jews. I was most taken aback by his choice of the chow mein as a starter..."
1) Immigration and infrastructure increase to match
2) Zero Immigration and no infrastructure increase
3) Immigration and no infrastructure increase
We are doing 3). This won't work. Physically. Reality says no.
1) will work.
2) will work.
The moral and social arguments between 1 and 2 are separate. I prefer 1. Turning the country into Japan is also *possible* - but I don't *want* that.
It is also a fact that as a result of doing 3) we *have* to do the infrastructure to match, or stagger on in a continual edge-of-failure mode.
Quite a lot of Greens claim they want 3) - but I wonder which way they will break when the reality hits.
60-70 sqm is fine for a flat as a starter home, which as we've determined is from less than £90k build costs, including labour. So can you get a 60-70 sqm flat in London or Manchester for not that much more than £90k? Or a 100sqm semi from not much more than £140k?
If not, why not?
Could the answer be . . . land + consent?
Whitehall is so captured by the big developers and so contempuous of the people who pay its salaries that this staggeringly obvious solution isn't on the agenda, but it's difficult to see how to fix the housing crisis sustainably and long-term without a big expansion of self-build, from 10% now to the levels seen in France or Germany (60%) or Austria (80%).
To the "normal" people, the mood music is on "The Conservatives are shit" and "Labour are quietly OK".
there's not much that can change that now - certainly not going down weird byways like the woke comedy.
Who are you trying to kid ?
Hamas would never do that for you.
An investigation into the damage to the Balticonnector gas pipeline is currently focused on the role of the Chinese NewNew Polar Bear container vessel, Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said on Friday.
Edit: Link to better, longer clip: https://www.stereogum.com/2116933/metallica-twitch-concert-audio-swapped-with-twinkly-8-bit-music-because-of-copyright-fears/news/
Return land back to circa 2% of the cost of the house and your average house would cost about £100k.
Today's housing costs just make no sense, economically or otherwise.
Update: The BBC says Tim Davie meets a range of people as part of his role and will also be meeting with Labour parliamentarians in the coming weeks.
But Labour sources say there’s no plans for him to address a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Big chase on in Bangalore.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/66858257
JUST IN: Rishi Sunak's first comments on the pair of by-election defeats. "Obviously disappointing results"
“It’s important to remember the context. Mid-term by-elections are always difficult for incumbent governments and of course there are also local factors at play here"
But looking at table, should we want Australia to win to help England's chances of getting through to Semis?
(OK, being fair to him is that actually true? It's 3yrs and 10mths since GE2019. Is this technically "mid-term"?)
Another episode of Shitshow beckons.
Even then, those polls seemed rogues, the Tories weren't consistently level-ish or in the lead in the polls as often as behind until 2015 itself.
Seems like a copy and pasted comment really
Indeed a year or 2 into her leadership some Tory MPs even wanted to bring back Ted Heath
Both set batsman out in quick succession after you wrote this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzZO4lxCRys
So its entirely apt for a political discussion.
Worth noting that at that price level house to income ratios would return back to what they were . . . in the 1990s. Not exactly a century ago.
Most interesting number from today vote = 6 = number of GOPers who voted for Patrick McHenry (aka KMcC's Mini-Me).
Which (I think) which I think is a signal in favor of making him Acting Speaker, so that House can actually do something other than sit around waiting for yet another performance of the Rabid Squirrel Flying Circus.
Westminster Voting Intention:
LAB: 48% (+4)
CON: 27% (-1)
LDM: 10% (+1)
RFM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (-2)
SNP: 2% (-1)
Via
@Omnisis
, 19-20 Oct.
Changes w/ 12-13 Oct.
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1715361114958000233?s=20
(Big explosion in background. Lights cigar)
Not to be...
Don't bet on him folding his toxic tent anytime soon . . . unless you get VERY good odds, or it some kind of fancy spread betting thing.
And just to remind you that you were the one pouring your normal scorn on the £85 billion cost projection a couple of years ago - which is now considered to be an underextomate even by the most ardent advocates of the programme.
Why should we trust you on this when you have been so consistently wrong?
Sunak has more money in retirement however than Gordon did
SSI - likely reply from their colleagues (I paraphase) - Go eat (more) shit and bark at the moon!
Large housebuilders will focus only on very large developments (where numbers of units are in their 100s), and, yes, sure, these sort of plots are becoming harder to find. But there are massive numbers of smaller plots (where, say, 20-50 houses could be built) that SMEs could buy, obtain planning and develop, were it made viable for them to do so.
The biggest thing a government can do is to make it an attractive option for people to set up small housebuilding companies, and make it easier for current SMEs to cope with the ever burgeoning regulations. Get that ratio between large/small housebuilders back up from 90/10 to 75/25 Sadly, I don't see either
main party remotely grasping this, and suspect it'll only get worse.
BREAKING: Third Trump co-defendant pleads guilty: Kenneth Chesebro to cooperate with Georgia prosecutors
https://themessenger.com/politics/trump-kenneth-chesebro-guilty-plea-georgia
I really did think you were far more intelligent and far less likely to be taken in than your posts today on HS2 have shown....
Which means houses are built for those who want them, to their specs and cost, where they want them, not for the demands of others.
*popcorn futures spike*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5cCHLb_zhA (Chris Stuckmann)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x235HyFF1jM (Jeremy Jahns)
Brown's in 2010 and Wellington's in 1832 (and arguably Lloyd George's in 1922). Looks like Sunak may make it a 4th.
Even Major in 1997 scraped 30%
If we're talking about fallacious arguments, perhaps I should remind you how you thought remote working would kill off the need fir rail. The pandemic hasn't shown that to be true. Patterns changed, that's all, and rail usage is far higher than it was few years before the pandemic.
But I guess we should remember that you know better than all those governments building her....
As you no doubt think the Guardian's Transport Correspondent is.
From last month, before the cancellation:
"When it was first given the go-ahead by the government in 2012, the whole network was supposed to cost £32.7bn, including a north-eastern leg going to Leeds. Exact figures now are hard to pin down but the latest published Department for Transport update said the cost could reach £71bn, at 2019 prices – without any north-eastern leg. Given the official commitment to a spur to the east Midlands, and general inflation since 2019, a current estimated cost of about £100bn at 2023 prices seems reasonable. And that’s before you buy trains. Others believe it could be much higher."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/25/why-has-hs2-ended-up-being-so-expensive
Every flat should have its own front door to the external world (no shared hallways) with its own letter box. Each front door should have at least two distinct routes to exit the estate and a safe place to park the car that you can walk to without crossing somebody else's land. Bad people should not be able to find a choke point on the paths. Green spaces eventually develop desire paths so look out for them.
I had forgotten that.
Sunak breaks manifesto.
Pretty sure social care fix was also. Again cancelled by Sunak.
210 vote for Jeffries and 25 for Others
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-67153521
But the thing to remember is that the WCML sahows that improving existing lines is beyond painful so you need to create completely new ones as that allows you to increase capacity.
And regardless of any desire for a East West connections all 3 North South lines are at capacity so the greatest need is there. Other lines can then follow later...
And let’s be honest - do you actually believe manifesto promises?
Things that could be easily fixed if we had a medium or long term plan with teams of people starting project 1 and then moving on to child projects 2,3, 4 and 5 so the skills and knowledge was used in subsequent projects rather than getting lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredensborg_Houses
> Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida, another Jordan holdout, said their stance was based on principle. "There’s nothing we want,” he said, “so there’s nothing he can offer us.” Gimenez added that grinding through more ballots will only lose Jordan support, and that some members may leave Washington for the weekend, shaking up Jordan’s math.
> Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, one of the holdouts, says: “There’s nothing that people can give us. There’s nothing that people can trade. That’s not what this is about.”
> House Republicans are about to meet behind closed doors in the basement to try to figure out next steps.
SSI -
Theater of the Absurd 1953 - Waiting for Godot
Theater of the Absurd 2023 - Waiting for Speaker
Ok, cute analogy but Yes and No. It's not just the supply deficit that has led to our bizarre unhealthy irrational approach to residential property. There are those other factors I've mentioned. They're important. Trust me they are.
David Cameron used to tout "long term economic plan" and that's exactly what we need with infrastructure too, a long term plan.
Not a single white elephant that is "too big to fail [or succeed]".
For instance on transportation we should have a half dozen plus entirely new major motorways getting built across the country. But not all at once, build a few mile stretches at a time starting where they'll have an immediate impact [like the original "Preston bypass"] that eventually hook up into each other completing the long-term vision.
When one is close to finishing completion, we should be in the final stages of considering what the next one will be after that, rather than resting on our laurels.