eg Here's an apartment in The Shard. TBH it doesn't strike me as "living like a fucking battery hen"
Ah yes. Do you want to check the price?
It is not even just the price. AIUI most of the flats were completed in 2012 but still not released as they are hoping for higher sale prices eventually and dont want to flood their market!
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
If you live in a high rise anywhere that the maintenance is shit so the lifts don’t work or stink of piss. People above, below, and either side. Nowhere safe for your kids to go outside, no let up in noise then you would not want to live there. Why do you now live in a semi rural area?
That is mainly council flats, most privately owned high rise flats are not like that
Total bollocks, you have never lived in them obviously. In fact council flats actually have an advantage because the council will evict anti social tenants whereas privately owned your ownly choice is to move out
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.8.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Apart from most people don't really want to live in high rises. I have met many that expressed a desire for a detatched house never yet have I heard anyone yearn to live on the 20th floor of nelson mandela towers
Plenty of people would be happy to have an apartment in a Manhattan or Singapore style skyscraper however
Sure - and they are being built on every available piece of land. The thing is that they are not for everyone.
Also when you say manhatten and singapore you are speaking mostly of high rises designed and built for the rich with a concierge and security, which are a lot different to the one bed flats that the average person would be living in where the lifts will be out of service on week in 10 and even when they work will stink of urine and the people below are belting out radiohead cranked to 11 till 4 in the morning
That is council flats, you can have high rises which are mainly filled with private leaseholders (some privately rented out) or which are collectively owned by the residents via commonhold
Which are just as bad. You think private leaseholders somehow don't behave antisocially? For most people home is where you go when you want to get anyway from idiots. Can't do that in a high rise
Utter rubbish, if you live in a global city you are going to be surrounded by noise anyway regardless.
If you want peace and quiet then save up to buy an existing house in the country, we do not need all the countryside concreted over because you don't like high rise, tough.
We don't need the green belt protected because you prefer your leafy suburb tough.....see what I did there?
Yes but currently we Tories in rural and suburban areas have the majority not Labour voters in urban areas, so to get re elected with a majority the government has to listen to its core vote
Yes but now we have wfh we are moving into your territory and we won't be voting tory so tough luck
No evidence of that on the current polling and even if you do manage to afford to wfh and move to the Home Counties you in turn will then become Nimby to protect the view from and value of your house and will vote for the party that promises to protect the greenbelt
I won't be moving to the home counties I am going back to the south west....still a tory mp to vote against though and will still be renting there so no house value to protect
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
If you live in a high rise anywhere that the maintenance is shit so the lifts don’t work or stink of piss. People above, below, and either side. Nowhere safe for your kids to go outside, no let up in noise then you would not want to live there. Why do you now live in a semi rural area?
That is mainly council flats, most privately owned high rise flats are not like that
Total bollocks, you have never lived in them obviously. In fact council flats actually have an advantage because the council will evict anti social tenants whereas privately owned your ownly choice is to move out
I lived in a flat in my 20s.
It was great because I was in the heart of Shoreditch (which appealed in my 20s).
The lift never stank of piss, although the vaguely famous TV presenter who lived above me did “fall asleep” in her bath and the overflow flooded my bathroom.
Remember the govts decision on whether to reopen is partly based on vaccine uptake which is why this is a problem
Government by scariant devalues vaccination , because scrariants allow the authorities to junk the vaccine's currency. Julia HB caught Zahawi doing this today.
And so we have a double bind that enslaves the nation permanently.
Vaccines are completely vital and our way out
Except when we say they aren't ( Delta variant).
Eventually people will be fed up of being pin cushions.
And that's when the government will say not enough have been vaccinated for freedom.
The government's conditions are the recipe for permanent status quo. Its not about safety, it never was. It is about control.
Want to know why I didn't have a vaccine? this is why.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
A lad who worked for me lived in the ones at Woking station. Hated it. Moved to Wales in the end.
Mr. Centre, when I had my jab about half the people there were Asian (heavily Asian area, though the place I'd travelled from was whiter so I'd guess the demographics overall were pretty well represented by the half and half).
Mr. Contrarian, I wonder if his wife or someone else informed him what his opinion is.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
Where is Sunak? He has been very very quiet of late.
On maneuvers in Catterick. Look at the fucking size of him. The British public will not vote for a Borrower as PM. This has profound betting implications.
It's the old "near", " faraway" trick. He's really 7ft 3!
Is it just me or has Rishi got no knees? Or is he in fact goose stepping?
Gardenwalker perhaps try debating rather than ad hoc criticisms.
I will if you bring something to the party better than your “my mate said it was the immigrants” stuff.
By the way, it’s not controversial to note that ethnic minority communities have higher non-vax rates, just say it - don’t hide behind some anecdote and then conclude - as if speaking in a whisper to the white van man who delivered your new TV - “says it all, dunnit?”
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
We don't need much new housing in towns. Most of the property there is very affordable, especially in the North and Midlands.
It is London which is most unaffordable and where we need to build the most affordable new properties and no reason a high rise apartment block in London cannot be very pleasant to live in, as the examples Leon has showed demonstrate
Isn’t that just a studious neutrality? Or the realisation he wants to stay out of ANOTHER fight with Marcus Rashford.
Its is carefully crafted, respect the right to do so, not personally support taking the knee. Didn't he other say the same about those against it the other day.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
Mr. Centre, when I had my jab about half the people there were Asian (heavily Asian area, though the place I'd travelled from was whiter so I'd guess the demographics overall were pretty well represented by the half and half).
Mr. Contrarian, I wonder if his wife or someone else informed him what his opinion is.
I got my jabs in hayes and harlington which is a strongly ethnic area, no shortage of ethnics in the queues
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
With antibodies (in adults) around 80% but rates doubling every 5-6 days in the young unvaccinated population and an Ro around 6 - we probably need over 85% to hit herd immunity & if we include kids we are ~ 65% now -so a lesson for other countries! @EricTopol@drraghibali
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
If you live in a high rise anywhere that the maintenance is shit so the lifts don’t work or stink of piss. People above, below, and either side. Nowhere safe for your kids to go outside, no let up in noise then you would not want to live there. Why do you now live in a semi rural area?
That is mainly council flats, most privately owned high rise flats are not like that
Total bollocks, you have never lived in them obviously. In fact council flats actually have an advantage because the council will evict anti social tenants whereas privately owned your ownly choice is to move out
Council flats are often built to better specifications, too. The first place we bought was a 2-bed flat in a council block by the Oval (thanks Mrs T). It was a really beautiful flat with big windows, high ceilings, thick walls and decent sized rooms. Much nicer than some ghastly new-build rabbit hutch place in a "luxury" private development. Plus it felt very safe because if you came home late at night there were always kids sitting around on the stairs smoking weed. It was a great place for a couple in their twenties, although I prefer having a house with a garden now we have a family.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
I outlined it very briefly upthread.
In essence, yes we need to build more; the planning system must be simplified and govt needs to find social housing.
But all of this can be done I think without scrapping the green belt(s).
As I write in the middle of the city with the most pressing problem I can see with my own eyes the incredibly low density and also many brownfield opportunities.
I am not familiar with Warrington so don’t know what the answer is, but I figure part of it is ensuring Liverpool and Manchester are maxing density appropriately.
With antibodies (in adults) around 80% but rates doubling every 5-6 days in the young unvaccinated population and an Ro around 6 - we probably need over 85% to hit herd immunity & if we include kids we are ~ 65% now -so a lesson for other countries! @EricTopol@drraghibali
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
If you live in a high rise anywhere that the maintenance is shit so the lifts don’t work or stink of piss. People above, below, and either side. Nowhere safe for your kids to go outside, no let up in noise then you would not want to live there. Why do you now live in a semi rural area?
That is mainly council flats, most privately owned high rise flats are not like that
Total bollocks, you have never lived in them obviously. In fact council flats actually have an advantage because the council will evict anti social tenants whereas privately owned your ownly choice is to move out
Management companies and private landlords can also evict anti social tenants
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
If you live in a high rise anywhere that the maintenance is shit so the lifts don’t work or stink of piss. People above, below, and either side. Nowhere safe for your kids to go outside, no let up in noise then you would not want to live there. Why do you now live in a semi rural area?
That is mainly council flats, most privately owned high rise flats are not like that
Total bollocks, you have never lived in them obviously. In fact council flats actually have an advantage because the council will evict anti social tenants whereas privately owned your ownly choice is to move out
Council flats are often built to better specifications, too. The first place we bought was a 2-bed flat in a council block by the Oval (thanks Mrs T). It was a really beautiful flat with big windows, high ceilings, thick walls and decent sized rooms. Much nicer than some ghastly new-build rabbit hutch place in a "luxury" private development. Plus it felt very safe because if you came home late at night there were always kids sitting around on the stairs smoking weed. It was a great place for a couple in their twenties, although I prefer having a house with a garden now we have a family.
Last house I owned was built in 1902 much better quality, high ceilings....built for living saw new builds less than 10 years old and was less impressed best being one with a porch where there was a crack you could easily fit a finger in all the way up one wall across the ceiling and down the other wall where the porch was coming away from the house.
With antibodies (in adults) around 80% but rates doubling every 5-6 days in the young unvaccinated population and an Ro around 6 - we probably need over 85% to hit herd immunity & if we include kids we are ~ 65% now -so a lesson for other countries! @EricTopol@drraghibali
They were £50,000,000 - which I readily accept is not cheap - but you could probably snap one up for £100k now, no more than a terrace in Workington
The price was farcical - for that money you can buy a huge house in central London, with a garden you could place tennis in. And double the cost rebuilding it...... and still have money left over.
In all seriousness, I do wonder what will happen post-Covid to all these ultra-luxe apartments in very high rise buildings in London. They will plunge in value I reckon. This is even more the case in New York City, where so much of the prestige property is in skyscrapers
As you say, who is really going to pay £50m for a five bed flat in the Shard, no matter how lovely the marble or gorgeous the views, when that can buy you an entire John Nash period house in Regent's Park, with 7 beds, an annexe, garden, staff accommodation, gymnasium - AND YOU STILL HAVE £30 MILLION LEFT OVER
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
If you live in a high rise anywhere that the maintenance is shit so the lifts don’t work or stink of piss. People above, below, and either side. Nowhere safe for your kids to go outside, no let up in noise then you would not want to live there. Why do you now live in a semi rural area?
That is mainly council flats, most privately owned high rise flats are not like that
Total bollocks, you have never lived in them obviously. In fact council flats actually have an advantage because the council will evict anti social tenants whereas privately owned your ownly choice is to move out
Management companies and private landlords can also evict anti social tenants
The other problem is these unvaccinated people are concentrated in the big cities like london and manchester where uptake is substantially lower
Not necessarily the case. The city vaccination rates are done by GP registrations - which can substantially over-estimate population - in Cambridge's case by nearly 50% vs the ONS data.
Well the official figures show substantially less uptake in the big cities. I'm sure you are not saying these official figures are massively wrong are you as they confirm anecdotal experience
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
With antibodies (in adults) around 80% but rates doubling every 5-6 days in the young unvaccinated population and an Ro around 6 - we probably need over 85% to hit herd immunity & if we include kids we are ~ 65% now -so a lesson for other countries! @EricTopol@drraghibali
All they have to do is offer it to those who actively want it.
Not sure about the ethics of that. In particular, I don’t feel comfortable about giving under 40s anxiety about whether to take AZ now or stay in the queue for one of the others.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
Or we could reduce population of the uk which would be a better thing to do
Gardenwalker perhaps try debating rather than ad hoc criticisms.
I will if you bring something to the party better than your “my mate said it was the immigrants” stuff.
By the way, it’s not controversial to note that ethnic minority communities have higher non-vax rates, just say it - don’t hide behind some anecdote and then conclude - as if speaking in a whisper to the white van man who delivered your new TV - “says it all, dunnit?”
I suppose you have no problem calling monkey pox, monkey pox.
Gardenwalker perhaps try debating rather than ad hoc criticisms.
I will if you bring something to the party better than your “my mate said it was the immigrants” stuff.
By the way, it’s not controversial to note that ethnic minority communities have higher non-vax rates, just say it - don’t hide behind some anecdote and then conclude - as if speaking in a whisper to the white van man who delivered your new TV - “says it all, dunnit?”
I suppose you have no problem calling monkey pox, monkey pox.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Sadly that seems to be the norm in your case.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
Or we could reduce population of the uk which would be a better thing to do
Well this evidence is anecdotal but a young guy was queuing for vaccine in a very multicultural area...zero people from ethnic minorities...I think that says it all
With antibodies (in adults) around 80% but rates doubling every 5-6 days in the young unvaccinated population and an Ro around 6 - we probably need over 85% to hit herd immunity & if we include kids we are ~ 65% now -so a lesson for other countries! @EricTopol@drraghibali
All they have to do is offer it to those who actively want it.
Not sure about the ethics of that. In particular, I don’t feel comfortable about giving under 40s anxiety about whether to take AZ now or stay in the queue for one of the others.
People can make their own free choice. Besides the risk is tiny and it also looks like there is a tiny risk with Pfizer of heart complications among the young.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
Or we could reduce population of the uk which would be a better thing to do
Great policy. Build back better, by euthanising your whole family!
For some reason that reminds me of the Rowan Atkinson story - he discovered that he could buy super cars, crash them (he seems to have bad luck with his driving), get them repaired multiple times, then sell them at a big profit, as owned by R.A.....
His McLaren F1 accident was the biggest single vehicle claim in UK insurance history.
Really? Given the issue of princelings in mega cars in London, I am astonished that someone hasn't managed to write off his Veyron*, his mates Veyron, and a bunch of innocent passersby......
EDIT - Talking of idiots, a local fool has stuck an L badge on his Tesla P100D and is teaching his children to drive in it. Given that he also has one of those tiny Fiats, is this insane? Or is that just me?
Anyone who can afford a Tesla can afford to pay for proper driving lessons, although these have only recently reopened after lockdown. Once the children can drive a bit, there probably is an argument for introducing them to electric cars, just as there is for showing them how to drive on motorways or in bad weather.
Gardenwalker perhaps try debating rather than ad hoc criticisms.
I will if you bring something to the party better than your “my mate said it was the immigrants” stuff.
By the way, it’s not controversial to note that ethnic minority communities have higher non-vax rates, just say it - don’t hide behind some anecdote and then conclude - as if speaking in a whisper to the white van man who delivered your new TV - “says it all, dunnit?”
I suppose you have no problem calling monkey pox, monkey pox.
Is there such a thing as monkey pox and if so why wouldnt he call it monkey pox, we have no problem calling cow pox cow pox or chicken pox chicken pox?
Vaccine anecdote. My local vaccination hub just opened for 2 days of turn up AZ vaccinations for those over 40 for first jabs or 18+ for second. I turned up today (6.5 weeks after my first jab) and I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. They had vaccinators waiting to jab people with no wait for me. Constant stream of people coming through.
They ought to be opening up AZ to 18+ and just tell people to drop in. We have the AZ stockpile to do it. Better in arms than in a chilled warehouse.
With antibodies (in adults) around 80% but rates doubling every 5-6 days in the young unvaccinated population and an Ro around 6 - we probably need over 85% to hit herd immunity & if we include kids we are ~ 65% now -so a lesson for other countries! @EricTopol@drraghibali
All they have to do is offer it to those who actively want it.
Not sure about the ethics of that. In particular, I don’t feel comfortable about giving under 40s anxiety about whether to take AZ now or stay in the queue for one of the others.
People can make their own free choice. Besides the risk is tiny and it also looks like there is a tiny risk with Pfizer of heart complications among the young.
The delta variant has changed the risk profile.
PBers: it's a disgrace that no-one understands probability Also PBers: people can evaluate their own risks
Well this evidence is anecdotal but a young guy was queuing for vaccine in a very multicultural area...zero people from ethnic minorities...I think that says it all
The plural of anecdote is not data :-)
Anecdotage ?
Tha's me - a typical agedknowitallbeentheregotseveralofthet-shirts...butnotquitecoherentallthetime...
I'd like to see some mix-match data on Pfizer followed by Astra tbh. Az -> Pf is known to be good by that german study I linked but nothing doing about the other way round.
Johnson's government is reeling. It is all over the place.
May, acutely aware of the main chance as ever, senses it.
It won't be long before others do.
Could TMay return as PM? I notice she has been active in Chesham & Amersham
I wondered the same thing this morning.......!
She might well try. I am not sure May would succeed though. 2017 too bad a memory for many tories?
Could one bet on her trying and not succeeding ?
Just checked Oddscheker & she's not even a runner in their next PM market, while Ian Blackford, Piers Morgan & Cameron are!
To pick up on Mike's point about her being active in Chesham &Amersham, maybe TM has sensed dissatisfaction from the faithful there for one reason or another.
Maybe a shock lib dem win is NOT off the cards. Or very reduced majority on low turnout / some sort of showing by others.
Isn’t that just a studious neutrality? Or the realisation he wants to stay out of ANOTHER fight with Marcus Rashford.
Peaceful non political protest Boris? With the Black Power Salute! 😆
Boris's change of mind about knee-taking might follow President Biden reminding him of the mess Donald Trump created when he condemned what was, in America, a peaceful alternative to armed riots. Or it could just be coincidence.
For some reason that reminds me of the Rowan Atkinson story - he discovered that he could buy super cars, crash them (he seems to have bad luck with his driving), get them repaired multiple times, then sell them at a big profit, as owned by R.A.....
His McLaren F1 accident was the biggest single vehicle claim in UK insurance history.
Really? Given the issue of princelings in mega cars in London, I am astonished that someone hasn't managed to write off his Veyron*, his mates Veyron, and a bunch of innocent passersby......
EDIT - Talking of idiots, a local fool has stuck an L badge on his Tesla P100D and is teaching his children to drive in it. Given that he also has one of those tiny Fiats, is this insane? Or is that just me?
Anyone who can afford a Tesla can afford to pay for proper driving lessons, although these have only recently reopened after lockdown. Once the children can drive a bit, there probably is an argument for introducing them to electric cars, just as there is for showing them how to drive on motorways or in bad weather.
Teaching your children to drive is perfectly sensible.
Teaching them to drive in a large car with super car acceleration - which has created a genre of videos on Reddit and elsewhere with the results of accidentally hitting the accelerator at the wrong moment - seems stupid.
There is a a reason why driving school cars are small hatch backs, with small engines.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
Or we could reduce population of the uk which would be a better thing to do
Are you volunteering?
Well if they are giving hunting licences.....
Reducing population on the serious side doesnt imply euthanasia. I just think it is sensible we aim to move to a population that is sustainable for the country. That means one we can feed and house without outside help. Better for us better for the environment
Gardenwalker perhaps try debating rather than ad hoc criticisms.
I will if you bring something to the party better than your “my mate said it was the immigrants” stuff.
By the way, it’s not controversial to note that ethnic minority communities have higher non-vax rates, just say it - don’t hide behind some anecdote and then conclude - as if speaking in a whisper to the white van man who delivered your new TV - “says it all, dunnit?”
I suppose you have no problem calling monkey pox, monkey pox.
I have already said that gardenwalker. And what's it got to with immigrants most of these ethnic minorities are british my friend. Seems you dont like things pointed out to you that make you uncomfortable so respond with ad hominem attacks
I'd like to see some mix-match data on Pfizer followed by Astra tbh. Az -> Pf is known to be good by that german study I linked but nothing doing about the other way round.
German study was other way round. AZN followed by Pfizer. We could do that for youngsters in the UK.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
I think of him as Philibet. It's a way of honouring him.
I'd like to see some mix-match data on Pfizer followed by Astra tbh. Az -> Pf is known to be good by that german study I linked but nothing doing about the other way round.
Well you know what they say - per Pfizer ad Astra.
Isn’t that just a studious neutrality? Or the realisation he wants to stay out of ANOTHER fight with Marcus Rashford.
Peaceful non political protest Boris? With the Black Power Salute! 😆
Boris's change of mind about knee-taking might follow President Biden reminding him of the mess Donald Trump created when he condemned what was, in America, a peaceful alternative to armed riots. Or it could just be coincidence.
Alternative view. Kneeling was entered into without an endgame. The messy end is stoking more division this side of pond than there was to start with.
On the "who's getting hospitalised/who will get hospitalised?" front, we don't need to guess. The NHS have published the age data up until the 6th of June.
I've had a bit of a play. Looking at the relationship between number of hospitalisations and number of cases 10 days earlier (very crude), it does look as though ages 0-5 and 6-17 are getting hospitalised in nearly twice the ratio they were before. 18-54 are up 25%-30%; 55-64 down to under half, and then down to a third and then a quarter as you get older. I'm assuming a chunk of the older ones are vax refusers and another chunk are breakthroughs.
The unhelpfully wide 18-54 is a max of pre-vaxxed and one-dose-vaxxed, with a handful of double-vaxxed, so it does look as though around double the ratio is about right for Delta.
However - that massive drop in the oldies in comparison to the young is why the numbers are so far down. If the proportion of cases had remained the same across all age ranges, we'd have passed 300 hospitalisations per day around the 5th of June (in England alone) and be past 3,000 in hospital (in comparison, we only passed 100 hospitalisations per day consistently on the 6th of June and had 807 in hospital).
(And this is over and above vax effects slowing spread and infections).
So the link between cases and hospitalisations isn't broken, but the ratio is significantly reduced (even in the face of Delta doubling it in raw terms) and that ratio will continue to go down week on week as more doses go into more arms.
However - should the cases continue to rise at the same rate and the ratio between cases and hospitalisations remain unchanged (which they won't, so this is a line that we should be peeling away from), we would be passing 350 admissions per day (largely in the young) by 21st of June and over 2000 in hospital by that point.
Should the proportion of 18-54 drop towards the 55-64s and the 55-64s join the older groups at their level, then that 350-odd will be c. 220-odd, and the number in hospital would drop to the 1200-1300 range by then.
I would also expect the increase in cases to be slowing down with the increased vaccination as well, but to extrapolate that would be to add crude estimate on top of crude estimate.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
How do you get that when only 11% of this country is built on?
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
On the "who's getting hospitalised/who will get hospitalised?" front, we don't need to guess. The NHS have published the age data up until the 6th of June.
I've had a bit of a play. Looking at the relationship between number of hospitalisations and number of cases 10 days earlier (very crude), it does look as though ages 0-5 and 6-17 are getting hospitalised in nearly twice the ratio they were before. 18-54 are up 25%-30%; 55-64 down to under half, and then down to a third and then a quarter as you get older. I'm assuming a chunk of the older ones are vax refusers and another chunk are breakthroughs.
The unhelpfully wide 18-54 is a max of pre-vaxxed and one-dose-vaxxed, with a handful of double-vaxxed, so it does look as though around double the ratio is about right for Delta.
However - that massive drop in the oldies in comparison to the young is why the numbers are so far down. If the proportion of cases had remained the same across all age ranges, we'd have passed 300 hospitalisations per day around the 5th of June (in England alone) and be past 3,000 in hospital (in comparison, we only passed 100 hospitalisations per day consistently on the 6th of June and had 807 in hospital).
(And this is over and above vax effects slowing spread and infections).
So the link between cases and hospitalisations isn't broken, but the ratio is significantly reduced (even in the face of Delta doubling it in raw terms) and that ratio will continue to go down week on week as more doses go into more arms.
However - should the cases continue to rise at the same rate and the ratio between cases and hospitalisations remain unchanged (which they won't, so this is a line that we should be peeling away from), we would be passing 350 admissions per day (largely in the young) by 21st of June and over 2000 in hospital by that point.
Should the proportion of 18-54 drop towards the 55-64s and the 55-64s join the older groups at their level, then that 350-odd will be c. 220-odd, and the number in hospital would drop to the 1200-1300 range by then.
I would also expect the increase in cases to be slowing down with the increased vaccination as well, but to extrapolate that would be to add crude estimate on top of crude estimate.
Gardenwalker perhaps try debating rather than ad hoc criticisms.
I will if you bring something to the party better than your “my mate said it was the immigrants” stuff.
By the way, it’s not controversial to note that ethnic minority communities have higher non-vax rates, just say it - don’t hide behind some anecdote and then conclude - as if speaking in a whisper to the white van man who delivered your new TV - “says it all, dunnit?”
I suppose you have no problem calling monkey pox, monkey pox.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Sadly that seems to be the norm in your case.
Calling Gardenwalker a debating Neanderthal is picking very low hanging fruit.
Mr. kle4, could be wrong but I think the general assumption people were shorter in the past is largely flawed. Those with sufficient wealth to ensure a continuous and stable diet were pretty much the same height, I think.
But thats the point - a lot more likely lacked that stability.
Plenty also lived a long time too, but the average was lower.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
Or we could reduce population of the uk which would be a better thing to do
How do you propose we do that?
Ceasing to increase it is difficult enough, how do you propose we reduce it?
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
The problems with using high-rises for social accommodation, is that there’s no conscierge, security or cleaners employed there, and the residents care little for the communal areas.
Those commissioning them, need to incorporate these daily running costs into their budgets, because without them you get a horrible place where no-one wants to live.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
I think of him as Philibet. It's a way of honouring him.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
The problems with using high-rises for social accommodation, is that there’s no conscierge, security or cleaners employed there, and the residents care little for the communal areas.
Those commissioning them, need to incorporate these daily running costs into their budgets, because without them you get a horrible place where no-one wants to live.
(I live in a 20 storey tower, and it’s lovely!).
Yep agree.
There’s no point building social housing and leaving it to rot.
I also think that dedicated social housing towers etc should be avoided. Mixed use is healthier for a lot of reasons.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
If you live in a high rise anywhere that the maintenance is shit so the lifts don’t work or stink of piss. People above, below, and either side. Nowhere safe for your kids to go outside, no let up in noise then you would not want to live there. Why do you now live in a semi rural area?
That is mainly council flats, most privately owned high rise flats are not like that
Total bollocks, you have never lived in them obviously. In fact council flats actually have an advantage because the council will evict anti social tenants whereas privately owned your ownly choice is to move out
Management companies and private landlords can also evict anti social tenants
Not if they are owner occupiers
Technically they can do there too. House owners tend to be freeholders and thus free to do what they like with and in their property within the law, flat owners are not.
Instead most flat owners are leaseholders and if you breach the term of your lease by anti social behaviour or excess disturbance of other leaseholders then technically the apartment block management company can evict you, even if you hold them as commonhold then the other commonholders can take action under the terms of the collective ownership contract against you such as a fine.
Gardenwalker perhaps try debating rather than ad hoc criticisms.
I will if you bring something to the party better than your “my mate said it was the immigrants” stuff.
By the way, it’s not controversial to note that ethnic minority communities have higher non-vax rates, just say it - don’t hide behind some anecdote and then conclude - as if speaking in a whisper to the white van man who delivered your new TV - “says it all, dunnit?”
I suppose you have no problem calling monkey pox, monkey pox.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Sadly that seems to be the norm in your case.
Calling Gardenwalker a debating Neanderthal is picking very low hanging fruit.
We’re still waiting for you to explain what monkey pox is.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
Or we could reduce population of the uk which would be a better thing to do
How do you propose we do that?
Ceasing to increase it is difficult enough, how do you propose we reduce it?
We already have a birthrate below replacement level, control immigration so we slightly undertake replacement level. Slow but steady. Our birthrate will also fall , for example currently ours is currently 1.68, south korea's is 0.92 as ours falls we can increase immigration just keeps the figures low enough that we are below 2.1
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
Pretty weak ambition you have there there that you think that people being able to have a home with a garden is like abolishing nastiness.
I never said everyone should have at least an average sized home, because that's obviously impossible. But at least be able to buy a home with a garden if they want to do so? Considering only 11% of this country is built on, why such a scary impossible ambition to you?
Isn’t that just a studious neutrality? Or the realisation he wants to stay out of ANOTHER fight with Marcus Rashford.
Peaceful non political protest Boris? With the Black Power Salute! 😆
Boris's change of mind about knee-taking might follow President Biden reminding him of the mess Donald Trump created when he condemned what was, in America, a peaceful alternative to armed riots. Or it could just be coincidence.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
How do you get that when only 11% of this country is built on?
Only 5.75 % is built on, if fact, according to the OECD
The Barbican started life as council flats, did it not? Town planning by the Luftwaffe.
Yes, I think it was. You won the lottery if you got a flat there and then Thatch gave you Right To Buy
I've been in a couple of Barbican flats, they are very nice inside. Well made. The brutalist exterior is not for everyone but I like the jagged silhouettes. Ceilings could be a tiny bit higher, but other than that rather pleasant. And wonderful views, especially at night. And of course you are surrounded by the gardens and history of the Barbican, which is still a bit of a hidden gem, despite the arts complex. It has a fabulous arboretum which few people know, see here
High rise if done well is fine for most people without kids, and that is quite a lot of people. Older people love the Barbican, for example
On the "who's getting hospitalised/who will get hospitalised?" front, we don't need to guess. The NHS have published the age data up until the 6th of June.
I've had a bit of a play. Looking at the relationship between number of hospitalisations and number of cases 10 days earlier (very crude), it does look as though ages 0-5 and 6-17 are getting hospitalised in nearly twice the ratio they were before. 18-54 are up 25%-30%; 55-64 down to under half, and then down to a third and then a quarter as you get older. I'm assuming a chunk of the older ones are vax refusers and another chunk are breakthroughs.
The unhelpfully wide 18-54 is a max of pre-vaxxed and one-dose-vaxxed, with a handful of double-vaxxed, so it does look as though around double the ratio is about right for Delta.
However - that massive drop in the oldies in comparison to the young is why the numbers are so far down. If the proportion of cases had remained the same across all age ranges, we'd have passed 300 hospitalisations per day around the 5th of June (in England alone) and be past 3,000 in hospital (in comparison, we only passed 100 hospitalisations per day consistently on the 6th of June and had 807 in hospital).
(And this is over and above vax effects slowing spread and infections).
So the link between cases and hospitalisations isn't broken, but the ratio is significantly reduced (even in the face of Delta doubling it in raw terms) and that ratio will continue to go down week on week as more doses go into more arms.
However - should the cases continue to rise at the same rate and the ratio between cases and hospitalisations remain unchanged (which they won't, so this is a line that we should be peeling away from), we would be passing 350 admissions per day (largely in the young) by 21st of June and over 2000 in hospital by that point.
Should the proportion of 18-54 drop towards the 55-64s and the 55-64s join the older groups at their level, then that 350-odd will be c. 220-odd, and the number in hospital would drop to the 1200-1300 range by then.
I would also expect the increase in cases to be slowing down with the increased vaccination as well, but to extrapolate that would be to add crude estimate on top of crude estimate.
+1 on that.
If this analysis is correct, and I am not saying that is isn't, then pray tell why are other European countries opening up with far lower levels of vaccination than Britain? (as May pointed out today)
Why have some US states opened up completely for weeks with lower levels of vaccination?
For the above to happen without the health systems of these countries being swamped (which they are manifestly not), the assumptions you are making simply cannot be true.
It is just not possible. There must be other factors.
As a lawyer for social housing providers, I am sceptical that mixed use blocks are the way forward.
it is generally more work for a registered provider to manage individual flats, for example, because it is subject to the individual flat leases under which it is tenant. Certain types of claims will sit with the freeholder of the block as a whole.
You can call it stratification of the affordable housing element of a development if you want, but that stratification is not all negative.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
How do you get that when only 11% of this country is built on?
Only 5.75 % is built on, if fact, according to the OECD
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
Or we could reduce population of the uk which would be a better thing to do
How do you propose we do that?
Ceasing to increase it is difficult enough, how do you propose we reduce it?
We already have a birthrate below replacement level, control immigration so we slightly undertake replacement level. Slow but steady. Our birthrate will also fall , for example currently ours is currently 1.68, south korea's is 0.92 as ours falls we can increase immigration just keeps the figures low enough that we are below 2.1
That's not how it works.
2019 we had 712,680 live births. 2019 we had 604,707 deaths.
The population we have now is about 10 million higher than it was when the green belt was set at what it is. At that rate of births and deaths how long would it take to reduce our population by 10 million?
On the "who's getting hospitalised/who will get hospitalised?" front, we don't need to guess. The NHS have published the age data up until the 6th of June.
I've had a bit of a play. Looking at the relationship between number of hospitalisations and number of cases 10 days earlier (very crude), it does look as though ages 0-5 and 6-17 are getting hospitalised in nearly twice the ratio they were before. 18-54 are up 25%-30%; 55-64 down to under half, and then down to a third and then a quarter as you get older. I'm assuming a chunk of the older ones are vax refusers and another chunk are breakthroughs.
The unhelpfully wide 18-54 is a max of pre-vaxxed and one-dose-vaxxed, with a handful of double-vaxxed, so it does look as though around double the ratio is about right for Delta.
However - that massive drop in the oldies in comparison to the young is why the numbers are so far down. If the proportion of cases had remained the same across all age ranges, we'd have passed 300 hospitalisations per day around the 5th of June (in England alone) and be past 3,000 in hospital (in comparison, we only passed 100 hospitalisations per day consistently on the 6th of June and had 807 in hospital).
(And this is over and above vax effects slowing spread and infections).
So the link between cases and hospitalisations isn't broken, but the ratio is significantly reduced (even in the face of Delta doubling it in raw terms) and that ratio will continue to go down week on week as more doses go into more arms.
However - should the cases continue to rise at the same rate and the ratio between cases and hospitalisations remain unchanged (which they won't, so this is a line that we should be peeling away from), we would be passing 350 admissions per day (largely in the young) by 21st of June and over 2000 in hospital by that point.
Should the proportion of 18-54 drop towards the 55-64s and the 55-64s join the older groups at their level, then that 350-odd will be c. 220-odd, and the number in hospital would drop to the 1200-1300 range by then.
I would also expect the increase in cases to be slowing down with the increased vaccination as well, but to extrapolate that would be to add crude estimate on top of crude estimate.
+1 on that.
If this analysis is correct, and I am not saying that is isn't, then pray tell why are other European countries opening up with far lower levels of vaccination than Britain? (as May pointed out today)
Why have some US states opened up completely for weeks with lower levels of vaccination?
For the above to happen without the health systems of these countries being swamped (which they are manifestly not), the assumptions you are making simply cannot be true.
It is just not possible. There must be other factors.
They are taking a risk based on current, falling numbers. The gamble is that by the time the next variant (probably Delta) hits them, they will be much more vaxed.
.@UKSteel__ says removing import tariffs will be "hammer blow". "To remove huge elements of the protection steel manufacturers require against import surges is utter madness. On their first major test in a post-Brexit trading environment, the UK’s new system has failed." https://twitter.com/pkelso/status/1403326961477427206
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
Pretty weak ambition you have there there that you think that people being able to have a home with a garden is like abolishing nastiness.
I never said everyone should have at least an average sized home, because that's obviously impossible. But at least be able to buy a home with a garden if they want to do so? Considering only 11% of this country is built on, why such a scary impossible ambition to you?
Too silly to answer, and you really should be fabricating your own statistics instead of borrowing fabrications from others.
Firstly, it is not really true that Green Belts have been expanded. They were a policy tool originating in the 1950s to limit the expansion of towns and cities as there was a worry about unplanned sprawl. Somehow, some places ended up with Green Belts, others didn't: it is somewhat random. As far as I know, most of them were designated in in the 1950's and 60's. Green Belts have subsequently become linked to ideals about towns and country and have taken on a mythology of their own. They certainly have a visual function in terms of seperating urban areas thus preserving their identity. However, because of the proximity to infrastructure and services, it is some of the best land to develop for housing in a productive and socially useful way. It is true that many of the problems to do with housing, particularly around the south east; and London in particular; could be addressed by way of developing this land; but this would undoubtedly result in a significant change to the urban and rural landscape, which needs to be considered carefully.
With regard to housing more generally, the idea that you should deregulate and let people build anything anywhere is one that can only be entertained if you are happy to have almost no countryside at all, because that is what would occur within a single generation: there would be large scale unplanned suburban sprawl of the type that the planning system was introduced in 1948 to stop from happening. This is along with many other potential adverse consequences, too many to list. The problem is that the demand for housing is endless, and the extent of developable land in this country is very limited. It is not at all like places like the USA or Scandinavia where there is a lot of land. Fortunately this won't happen, because people in England are fond of the Countryside. This is a seperate issue to Nimbyism, they shouldn't be confused.
(TBC)
Part of the problem is that people don't want to make obvious linkages. The Green Belt wasn't an issue (much) until the government decided that they wanted a bigger population.
Which leaves these options
- Stop the population growing - Everyone moves to flats which must get smaller, year by year - Fuck (some of) the Green Belt
The mystical brown fields sites will not solve the problem. Not at the current rates of population expansion.
The population isn't growing, UK births per mother is only 1.7 ie below the 2.1 required replacement rate.
It is increased immigration, divorces etc which has let to more demand. Tighten immigration controls further, encourage the traditional family and it would be less of an issue.
No reason why we cannot build more high rise flats in London and skyscrapers as befits a global city to reduce the pressure for increased housing in the greenbelt
Have you ever lived in a high rise? I have. It is awful. It is the equivalent of living like a fucking battery hen.
Depends, if you live in a high rise in central London with a view of the park and easy access to shops, cafes, nightlife etc as a young person it would be ideal.
Yep. People’s housing prefs change over time.
Where I think planning continues to err is in putting up high rises outside metro centres, often next to “transport hubs”.
The towers next to Woking Stn are hideous and don’t provide easy access to any sort of metropolitan life.
Completely agreed. Up here you get flats built (not especially high rise) as "affordable housing" within new housing estates far too often.
No reason for it whatsoever - and it makes absolutely no sense. Just use a bit more land and build more mews or semi detached housing.
There are effectively two or three different housing markets, and enlightened planning philosophy addresses each differently.
Greater London. Other metros. “Country”.
Although it is much better than it used to be, a lot of issues in this country just seem to be caused by shite development, in turn in response to various perversities in the system.
Agreed. Far too much of our regulations or principles are thought of by people who live in or commute to London and think that what works there applies to the rest of the nation.
In towns across the nation you can plot welfare, crime, economic development etc, etc, etc almost perfectly to housing density. The more dense the housing, the more the welfare dependancy, the more crime etc
In my ideal world in towns all new houses would be at least semi-detached with 2 off road parking spaces each.
Was with you until para 2. Density itself doesn’t increase crime etc. Again, Sth Ken and Notting Hill are not slums.
Where I think we might agree is that high rise is harder to make work for social housing; however even here there have been some v attractive developments in London over the last decade or so.
In fact, much of the best architecture where I live (Hackney, Islington) is via council-led densification of existing housing estates.
The demolition and rebuild of the Packington Estate, close to Angel tube, is an exemplar.
South Kensington and Notting Hill don't have the density of eg Tower Hamlets, but are themselves the exception that proves the rule.
Plus I specifically said towns. They're part of a city not a town aren't they?
Can you think of any town anywhere in the country where the low-crime, low-deprivation areas are the high density areas and the high crime, high deprivation areas are the low density ones?
What’s your point? You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
My point is that everyone who wants to should be able to buy a nice house with a garden. Preferably I would suggest semidetached at least, but I know some people are keen on terraces or mews.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
And everything should be lovely, and nothing should be nasty, and everybody should earn at least the average wage.
To be fair to Philip T, to ensure every person in the country can live in a semi-detached house, we would indeed need to scrap the green belt.
And probably annex Canada, too.
Or we could reduce population of the uk which would be a better thing to do
How do you propose we do that?
Ceasing to increase it is difficult enough, how do you propose we reduce it?
We already have a birthrate below replacement level, control immigration so we slightly undertake replacement level. Slow but steady. Our birthrate will also fall , for example currently ours is currently 1.68, south korea's is 0.92 as ours falls we can increase immigration just keeps the figures low enough that we are below 2.1
That's not how it works.
2019 we had 712,680 live births. 2019 we had 604,707 deaths.
The population we have now is about 10 million higher than it was when the green belt was set at what it is. At that rate of births and deaths how long would it take to reduce our population by 10 million?
What you are not factoring in is a some of those live births will be short term immigrants that dont plan to stay. 2.1 is the accepted replacement level by most scientists. If you have a birthrate under that your population will shrink in a closed system.
The Barbican started life as council flats, did it not? Town planning by the Luftwaffe.
Yes, I think it was. You won the lottery if you got a flat there and then Thatch gave you Right To Buy
I've been in a couple of Barbican flats, they are very nice inside. Well made. The brutalist exterior is not for everyone but I like the jagged silhouettes. Ceilings could be a tiny bit higher, but other than that rather pleasant. And wonderful views, especially at night. And of course you are surrounded by the gardens and history of the Barbican, which is still a bit of a hidden gem, despite the arts complex. It has a fabulous arboretum which few people know, see here
High rise if done well is fine for most people without kids, and that is quite a lot of people. Older people love the Barbican, for example
Barbican flats are very popular with very wealthy retired people, and with company CEOs and city financiers whose families are out in the sticks (or indeed around the world), giving them a safe flat a stone’s throw from the City and with a purpose built concert/cinema/theatre complex plus restaurants and bars with lots of up market clientele, right there.
Isn’t that just a studious neutrality? Or the realisation he wants to stay out of ANOTHER fight with Marcus Rashford.
Peaceful non political protest Boris? With the Black Power Salute! 😆
Boris's change of mind about knee-taking might follow President Biden reminding him of the mess Donald Trump created when he condemned what was, in America, a peaceful alternative to armed riots. Or it could just be coincidence.
Or who sat on him more recently, as usual.
You have to relate, defund the police is not about taking money from the police, but US making the progress on community policing already achieved in UK.
To group UK and US as in same place as regards community policing and race issues, and the gesture politics and agenda for change is so same in both countries, is to be very ignorant about the difference.
Why does this understanding Boris Johnson and his government woefully does not have, actually matter? People who claim there is no difference and the agenda is the same, have political motive. Everything they do and urge is political.
Johnson's government is reeling. It is all over the place.
May, acutely aware of the main chance as ever, senses it.
It won't be long before others do.
Could TMay return as PM? I notice she has been active in Chesham & Amersham
I wondered the same thing this morning.......!
She might well try. I am not sure May would succeed though. 2017 too bad a memory for many tories?
Could one bet on her trying and not succeeding ?
Just checked Oddscheker & she's not even a runner in their next PM market, while Ian Blackford, Piers Morgan & Cameron are!
What price would you back her at? & same question to you @MikeSmithson
Oh, an absolute outsider price no doubt, it just seems a bit weird that she’s not listed. Looking again the most popular bet aside from ‘other’ is Jeremy Corbyn.
Comments
You’re floundering, mate.
We don’t need to scrap the green belt, and maintaining it does not entail building inappropriate high-rises in “towns”.
It was great because I was in the heart of Shoreditch (which appealed in my 20s).
The lift never stank of piss, although the vaguely famous TV presenter who lived above me did “fall asleep” in her bath and the overflow flooded my bathroom.
And so we have a double bind that enslaves the nation permanently.
Vaccines are completely vital and our way out
Except when we say they aren't ( Delta variant).
Eventually people will be fed up of being pin cushions.
And that's when the government will say not enough have been vaccinated for freedom.
The government's conditions are the recipe for permanent status quo. Its not about safety, it never was. It is about control.
Want to know why I didn't have a vaccine? this is why.
Mr. Contrarian, I wonder if his wife or someone else informed him what his opinion is.
If you have an alternative solution instead of greenfield to make that possible then I'd love to hear it. So far I've never heard anyone suggest an alternative apart from brownfield which is patently absurd.
So what's your alternative?
She might well try. I am not sure May would succeed though. 2017 too bad a memory for many tories?
Could one bet on her trying and not succeeding ?
By the way, it’s not controversial to note that ethnic minority communities have higher non-vax rates, just say it - don’t hide behind some anecdote and then conclude - as if speaking in a whisper to the white van man who delivered your new TV - “says it all, dunnit?”
Welcome!
It is London which is most unaffordable and where we need to build the most affordable new properties and no reason a high rise apartment block in London cannot be very pleasant to live in, as the examples Leon has showed demonstrate
https://twitter.com/timspector/status/1403317654618836996?s=20
In essence, yes we need to build more; the planning system must be simplified and govt needs to find social housing.
But all of this can be done I think without scrapping the green belt(s).
As I write in the middle of the city with the most pressing problem I can see with my own eyes the incredibly low density and also many brownfield opportunities.
I am not familiar with Warrington so don’t know what the answer is, but I figure part of it is ensuring Liverpool and Manchester are maxing density appropriately.
https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/Documents/Borough_statistics/Ward_profiles/Census-2011/RB-Census2011-Headline-analysis-Population-2012-07.pdf
So I guess you pays your money ...
As you say, who is really going to pay £50m for a five bed flat in the Shard, no matter how lovely the marble or gorgeous the views, when that can buy you an entire John Nash period house in Regent's Park, with 7 beds, an annexe, garden, staff accommodation, gymnasium - AND YOU STILL HAVE £30 MILLION LEFT OVER
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/73410477#/
And probably annex Canada, too.
There ARE some stunning photos of stunning apartments in the Shard, for some reason they are copyright and you can't use them - odd
But even those do not show properties worth anywhere near £50 million
Sadly that seems to be the norm in your case.
The delta variant has changed the risk profile.
Build back better, by euthanising your whole family!
They ought to be opening up AZ to 18+ and just tell people to drop in. We have the AZ stockpile to do it. Better in arms than in a chilled warehouse.
Also PBers: people can evaluate their own risks
Is that Hague Blue in the bedroom?
I believe flats in the Barbican towers are much sought after (hence the stinging price for a 2 bed) so they seem to work, at least
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/88793260#/media?id=media15&ref=photoCollage
Maybe a shock lib dem win is NOT off the cards. Or very reduced majority on low turnout / some sort of showing by others.
Teaching them to drive in a large car with super car acceleration - which has created a genre of videos on Reddit and elsewhere with the results of accidentally hitting the accelerator at the wrong moment - seems stupid.
There is a a reason why driving school cars are small hatch backs, with small engines.
Reducing population on the serious side doesnt imply euthanasia. I just think it is sensible we aim to move to a population that is sustainable for the country. That means one we can feed and house without outside help. Better for us better for the environment
Actually they are doing those trials - just no results yet;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56730526
I've had a bit of a play.
Looking at the relationship between number of hospitalisations and number of cases 10 days earlier (very crude), it does look as though ages 0-5 and 6-17 are getting hospitalised in nearly twice the ratio they were before.
18-54 are up 25%-30%; 55-64 down to under half, and then down to a third and then a quarter as you get older. I'm assuming a chunk of the older ones are vax refusers and another chunk are breakthroughs.
The unhelpfully wide 18-54 is a max of pre-vaxxed and one-dose-vaxxed, with a handful of double-vaxxed, so it does look as though around double the ratio is about right for Delta.
However - that massive drop in the oldies in comparison to the young is why the numbers are so far down. If the proportion of cases had remained the same across all age ranges, we'd have passed 300 hospitalisations per day around the 5th of June (in England alone) and be past 3,000 in hospital (in comparison, we only passed 100 hospitalisations per day consistently on the 6th of June and had 807 in hospital).
(And this is over and above vax effects slowing spread and infections).
So the link between cases and hospitalisations isn't broken, but the ratio is significantly reduced (even in the face of Delta doubling it in raw terms) and that ratio will continue to go down week on week as more doses go into more arms.
However - should the cases continue to rise at the same rate and the ratio between cases and hospitalisations remain unchanged (which they won't, so this is a line that we should be peeling away from), we would be passing 350 admissions per day (largely in the young) by 21st of June and over 2000 in hospital by that point.
Should the proportion of 18-54 drop towards the 55-64s and the 55-64s join the older groups at their level, then that 350-odd will be c. 220-odd, and the number in hospital would drop to the 1200-1300 range by then.
I would also expect the increase in cases to be slowing down with the increased vaccination as well, but to extrapolate that would be to add crude estimate on top of crude estimate.
Calling Gardenwalker a debating Neanderthal is picking very low hanging fruit.
Plenty also lived a long time too, but the average was lower.
Ceasing to increase it is difficult enough, how do you propose we reduce it?
Those commissioning them, need to incorporate these daily running costs into their budgets, because without them you get a horrible place where no-one wants to live.
(I live in a 20 storey tower, and it’s lovely!).
There’s no point building social housing and leaving it to rot.
I also think that dedicated social housing towers etc should be avoided. Mixed use is healthier for a lot of reasons.
Instead most flat owners are leaseholders and if you breach the term of your lease by anti social behaviour or excess disturbance of other leaseholders then technically the apartment block management company can evict you, even if you hold them as commonhold then the other commonholders can take action under the terms of the collective ownership contract against you such as a fine.
I never said everyone should have at least an average sized home, because that's obviously impossible. But at least be able to buy a home with a garden if they want to do so? Considering only 11% of this country is built on, why such a scary impossible ambition to you?
I've been in a couple of Barbican flats, they are very nice inside. Well made. The brutalist exterior is not for everyone but I like the jagged silhouettes. Ceilings could be a tiny bit higher, but other than that rather pleasant. And wonderful views, especially at night. And of course you are surrounded by the gardens and history of the Barbican, which is still a bit of a hidden gem, despite the arts complex. It has a fabulous arboretum which few people know, see here
High rise if done well is fine for most people without kids, and that is quite a lot of people. Older people love the Barbican, for example
Why have some US states opened up completely for weeks with lower levels of vaccination?
For the above to happen without the health systems of these countries being swamped (which they are manifestly not), the assumptions you are making simply cannot be true.
It is just not possible. There must be other factors.
it is generally more work for a registered provider to manage individual flats, for example, because it is subject to the individual flat leases under which it is tenant. Certain types of claims will sit with the freeholder of the block as a whole.
You can call it stratification of the affordable housing element of a development if you want, but that stratification is not all negative.
2019 we had 712,680 live births.
2019 we had 604,707 deaths.
The population we have now is about 10 million higher than it was when the green belt was set at what it is. At that rate of births and deaths how long would it take to reduce our population by 10 million?
https://twitter.com/pkelso/status/1403326961477427206
Voting intention amongst 18-24s (+/- since 2019):
LAB: 35% (-21)
GRN: 27% (+23)
CON: 21% (-)
LD: 12% (+1)
SNP: 3% (-3)
REF: 1% (-)
Via
@YouGov
, 9-10 June
To group UK and US as in same place as regards community policing and race issues, and the gesture politics and agenda for change is so same in both countries, is to be very ignorant about the difference.
Why does this understanding Boris Johnson and his government woefully does not have, actually matter? People who claim there is no difference and the agenda is the same, have political motive. Everything they do and urge is political.
Looking again the most popular bet aside from ‘other’ is Jeremy Corbyn.