Someone said: Down here is the biggest housing boom I have seen in my lifetime. The slums of tomorrow are being thrown up everywhere one looks. As for building enough new houses to keep up with population growth, forget it. With net immigration officially running at 200,000 a year and all the other causes of new households, it cannot be done.
It could be. Bring back "Super-Mac". He presided over the construction of 500,000 new homes/year when he was Housing Minister in the 1950s. They need to be better designed than they were then - but that's possible, especially if the rate was 'moderated' to only 350,000 or so per year.
300+ houses are proposed for our small (5k) town. Opposition posters are appearing in windows, there’s a petition being circulated, MP’, Councillors are being lobbied and an Action Group is being set up.
Just saying!
Nimbyism is a (if not the) major problem.
And what is the solution? The back yards that people get nimbyish about are also called "the countryside" and are generally regarded as an asset of the country as a whole. If you think we can no longer afford to have a countryside, that's a point of view, but disagreeing with it cannot be dismissed with imported insults (the English for "back yard" is "back garden").
There is a lot of empty space, really a lot. You can get a lot of house-building done without even really scratching the surface of the countryside.
Limiting factor on new building is materials - unless Ed has a guttering extrusion tool up his sleeve he can do naff all.
Then the planning folks got involved - there were problems with too many houses having double garages, lack of bicycle parking racks Similarly when the commercial development of Macarthur Glen near York was being planned, the developers had a knock down drag out fight with the planning folks as they wanted them to have fewer parking spaces and more bicycle spaces. You can't carry much home from a discount mall on a bicycle.
Apols if already reported, but there's an unexpected poll (by YG) of Londoners only in the Standard to add to GIN's fun. Main figures are Lab 45 (+3 on June), Con 35 (nc), LD 8 (nc), UKIP 8 (-2), Oth 4 (nc). Other findings are that people think Boris is doing a good job (60-29, though was 64-27 in June) but feel he shouldn't stand for Parliament while still Mayor 43-37) and should resign as Mayor if he does (50-34). Housing and transport are thought the most important London issues for the Mator (58% and 55%) by a large margin.
Longer term, as everyone agrees, what we need is more building in the right places. That is now beginning to happen, after the long drought of the Labour years.
Er, housebuilding is below pre-crash levels under Labour and way below the levels needed to keep pace with population growth.
"housebuilding is below pre-crash levels under Labour "
On planet Zog, possibly. Down here is the biggest housing boom I have seen in my lifetime.
The statistics are national rather than regional or local.
The stats also don't reflect the bottlenecks on building. There is currently a shortage of bricks since our ever wise banks closed too many brick factories in the recession. Now you can't get them.
“The industry is estimated to currently have a capacity in excess of 2bn bricks. “Given a more normal demand curve with the factories all running for a full year in 2014 the industry should be more than able to cope with prospective demand. “Working through Christmas and opening new kilns - allied to better liaison with the industry and better planning, will help ensure supply meets demand and also maintain stockpiles.” http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/brick-shortage-hitting-greater-manchester-6727351
Bricks and blocks are still probably the best thing to build houses with - but they are not the only option.
brick factories can reopen but not enough of them have. There's currently about a 3 month waiting list. Go figure.
Independence could shrink the Scottish economy by £8 billion through creating a trade barrier with England, Alistair Darling has claimed.
The Better Together leader cited academic research which suggested leaving the Union could trigger a contraction of up to 5.5 per cent in Scotland's economy.
The claim came as new polling laid bare the challenge the independence camp faces in convincing voters they would be richer after a Yes vote.
Twice as many Scots believe they would be £500 worse off after independence than better off, a new Panelbase survey found.
In the same poll far more voters said the whole country would be worse off after independence, while 17 per cent of respondents would consider leaving Scotland after a Yes vote – the equivalent of 700,000 people.
Do you think the current level of housebuilding is sufficient or do you think that it's too low but that the extra houses should be built elsewhere?
I think that housebuilding should be sustainable and that simply sticking extra estates onto the side of existing settlements is not the answer. Housebuilding should be for the benefit of the country not developers and as such where they build should be dictated by the community. Brownfield sites should be redeveloped first and then I would look seriously at new towns. Many of the existing settlements such as Newark have street plans and services which are entirely unsuited to large scale peripheral development.
Whatever happens it is completely unacceptable for local government to keep plans secret from the public until it is too late for them to do anything about it.
If you build houses on the "brownfield" sites, where are you going to build the shops, offices, warehouses and factories we need for the hundreds of thousands of jobs we still need to get rid of unemployment?
Given the number of empty shops on our highstreets these days, I am certain that will not be a problem. The issue for shops is not lack of property but the destruction of the highstreet with out of town shopping and supermarkets.
Besides, in case you missed it, places like Newark are being expanded purely as dormitory towns for cities like Nottingham and London. Those brownfield sites are certainly not being used for new businesses.
Inevitable - but I have found the way this has developed to be disconcerting to say the least.
Only two people know what happened in the incident at the heart of his decision. Yet others have presumed to know and have decided that they have the right to be judge and jury on it.
That is not good for justice or democracy.
He accepted a police caution which by definition means he admitted it (whatever "it" is). Doubtless the pb lawyers will be along later with more informed comment.
Someone said: Down here is the biggest housing boom I have seen in my lifetime. The slums of tomorrow are being thrown up everywhere one looks. As for building enough new houses to keep up with population growth, forget it. With net immigration officially running at 200,000 a year and all the other causes of new households, it cannot be done.
It could be. Bring back "Super-Mac". He presided over the construction of 500,000 new homes/year when he was Housing Minister in the 1950s. They need to be better designed than they were then - but that's possible, especially if the rate was 'moderated' to only 350,000 or so per year.
300+ houses are proposed for our small (5k) town. Opposition posters are appearing in windows, there’s a petition being circulated, MP’, Councillors are being lobbied and an Action Group is being set up.
Just saying!
Nimbyism is a (if not the) major problem.
And what is the solution? The back yards that people get nimbyish about are also called "the countryside" and are generally regarded as an asset of the country as a whole. If you think we can no longer afford to have a countryside, that's a point of view, but disagreeing with it cannot be dismissed with imported insults (the English for "back yard" is "back garden").
There is a lot of empty space, really a lot. You can get a lot of house-building done without even really scratching the surface of the countryside.
There will remain a lot of empty space on current policies. Successive governments have failed to take action to penalise owners of derelict land who seem content to use it as land banks and speculate on it accumulating in value, all the while blighting the wider neighbourhood, rather than invest to bring such derelict land back into productive use. Unless things change, developers will always look first to develop greenfield land and put pressure on the countryside.
Why is it too late to do anything about a particular development in Newark? Does Growth Point status allow the planning process to be bypassed?
No, of course not, it's Richard T getting a bit over-enthusiastic with his 'blame everything on the Tories' riff:
A New Growth Point is not a statutory designation, but rather the Government’s response to invitations from areas where there is a good case for accelerated, additional economic and housing growth, and where it can be shown to relieve pressure on high demand areas and tackle affordability issues. Acceptance of proposals by Government does not pre-empt scrutiny in the context of regional and local planning, but rather they are to be subject to robust testing and public consultation through these regional and local planning processes.
The applications was supported by all three political parties represented on the council and it all seems to have gone through the normal stages of interminable Strategic Plans and Public Consultations, as you would expect.
No it wasn't. I have the letters from the councillors explaining why they felt it necessary to conduct the application in secret. Moreover the council has long been run by the Cabinet system which excluded the other parties from the decision process.
The document you quote is irrelevant given that the application for Growth point status was made long before that update to the Local Plan was published. I should know since, as a member of the Civic Trust planning committee I was one of the Consultees on the local plan.
Someone said: Down here is the biggest housing boom I have seen in my lifetime. The slums of tomorrow are being thrown up everywhere one looks. As for building enough new houses to keep up with population growth, forget it. With net immigration officially running at 200,000 a year and all the other causes of new households, it cannot be done.
It could be. Bring back "Super-Mac". He presided over the construction of 500,000 new homes/year when he was Housing Minister in the 1950s. They need to be better designed than they were then - but that's possible, especially if the rate was 'moderated' to only 350,000 or so per year.
300+ houses are proposed for our small (5k) town. Opposition posters are appearing in windows, there’s a petition being circulated, MP’, Councillors are being lobbied and an Action Group is being set up.
Just saying!
Nimbyism is a (if not the) major problem.
And what is the solution? The back yards that people get nimbyish about are also called "the countryside" and are generally regarded as an asset of the country as a whole. If you think we can no longer afford to have a countryside, that's a point of view, but disagreeing with it cannot be dismissed with imported insults (the English for "back yard" is "back garden").
There is a lot of empty space, really a lot. You can get a lot of house-building done without even really scratching the surface of the countryside.
There will remain a lot of empty space on current policies. Successive governments have failed to take action to penalise owners of derelict land who seem content to use it as land banks and speculate on it accumulating in value, all the while blighting the wider neighbourhood, rather than invest to bring such derelict land back into productive use. Unless things change, developers will always look first to develop greenfield land and put pressure on the countryside.
Their land - they should be free to leave it empty. Bloody socialists.
A bit flippant, dr_spyn. Ruffley was suffering from depression at the time and there's no suggestion of that now. I think OxfordSimon had it almost spot on.
Inevitable - but I have found the way this has developed to be disconcerting to say the least.
Only two people know what happened in the incident at the heart of his decision. Yet others have presumed to know and have decided that they have the right to be judge and jury on it.
Inevitable - but I have found the way this has developed to be disconcerting to say the least.
Only two people know what happened in the incident at the heart of his decision. Yet others have presumed to know and have decided that they have the right to be judge and jury on it.
That is not good for justice or democracy.
He accepted a police caution which by definition means he admitted it (whatever "it" is). Doubtless the pb lawyers will be along later with more informed comment.
Indeed he did - but the fact that a caution was deemed the most appropriate course of action by the officers involved says something.
I am not condoning violence of any sort - far from it. But the way those involved in the campaign to get him to stand down seem to have an absolutist view about assault - rather than seeking to look at the full circumstances.
We have other politicians who have been convicted in the courts of various offences and stayed in place. We have Prescott who punched someone in the street.
I am just uncomfortable at the level of bandwagon-jumping on this one - particular when the Church got involved.
Do you think the current level of housebuilding is sufficient or do you think that it's too low but that the extra houses should be built elsewhere?
I think that housebuilding should be sustainable and that simply sticking extra estates onto the side of existing settlements is not the answer. Housebuilding should be for the benefit of the country not developers and as such where they build should be dictated by the community. Brownfield sites should be redeveloped first and then I would look seriously at new towns. Many of the existing settlements such as Newark have street plans and services which are entirely unsuited to large scale peripheral development.
Whatever happens it is completely unacceptable for local government to keep plans secret from the public until it is too late for them to do anything about it.
I take that to be a long-winded way of saying we need more homes .. somewhere else.
Why is it too late to do anything about a particular development in Newark? Does Growth Point status allow the planning process to be bypassed?
Nope. You can build them in the same area just don't do it by clamping new estates onto the side of towns. An increase of 50% in the size of a town in a decade is simply not sustainable.
The issue is that a Growth Point designation acts as such a large weight on one side of the planning balance that it is almost impossible to counter it. Long before we even got to the planning process we were being told that there would be no point in the process where we would be able to actually argue against the building of 15,000 new houses, only have an input into how they were built.
Someone said: Down here is the biggest housing boom I have seen in my lifetime. The slums of tomorrow are being thrown up everywhere one looks. As for building enough new houses to keep up with population growth, forget it. With net immigration officially running at 200,000 a year and all the other causes of new households, it cannot be done.
It could be. Bring back "Super-Mac". He presided over the construction of 500,000 new homes/year when he was Housing Minister in the 1950s. They need to be better designed than they were then - but that's possible, especially if the rate was 'moderated' to only 350,000 or so per year.
300+ houses are proposed for our small (5k) town. Opposition posters are appearing in windows, there’s a petition being circulated, MP’, Councillors are being lobbied and an Action Group is being set up.
Just saying!
Nimbyism is a (if not the) major problem.
And what is the solution? The back yards that people get nimbyish about are also called "the countryside" and are generally regarded as an asset of the country as a whole. If you think we can no longer afford to have a countryside, that's a point of view, but disagreeing with it cannot be dismissed with imported insults (the English for "back yard" is "back garden").
There is a lot of empty space, really a lot. You can get a lot of house-building done without even really scratching the surface of the countryside.
There will remain a lot of empty space on current policies. Successive governments have failed to take action to penalise owners of derelict land who seem content to use it as land banks and speculate on it accumulating in value, all the while blighting the wider neighbourhood, rather than invest to bring such derelict land back into productive use. Unless things change, developers will always look first to develop greenfield land and put pressure on the countryside.
Their land - they should be free to leave it empty. Bloody socialists.
I assume you apply the same principle to preventing any compulsory purchase of land for any government project?
Inevitable - but I have found the way this has developed to be disconcerting to say the least.
Only two people know what happened in the incident at the heart of his decision. Yet others have presumed to know and have decided that they have the right to be judge and jury on it.
That is not good for justice or democracy.
He accepted a police caution which by definition means he admitted it (whatever "it" is). Doubtless the pb lawyers will be along later with more informed comment.
Indeed he did - but the fact that a caution was deemed the most appropriate course of action by the officers involved says something.
I am not condoning violence of any sort - far from it. But the way those involved in the campaign to get him to stand down seem to have an absolutist view about assault - rather than seeking to look at the full circumstances.
We have other politicians who have been convicted in the courts of various offences and stayed in place. We have Prescott who punched someone in the street.
I am just uncomfortable at the level of bandwagon-jumping on this one - particular when the Church got involved.
Take a Like for your whole approach to this. Very sensible, level headed and refreshingly lacking any tedious mob instinct.
Inevitable - but I have found the way this has developed to be disconcerting to say the least.
Only two people know what happened in the incident at the heart of his decision. Yet others have presumed to know and have decided that they have the right to be judge and jury on it.
That is not good for justice or democracy.
He accepted a police caution which by definition means he admitted it (whatever "it" is). Doubtless the pb lawyers will be along later with more informed comment.
Indeed he did - but the fact that a caution was deemed the most appropriate course of action by the officers involved says something.
I am not condoning violence of any sort - far from it. But the way those involved in the campaign to get him to stand down seem to have an absolutist view about assault - rather than seeking to look at the full circumstances.
We have other politicians who have been convicted in the courts of various offences and stayed in place. We have Prescott who punched someone in the street.
I am just uncomfortable at the level of bandwagon-jumping on this one - particular when the Church got involved.
Take a Like for your whole approach to this. Very sensible, level headed and refreshingly lacking any tedious mob instinct.
Thanks
Part of my concern over this issue comes from the way that violence (within the domestic setting) is talked of only in terms of male perpetrators and female victims. Whilst this does make up the majority of the cases, there are other permutations. And the focus on female victims makes it even harder for men who do suffer at the hands of their partners to come forward to seek the help and support they deserve.
Until those who campaign on this subject treat all victims as worthy of their attention, they will be contributing to the problem rather than providing proper support.
Someone said: Down here is the biggest housing boom I have seen in my lifetime. The slums of tomorrow are being thrown up everywhere one looks. As for building enough new houses to keep up with population growth, forget it. With net immigration officially running at 200,000 a year and all the other causes of new households, it cannot be done.
It could be. Bring back "Super-Mac". He presided over the construction of 500,000 new homes/year when he was Housing Minister in the 1950s. They need to be better designed than they were then - but that's possible, especially if the rate was 'moderated' to only 350,000 or so per year.
300+ houses are proposed for our small (5k) town. Opposition posters are appearing in windows, there’s a petition being circulated, MP’, Councillors are being lobbied and an Action Group is being set up.
Just saying!
Nimbyism is a (if not the) major problem.
And what is the solution? The back yards that people get nimbyish about are also called "the countryside" and are generally regarded as an asset of the country as a whole. If you think we can no longer afford to have a countryside, that's a point of view, but disagreeing with it cannot be dismissed with imported insults (the English for "back yard" is "back garden").
There is a lot of empty space, really a lot. You can get a lot of house-building done without even really scratching the surface of the countryside.
There will remain a lot of empty space on current policies. Successive governments have failed to take action to penalise owners of derelict land who seem content to use it as land banks and speculate on it accumulating in value, all the while blighting the wider neighbourhood, rather than invest to bring such derelict land back into productive use. Unless things change, developers will always look first to develop greenfield land and put pressure on the countryside.
Their land - they should be free to leave it empty. Bloody socialists.
I assume you apply the same principle to preventing any compulsory purchase of land for any government project?
People who receive a fair price don't usually complain about compulsory purchases.
And thanks goodness for that too. He was still sending out updates as 'America's #1 Political Prisoner' as he liked to call himself after over 11 years inside. And ironically if he admitted guilt (when in all likelihood he wasn't guilty - I think Republic New York Corporation which was the holding company for Republic New York Bank as part of the HSBC group was to blame) then he would have served a maximum of 6 or 7 years instead of the eventual 11 - what a crazy legal system and crazy world.
Someone said: Down here is the biggest housing boom I have seen in my lifetime. The slums of tomorrow are being thrown up everywhere one looks. As for building enough new houses to keep up with population growth, forget it. With net immigration officially running at 200,000 a year and all the other causes of new households, it cannot be done.
It could be. Bring back "Super-Mac". He presided over the construction of 500,000 new homes/year when he was Housing Minister in the 1950s. They need to be better designed than they were then - but that's possible, especially if the rate was 'moderated' to only 350,000 or so per year.
300+ houses are proposed for our small (5k) town. Opposition posters are appearing in windows, there’s a petition being circulated, MP’, Councillors are being lobbied and an Action Group is being set up.
Just saying!
Nimbyism is a (if not the) major problem.
And what is the solution? The back yards that people get nimbyish about are also called "the countryside" and are generally regarded as an asset of the country as a whole. If you think we can no longer afford to have a countryside, that's a point of view, but disagreeing with it cannot be dismissed with imported insults (the English for "back yard" is "back garden").
There is a lot of empty space, really a lot. You can get a lot of house-building done without even really scratching the surface of the countryside.
There will remain a lot of empty space on current policies. Successive governments have failed to take action to penalise owners of derelict land who seem content to use it as land banks and speculate on it accumulating in value, all the while blighting the wider neighbourhood, rather than invest to bring such derelict land back into productive use. Unless things change, developers will always look first to develop greenfield land and put pressure on the countryside.
Their land - they should be free to leave it empty. Bloody socialists.
I assume you apply the same principle to preventing any compulsory purchase of land for any government project?
People who receive a fair price don't usually complain about compulsory purchases.
And what is the solution? The back yards that people get nimbyish about are also called "the countryside" and are generally regarded as an asset of the country as a whole. If you think we can no longer afford to have a countryside, that's a point of view, but disagreeing with it cannot be dismissed with imported insults (the English for "back yard" is "back garden").
There is a lot of empty space, really a lot. You can get a lot of house-building done without even really scratching the surface of the countryside.
There will remain a lot of empty space on current policies. Successive governments have failed to take action to penalise owners of derelict land who seem content to use it as land banks and speculate on it accumulating in value, all the while blighting the wider neighbourhood, rather than invest to bring such derelict land back into productive use. Unless things change, developers will always look first to develop greenfield land and put pressure on the countryside.
Their land - they should be free to leave it empty. Bloody socialists.
I assume you apply the same principle to preventing any compulsory purchase of land for any government project?
People who receive a fair price don't usually complain about compulsory purchases.
Actually yes lots of them do.
Richard, was interested in reading your post earlier today as a former Tory expressing an intense dislike of Mr Cameron. I fall into exactly the same category so know exactly how you feel. I think a lot of Tories who disliked Mr Blair's style of politics feel something similarly repulsive about the triumph of spin above substance in Tory circles, the continual erosion of civil liberties and the complete inability to see that our economic problems go way beyond government largesse.
Politicians, you see, have two obvious strategies when they find themselves in true, plummeting, free-falling desperation. Right now, Ed Miliband is doing both.
One is to wheel out the spouse
The other strategy is to conceptualise a split between image and substance and declare that only the former is failing. That never works either.
Politicians, you see, have two obvious strategies when they find themselves in true, plummeting, free-falling desperation. Right now, Ed Miliband is doing both.
One is to wheel out the spouse
The other strategy is to conceptualise a split between image and substance and declare that only the former is failing. That never works either.
Very true - Mr Miliband's 'I can't outdo Dave on setpieces' quote - who the heck is advising this man? Obviously still the same people that didn't inform him who the local Labour council leader in Swindon was on that dreadful local election trip there. Too many basic mistakes....not fit to govern.......END OF!!!
Independence could shrink the Scottish economy by £8 billion through creating a trade barrier with England, Alistair Darling has claimed.
The Better Together leader cited academic research which suggested leaving the Union could trigger a contraction of up to 5.5 per cent in Scotland's economy.
The claim came as new polling laid bare the challenge the independence camp faces in convincing voters they would be richer after a Yes vote.
Twice as many Scots believe they would be £500 worse off after independence than better off, a new Panelbase survey found.
In the same poll far more voters said the whole country would be worse off after independence, while 17 per cent of respondents would consider leaving Scotland after a Yes vote – the equivalent of 700,000 people.
Better off Together suffering from the same trade delusions as the 3 million jobs depend on the EU crowd. Given the interdependence of England and Scotland, try seeing how far anyone would get with trade barriers put up post independence. You'd see the CBI at the gates of Holyrood and Downing Street quicker than you could put the announcement out. Yet again career politicians with no understanding of how the outside world works.....plus ca change.
No one in the Republican field attracting much enthusiasm! I personally think that by 2016 conditions will be even riper than they were in 1992 (Ross Perot) for attracting a 3rd party candidate into the race. The schism between the establishment Republican base and the tea party elements seems pretty much unbridegable even now with the economy limping along. When confidence turns down in late 2015, 12 months before the election, that'll be plenty of time for the tea party mark II bandwagon to get fully rolling. If I had to predict the 3rd party candidate at the moment, it would be Rand Paul, but lets see on that score. I suspect the Democrat's will be deeply unpopular from the national state of affairs after 8 years, with a hopelessly splintered opposition.
The Kiev government has still not released the recordings of communications between Air Traffic Control and MH 17, should have been released immediately? Very strange.
@Richard_Nabavi "However, property prices were still 6.4% higher compared with a year ago" How does that compare with the pay increases of those people who are trying to buy them? Bites your arse more like?
I must have missed your posts on the subject when Labour were in power.
The Kiev government has still not released the recordings of communications between Air Traffic Control and MH 17, should have been released immediately? Very strange.
Mr Husrslama says - ''as you will discover Cameron's pledge on localism will kick in. Remember how he promised that local communities will have a real say over development in their area. So in due course the local community will have its say and then, on the say so of a Government Inspector, the houses will be built.''
''To give people more control over the development of their local area, we are: giving communities the power to set the priorities for local development through neighbourhood planning requiring local planning authorities to draw up clear, up-to-date Local Plans that conforms with the National Planning Policy Framework, meets local development needs and reflects local people’s views of how they wish their area to develop giving councils the power to raise money to support local infrastructure through the community infrastructure levy also giving communities the right to receive and spend a proportion of community infrastructure levy funds on the local facilities they want giving councils new powers to stop unwanted development on gardens (so-called ‘garden grabbing’) ''
My own community is writing up its own plan now. All the above might be seen as bureaucratic, but what real alternative is there in the real world.
Mr. Path, I know all about that nonsense. We have been through it locally. When the Local Council rejects an application at the end of the day the Government Inspector comes along and agrees to whatever the developer wants.
....and lots of councillors agreeing to developments outside their patch, so you don't get unwanted development on your own bit of turf.
This so called 'Tesco tax' is absolutely typical of developments whereby local government is scrapping for revenue in order to keep the concealed debts at a manageable level. Of course there is a big difference between local municipality government and central government, the latter can easily tap the bond markets and print money, the former cannot. Hence the plethora of revenue raising gimmickry. And from councils of all hues too.
Someone said: Down here is the biggest housing boom I have seen in my lifetime. The slums of tomorrow are being thrown up everywhere one looks. As for building enough new houses to keep up with population growth, forget it. With net immigration officially running at 200,000 a year and all the other causes of new households, it cannot be done.
It could be. Bring back "Super-Mac". He presided over the construction of 500,000 new homes/year when he was Housing Minister in the 1950s. They need to be better designed than they were then - but that's possible, especially if the rate was 'moderated' to only 350,000 or so per year.
300+ houses are proposed for our small (5k) town. Opposition posters are appearing in windows, there’s a petition being circulated, MP’, Councillors are being lobbied and an Action Group is being set up.
Just saying!
You make a good point. Today I was just glancing at the Oxfordshire Guardian in our library. Two housing projects were mentioned in the first 4 pages and both were being delayed in the planning process because of objections. And then people wonder why we are not building enough houses.
Then you have crazy developments in my part of Oxford. Over the past 3 years, about 40 new residences (mainly 'executive' apartments) have been added to my immediate vicinity (less than 100m from my front door) - and none of them have any parking and none of them have any parking rights (not even a visitor parking permit allocation.) Yes, there is a lot of rental demand in Oxford - but even renters expect to be able to park near their home. So not only are we not building the right quantity of houses (due, at least in part, to objections) but when homes are being built, they are often not the right sort of homes that the local communities actually need.
Something has to give - and quickly.
A couple of years back I was looking at some quite expensive 5 bed detached houses.
1 single garage with one parking space in front - chances of on road parking did not look good.
Comments
ComRes/Independent on Sunday (O) Con 31% Lab 34% Lib-Dem 9%
ComRes/Independent (P) Con 30% Lab 32% Lib-Dem 7%
(Also, some new garden cities would be useful.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26600689 etc)
Looks quite good for Lab.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2708410/One-Direction-star-Zayn-Malik-bombarded-death-threats-outraged-Israelis-posting-FreePalestine-message-Twitter.html
(However less good news for Mitt is that Hillary beats him 55% to 42%)
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/27/cnn-poll-romney-tops-obama-but-loses-to-clinton/
Christie 13
Paul 12
Huckabee 12
Perry 11
Ryan 11
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/28/david-ruffley-violence_n_5626619.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
Besides, in case you missed it, places like Newark are being expanded purely as dormitory towns for cities like Nottingham and London. Those brownfield sites are certainly not being used for new businesses.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2458175/ANDREW-PIERCE-My-miracle-MP-David-Ruffley-fell-train.html
The document you quote is irrelevant given that the application for Growth point status was made long before that update to the Local Plan was published. I should know since, as a member of the Civic Trust planning committee I was one of the Consultees on the local plan.
I am not condoning violence of any sort - far from it. But the way those involved in the campaign to get him to stand down seem to have an absolutist view about assault - rather than seeking to look at the full circumstances.
We have other politicians who have been convicted in the courts of various offences and stayed in place. We have Prescott who punched someone in the street.
I am just uncomfortable at the level of bandwagon-jumping on this one - particular when the Church got involved.
The issue is that a Growth Point designation acts as such a large weight on one side of the planning balance that it is almost impossible to counter it. Long before we even got to the planning process we were being told that there would be no point in the process where we would be able to actually argue against the building of 15,000 new houses, only have an input into how they were built.
She must have had a premonition about the L/Dems.
Hmm - Still UKIP or Lib Dems would be my guess
Very sensible, level headed and refreshingly lacking any tedious mob instinct.
Part of my concern over this issue comes from the way that violence (within the domestic setting) is talked of only in terms of male perpetrators and female victims. Whilst this does make up the majority of the cases, there are other permutations. And the focus on female victims makes it even harder for men who do suffer at the hands of their partners to come forward to seek the help and support they deserve.
Until those who campaign on this subject treat all victims as worthy of their attention, they will be contributing to the problem rather than providing proper support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Armstrong
And thanks goodness for that too. He was still sending out updates as 'America's #1 Political Prisoner' as he liked to call himself after over 11 years inside. And ironically if he admitted guilt (when in all likelihood he wasn't guilty - I think Republic New York Corporation which was the holding company for Republic New York Bank as part of the HSBC group was to blame) then he would have served a maximum of 6 or 7 years instead of the eventual 11 - what a crazy legal system and crazy world.
Very true - Mr Miliband's 'I can't outdo Dave on setpieces' quote - who the heck is advising this man? Obviously still the same people that didn't inform him who the local Labour council leader in Swindon was on that dreadful local election trip there. Too many basic mistakes....not fit to govern.......END OF!!!
Predict the mover is Lab - up 4 or 5 to 36 or 37.
Better off Together suffering from the same trade delusions as the 3 million jobs depend on the EU crowd. Given the interdependence of England and Scotland, try seeing how far anyone would get with trade barriers put up post independence. You'd see the CBI at the gates of Holyrood and Downing Street quicker than you could put the announcement out. Yet again career politicians with no understanding of how the outside world works.....plus ca change.
Will we be getting the marginals poll with this as well?
That would be funny, LOL!
(Yes I've got of a copy of the embargoed poll as well)
I know which I'd prefer to rely on.
YouGov/Sun poll tonight - Labour lead by six points: CON 33%, LAB 39%, LD 8%, UKIP 12%
Labour are such hypocrites.
CON 33 LAB 39 LD 8 Ukip 12
Ed is crap is landslide PM
This so called 'Tesco tax' is absolutely typical of developments whereby local government is scrapping for revenue in order to keep the concealed debts at a manageable level. Of course there is a big difference between local municipality government and central government, the latter can easily tap the bond markets and print money, the former cannot. Hence the plethora of revenue raising gimmickry. And from councils of all hues too.
Ed is crap is landslide PM
For the US Senate seat, Perdue (related to former gov) beating Nunn (related to former US Senator) 46% - 40%
For governor Carter, (related to former GA gov and Potus) over Deal (related to ga gov) 45%-44%.
I don't miss nepotism at all.
(both polls Rasmussen)
1 single garage with one parking space in front - chances of on road parking did not look good.
We walked away but they sold out very quickly.