I once saw a Lynx pilot smoke 100 cigarettes simultaneously at a Taranto Night dinner by putting an elastic band around them and improvising a funnel from a plastic bottle. What courage. Makes you proud and reminds you of the powerful and simple meaning of what it is to serve.
He's now a training captain at [CENSORED] and that 100 fags was by no means the stupidest thing I ever saw him do by a long way.
At those doses, nicotine can be hallucinogenic: see the religious practices of Umbanda and the like.
He vomited continuously for almost 5 minutes until nothing would come up but a sort of thin milky froth. Also his eyes resembled the hind quarters of a female baboon in oestrus for three days.
I wish we could do unblurred photos - I could show you the splendours of Taranto. I believe I’ve made the ultimate discovery. A wonderful Mediterranean city - indeed Italian! - barely touched by tourism
The rough guide to puglia:
“Most tourists give Taranto a wide berth…”
Lonely planet:
“Not generally considered to be on the tourist circuit, Taranto is rimmed by modern industry, including a massive steelworks [like] other industrial cities like Bilbao and Pittsburgh – Taranto’s gritty heritage….”
Utterly ridiculous. Taranto is not Pittsburgh. But long may people believe that
I have wanted to visit Taranto after reading Norman Douglas In Old Calabria. Great travel writing, even if the travel itself was dodgy.
Just for interest. I read an appraisal of a site in outer London in an up and coming area, next to a railway station, town centre, supermarket and within 5 minutes of schools etc. Houses in the area cost up to the £1 million mark. The flats near the site, built 10 years ago, sell for £300 - £500k. The development involves construction of new flats and commercial space; the development is pretty standard and typical of such developments.
The cost of building out the development is £20 million. The sale value is £32.5 million. This is before affordable housing, planning demands come in to play, and before professional fees and developer profit are taken out. It effectively gives the existing land a nil value.
10 years ago the cost of building out the development would be half what it is now because of cheaper material/labour costs, and less regulation (second staircases etc).
This is the new reality of building on 'brownfield' land. If it won't work in this location the whole country must be in deep trouble.
Sandpit, can I ask why you are rooting for Trump when he is going to hang Ukraine out to dry?
I’m really not rooting for Trump, simply trying to provide an element of balance to an otherwise very one-sided betting forum.
That said, my longstanding prediction for how Ukraine would be handled by Republicans was shown to be correct only a couple of weeks ago, couching “aid for Ukraine” as spending taking place primarily inside the US, and supporting millions of American jobs in hundreds of Republican-held districts and States.
There’s probably 10% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats who don’t like the idea of helping Ukraine defend itself, but the 80% of pragmatists in the middle are all for it, especially if the spending goes to some of the biggest donors to both parties, and there’s no American boots on the ground to come home in flag-draped coffins.
I believe you underestimate Trump's Russian obligations.
The Dems spent half of his first term, and tens of millions of dollars, trying to get the narrative going of Trump being a Russian asset, but they came up with precisely nothing.
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
I once saw a Lynx pilot smoke 100 cigarettes simultaneously at a Taranto Night dinner by putting an elastic band around them and improvising a funnel from a plastic bottle. What courage. Makes you proud and reminds you of the powerful and simple meaning of what it is to serve.
He's now a training captain at [CENSORED] and that 100 fags was by no means the stupidest thing I ever saw him do by a long way.
At those doses, nicotine can be hallucinogenic: see the religious practices of Umbanda and the like.
He vomited continuously for almost 5 minutes until nothing would come up but a sort of thin milky froth. Also his eyes resembled the hind quarters of a female baboon in oestrus for three days.
You really have met some expert exponents of the great game of silly buggers!
Price controls branded an ‘abject failure’ after 16.5% surge
The SNP’s rent control scheme has been branded an “abject failure” as new figures revealed that prices increased more rapidly in Scotland than any other nation or region in the UK.
Analysis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data reveals that since constraints came into force average private rent in Scotland rose by 16.5 per cent, from £813 to £947.
In some areas, such as Lothian and Glasgow, the increases were more than 20 per cent.
Nicola Sturgeon’s government introduced a 3 per cent cap on annual rent increases from September 6, 2022, and placed a pause on evictions as a response to the cost of living crisis while inflation soared.
Housing policy over the last 20 years is evidence of near total state incompetence.
Aided and abetted by ZIRP.
Indeed. The sad thing is that the "last 20 years" takes us back to...2004. Do a bit of quick rounding and it comes out as "everything since the GFC in 2008 has not worked". That's Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak. None of them were stupid (they had different problems). But they either did not know how to fix the problems or did not have enough time to try.
I agree with this. The period leading up to the GFC involved quite insane levels of borrowing to boost demand and mad levels of debt.
After the crash what we really needed was a serious burst of inflation to effectively write off that debt but, instead, we had overly restrictive monetary polices to comply with an absurdly low and largely irrelevant inflation target where we dipped in and out of deflation. Ultra low interest rates kept the show on the road but it also kept far too much of the debt still on the books.
Now we have had a modest burst of inflation but the response has been interest rate increases and those pesky debts becoming real again. This is making new investment very difficult which in turn gives us slow growth.
We need more inflation. We need more bad debt written off or consolidated. We need to clean up our balance sheets. And then we will be in a position to go again.
Sandpit, can I ask why you are rooting for Trump when he is going to hang Ukraine out to dry?
I’m really not rooting for Trump, simply trying to provide an element of balance to an otherwise very one-sided betting forum.
That said, my longstanding prediction for how Ukraine would be handled by Republicans was shown to be correct only a couple of weeks ago, couching “aid for Ukraine” as spending taking place primarily inside the US, and supporting millions of American jobs in hundreds of Republican-held districts and States.
There’s probably 10% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats who don’t like the idea of helping Ukraine defend itself, but the 80% of pragmatists in the middle are all for it, especially if the spending goes to some of the biggest donors to both parties, and there’s no American boots on the ground to come home in flag-draped coffins.
I believe you underestimate Trump's Russian obligations.
The Dems spent half of his first term, and tens of millions of dollars, trying to get the narrative going of Trump being a Russian asset, but they came up with precisely nothing.
They did prove that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine in an attempt to coerce them into investigating the Bidens.
Sandpit, can I ask why you are rooting for Trump when he is going to hang Ukraine out to dry?
I’m really not rooting for Trump, simply trying to provide an element of balance to an otherwise very one-sided betting forum.
That said, my longstanding prediction for how Ukraine would be handled by Republicans was shown to be correct only a couple of weeks ago, couching “aid for Ukraine” as spending taking place primarily inside the US, and supporting millions of American jobs in hundreds of Republican-held districts and States.
There’s probably 10% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats who don’t like the idea of helping Ukraine defend itself, but the 80% of pragmatists in the middle are all for it, especially if the spending goes to some of the biggest donors to both parties, and there’s no American boots on the ground to come home in flag-draped coffins.
I believe you underestimate Trump's Russian obligations.
The Dems spent half of his first term, and tens of millions of dollars, trying to get the narrative going of Trump being a Russian asset, but they came up with precisely nothing.
They did prove that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine in an attempt to coerce them into investigating the Bidens.
Sandpit also seems to have forgotten Manafort, who was pardoned by Trump, and back on the campaign this time around. It was the Republican intelligence committee which described him as a grave intelligence threat for his Russian links.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
There's also this one, roughly midway between Portsmouth and Southampton;
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
Round here the next areas being built on are all Garden Villages - but these are the retirement projects of the current leadership of our local builders - so prestige projects where they have spent time getting everything right...
First project was on their land - the next stage (for which planning permission was granted ignoring waterboard complaints as I mentioned earlier today) is on land the council owned...
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
Sandpit, can I ask why you are rooting for Trump when he is going to hang Ukraine out to dry?
I’m really not rooting for Trump, simply trying to provide an element of balance to an otherwise very one-sided betting forum.
That said, my longstanding prediction for how Ukraine would be handled by Republicans was shown to be correct only a couple of weeks ago, couching “aid for Ukraine” as spending taking place primarily inside the US, and supporting millions of American jobs in hundreds of Republican-held districts and States.
There’s probably 10% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats who don’t like the idea of helping Ukraine defend itself, but the 80% of pragmatists in the middle are all for it, especially if the spending goes to some of the biggest donors to both parties, and there’s no American boots on the ground to come home in flag-draped coffins.
I believe you underestimate Trump's Russian obligations.
The Dems spent half of his first term, and tens of millions of dollars, trying to get the narrative going of Trump being a Russian asset, but they came up with precisely nothing.
Please yourself, but I think you are p1ssing on your own chips. Should Trump become President we will all regret it.
Steady as she goes. Not much impact from locals or other events.
The Refuk rise certainly appears to have ended for now - not much sign of any of their share going back to the Tories, though.
We're 6-8 months away from the end of the parliament, so you'd normally expect Lab-Con swingback to be underway by this point. Perhaps significant that we're not seeing any?
“not much sign of any of their share going back to the Tories, though”
Later today an Opinium with at least 2 point rise in Tory rating, showing the Ref to Tory melt back is very real and happening quite quickly now at this stage. Perhaps tonight is the first time the penny drops with many people. I won’t say I told you so when election is 39 33.
The group’s pilot would take off from North Weald Airfield in Epping Forest, Essex, and fly to Le Touquet airport on the coast of northern France to collect three to four migrants to smuggle into the UK on each trip.
The pilot would then fly to Stapleford Aerodrome, also in Epping Forest, where the migrants would leave the plane and be collected by Kadena.
The Albanian migrants would pay “up to £10,000” for transit into the UK and then “a few hundred pounds extra” for fake documents, the NCA said.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
The Coalition Government came to an end in 2015.
Try voting Lib Dem next time.
Lib Dems, the NIMBYiest of the NIMBYs.
Where developments ought to be opposed, most certainly. And where not, not.
What's your problem with that?
When people talk rubbish about being all in favour of backing the ‘right’ developments, but in practice vehemently oppose every single specific development proposal.
Quite untrue. Why do you bother to send us this nonsense from the middle of the Arabian desert?
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
The Coalition Government came to an end in 2015.
Try voting Lib Dem next time.
Lib Dems, the NIMBYiest of the NIMBYs.
Where developments ought to be opposed, most certainly. And where not, not.
What's your problem with that?
When people talk rubbish about being all in favour of backing the ‘right’ developments, but in practice vehemently oppose every single specific development proposal.
Quite untrue. Why do you bother to send us this nonsense from the middle of the Arabian desert?
On CCHQ payroll by any chance?
Ah, the ad-hominem rather than the counter-argument. Go on then, show us some examples of Lib Dems being in favour of development proposals…
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
All true but... £280k pa is taking the piss. And not much of that £280k is going to the actual people doing the caring, I bet.
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
All true but... £280k pa is taking the piss. And not much of that £280k is going to the actual people doing the caring, I bet.
Minimum wage for one person available 24/7 is £100k per year.
I wish we could do unblurred photos - I could show you the splendours of Taranto. I believe I’ve made the ultimate discovery. A wonderful Mediterranean city - indeed Italian! - barely touched by tourism
The rough guide to puglia:
“Most tourists give Taranto a wide berth…”
Lonely planet:
“Not generally considered to be on the tourist circuit, Taranto is rimmed by modern industry, including a massive steelworks [like] other industrial cities like Bilbao and Pittsburgh – Taranto’s gritty heritage….”
Utterly ridiculous. Taranto is not Pittsburgh. But long may people believe that
Pittsburgh has its moments. The little fort at the junction of the huge rivers, and the original Diplodocus in the museum.
Was Pittsburgh founded by THE SPARTANS?
No. Taranto was. At one stage it was one of the largest cities in the western world. What a find. Basically no one has ever heard of Taranto until I came here just now
Pittsburgh was founded by British settlers on a front line when and where the future of the world was being decided.
You should cover the locations of 1759 for the gazette - Madras, Guadeloupe, Minden, Lagos, Quiberon Bay, Quebec.
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
A major problem is the regulatory environment for these kinds of facilities. Weirdly, we managed to bring up 3 kids with only 2 staff who were on duty 24 hours a day (and I slunk off to work for nearly half of these). If we had been a regulated body we would probably have required at least 8 of us.
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
A major problem is the regulatory environment for these kinds of facilities. Weirdly, we managed to bring up 3 kids with only 2 staff who were on duty 24 hours a day (and I slunk off to work for nearly half of these). If we had been a regulated body we would probably have required at least 8 of us.
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
All true but... £280k pa is taking the piss. And not much of that £280k is going to the actual people doing the caring, I bet.
Minimum wage for one person available 24/7 is £100k per year.
And the rest
I get it to £128,370 before I factor in any contingency for management, sickness or another else - that's literally Minimum wage 11.44*24*365 + holiday pay + employer NI + apprenticeship levy.
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
All true but... £280k pa is taking the piss. And not much of that £280k is going to the actual people doing the caring, I bet.
Minimum wage for one person available 24/7 is £100k per year.
You’re not planning on leaving one adult alone with a vulnerable child, are you?
Sandpit, can I ask why you are rooting for Trump when he is going to hang Ukraine out to dry?
I’m really not rooting for Trump, simply trying to provide an element of balance to an otherwise very one-sided betting forum.
That said, my longstanding prediction for how Ukraine would be handled by Republicans was shown to be correct only a couple of weeks ago, couching “aid for Ukraine” as spending taking place primarily inside the US, and supporting millions of American jobs in hundreds of Republican-held districts and States.
There’s probably 10% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats who don’t like the idea of helping Ukraine defend itself, but the 80% of pragmatists in the middle are all for it, especially if the spending goes to some of the biggest donors to both parties, and there’s no American boots on the ground to come home in flag-draped coffins.
I believe you underestimate Trump's Russian obligations.
The Dems spent half of his first term, and tens of millions of dollars, trying to get the narrative going of Trump being a Russian asset, but they came up with precisely nothing.
Please yourself, but I think you are p1ssing on your own chips. Should Trump become President we will all regret it.
Probably but he is right that Europe should be spending more on defence.
He was certainly right when he said that while he was President.
Trump was also right when he said that Europe was too dependent upon Russian energy supplies.
I'm not sure how Trump telling Europe those things aligns with the 'Trump is a Russian puppet' claims.
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
A major problem is the regulatory environment for these kinds of facilities. Weirdly, we managed to bring up 3 kids with only 2 staff who were on duty 24 hours a day (and I slunk off to work for nearly half of these). If we had been a regulated body we would probably have required at least 8 of us.
Have you launched a prosecution of yourself, yet?
Welcome to the Process State.
Nah, the backlog of crime being what it is we will never get to it. And even in modern Scotland I am not completely sure that bringing up your own kids is illegal. Of course, we did have the threat of a named person from the State keeping an eye on them at one point, but thankfully that nonsense is yet another failed and forgotten SNP policy now.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
So the little museum of Taranto has possibly the greatest suite of classical sculptures I’ve ever seen
Orpheus and the Sirens. In terracotta. Looted by the Sacra Corona Unita - the Pugliese mafia. Sold to the Getty in Malibu - boo! - but recently repatriated to Taranto! Yay!
That would be enough for most provincial museums - it certainly knocks Hereford’s “badly stuffed fox weirdly staring at decomposing weasel” into a cocked hat
But the museum ALSO has one of the greatest collections of jewellery from the ancient world anywhere on the planet
I tell you. Taranto. You read it here first
In ten years time EVERYONE will be raving about Taranto
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
All true but... £280k pa is taking the piss. And not much of that £280k is going to the actual people doing the caring, I bet.
Minimum wage for one person available 24/7 is £100k per year.
And the rest
I get it to £128,370 before I factor in any contingency for management, sickness or another else - that's literally Minimum wage 11.44*24*365 + holiday pay + employer NI + apprenticeship levy.
Also, how come Fascism produced good architecture? Because it did. Especially Italian Fascism
There’s quite a lot in Taranto. You spot it immediately: austere stripped back neo-classicism. Firmly unadorned - but harmonious with the Italian street scapes. Honestly itself but respectful to its surroundings
And then you see the odd example of utter shit produced since 1945 and you wince
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
All true but... £280k pa is taking the piss. And not much of that £280k is going to the actual people doing the caring, I bet.
Minimum wage for one person available 24/7 is £100k per year.
And the rest
I get it to £128,370 before I factor in any contingency for management, sickness or another else - that's literally Minimum wage 11.44*24*365 + holiday pay + employer NI + apprenticeship levy.
Plus employers pension contributions.
My mistake takes it to £132,221 (although it's probably covered in the Employer NI allowances)...
The point was that it's very easy to see the cost hitting £200,000 once you add sick leave, some management costs and the building itself...
So the little museum of Taranto has possibly the greatest suite of classical sculptures I’ve ever seen
Orpheus and the Sirens. In terracotta. Looted by the Sacra Corona Unita - the Pugliese mafia. Sold to the Getty in Malibu - boo! - but recently repatriated to Taranto! Yay!
That would be enough for most provincial museums - it certainly knocks Hereford’s “badly stuffed fox weirdly staring at decomposing weasel” into a cocked hat
But the museum ALSO has one of the greatest collections of jewellery from the ancient world anywhere on the planet
I tell you. Taranto. You read it here first
In ten years time EVERYONE will be raving about Taranto
If those statues were in Hereford's museum you'd pass them by without thinking.
Local context gives them more relevance in Taranto but they're still pretty crude work - perhaps not surprising as it was a Spartan colony.
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
All true but... £280k pa is taking the piss. And not much of that £280k is going to the actual people doing the caring, I bet.
The point of the article is that £280k is an extreme case, an example of an emergency placement out of contract. The same placement in contract is less expensive (around £200k), and in-house provision is cheaper still as the council doesn't need to make a profit from it.
The issue is that hard-pressed councils can't invest in in-house capacity, so contract with commercial providers for the bare minimum number of places. Sometimes they skimp a bit too much and get caught out - so, as a result, have to pay punitive rates for extra capacity out of contract.
It's exactly what you'd expect to happen by pushing finances to the ragged edge - minor things like quality of service and value for money always get dumped when you're in perpetual crisis mode.
Also, how come Fascism produced good architecture? Because it did. Especially Italian Fascism
There’s quite a lot in Taranto. You spot it immediately: austere stripped back neo-classicism. Firmly unadorned - but harmonious with the Italian street scapes. Honestly itself but respectful to its surroundings
And then you see the odd example of utter shit produced since 1945 and you wince
I think you are assessing on what it looks like, and the impression it gives you.
That is only about 10% of what makes "good architecture".
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
All true but... £280k pa is taking the piss. And not much of that £280k is going to the actual people doing the caring, I bet.
Minimum wage for one person available 24/7 is £100k per year.
And the rest
I get it to £128,370 before I factor in any contingency for management, sickness or another else - that's literally Minimum wage 11.44*24*365 + holiday pay + employer NI + apprenticeship levy.
Plus employers pension contributions.
My mistake takes it to £132,221 (although it's probably covered in the Employer NI allowances)...
The point was that it's very easy to see the cost hitting £200,000 once you add sick leave, some management costs and the building itself...
Yes, commercial rates for residential care for children are about £200k a year on average. In-house council provision averages are closer to £175k.
The actual rate charged differs according to the actual needs of the child, and the in-house provision is often used for kids with more complex needs - so is likely rather better value than a simple comparison of averages would suggest.
Also, how come Fascism produced good architecture? Because it did. Especially Italian Fascism
There’s quite a lot in Taranto. You spot it immediately: austere stripped back neo-classicism. Firmly unadorned - but harmonious with the Italian street scapes. Honestly itself but respectful to its surroundings
And then you see the odd example of utter shit produced since 1945 and you wince
Same reason why adapted books tend to make the best movies. Because when you have a rich source material to pick from, you can select the best from a lot of content - 2000 years of history! - and drop the rest. While modernist styles have to invent it all new, so harder to select the best of it and you have no filter for the experimental stuff that doesn't quite work.
It strikes me that the vast majority of PBers, who I assume are owner occupiers, are quick to denigrate any form of rent control, but also don't have any solutions to the problems faced by (young, in particular) renters. Down here on the south coast average private-sector rents are around 56% of take-home pay, rising to over 60% when bills are included. On average pay, this means life is a struggle. And, of course, many rental properties at the lower end are pretty abysmal and/or pokey.
The obvious solution is more house-building, but this a) may not happen, and b) even if it does, will take many years to have an impact. The second solution is to move somewhere cheaper. But for all sorts of reasons - family, friends, work - many people can't, or don't want to, uproot. And of course, the third solution is to buy. But for most young renters down here, you're having a laugh.
So, I'd be genuinely interested if anybody has any practical solutions to the short-term and mid-term rental crisis.
Council housing. Build lots more council housing.
We already see from Scotland that rent controls don't work. They are not the anwer to the problem. The answer is to build more housing on a not for profit basis - Council houses.
Question about the "we already see from Scotland" trope. Where's the data? I looked on the ONS earlier and there was a caveat saying "don't compare this with other countries/regions of the UK, it's not the same." But that dataset was from January. So where's the recent data that's suddenly gotten people talking about it?
Zero curiosity about this question, then. Just, here's a narrative that will play well to landlords, so we'll just accept it as true. But is it true? Does nobody ever dig into the things they read? Do you just, I dunno, instinctively trust journalists?
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
A major problem is the regulatory environment for these kinds of facilities. Weirdly, we managed to bring up 3 kids with only 2 staff who were on duty 24 hours a day (and I slunk off to work for nearly half of these). If we had been a regulated body we would probably have required at least 8 of us.
Have you launched a prosecution of yourself, yet?
Welcome to the Process State.
Nah, the backlog of crime being what it is we will never get to it. And even in modern Scotland I am not completely sure that bringing up your own kids is illegal. Of course, we did have the threat of a named person from the State keeping an eye on them at one point, but thankfully that nonsense is yet another failed and forgotten SNP policy now.
I'm not normally a Monbiot fan, but I think he might have a point here ? Either way, the situation is untenable. Another thing for the next government's intray.
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/18/child-care-cost-year-wealth-funds-councils-britain-residential ..The system is in crisis, but crisis is lucrative. The independent review of children’s social care, commissioned by the government after repeated requests from local authorities and published in 2022, makes the crucial point that private providers can “refuse to engage” with attempts to rationalise the system, as they have no incentive to see it reformed. Perpetual chaos means they have councils over a barrel. Systemic dysfunction forces local authorities to make expensive last-minute “spot purchases” of residential care, rather than, for example, building regional care cooperatives, which would forecast and absorb demand, investing in public or not-for-profit provision and enabling children to stay close to home. For this and many other reasons, the review concluded that “providing care for children should not be based on profit”. But the government won’t listen...
This is care homes for old people for the new generation. We need to use similar tactics to what squeezed the profits out of that sector: fixed rates that don't keep up with inflation, public sector alternatives to give options and a real drive to have kids adopted with financial incentives to take the child on. What's £20k a year to someone providing a kid with a family home and food compared to prices like that? I'll tell you what it is, its a bargain.
What is being missed, by some, is that if you want care to a certain standard, it costs. 24/7 coverage for example.
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
A major problem is the regulatory environment for these kinds of facilities. Weirdly, we managed to bring up 3 kids with only 2 staff who were on duty 24 hours a day (and I slunk off to work for nearly half of these). If we had been a regulated body we would probably have required at least 8 of us.
Have you launched a prosecution of yourself, yet?
Welcome to the Process State.
Nah, the backlog of crime being what it is we will never get to it. And even in modern Scotland I am not completely sure that bringing up your own kids is illegal. Of course, we did have the threat of a named person from the State keeping an eye on them at one point, but thankfully that nonsense is yet another failed and forgotten SNP policy now.
What is your boggle, citizen?
Please remain calm. The Police will arrive momentarily to ProtectServe you.
Also, how come Fascism produced good architecture? Because it did. Especially Italian Fascism
There’s quite a lot in Taranto. You spot it immediately: austere stripped back neo-classicism. Firmly unadorned - but harmonious with the Italian street scapes. Honestly itself but respectful to its surroundings
And then you see the odd example of utter shit produced since 1945 and you wince
I think you are assessing on what it looks like, and the impression it gives you.
That is only about 10% of what makes "good architecture".
Fascist architecture was about borrowing as much as possible from a semi-mythical past and increasing the scale.
Given the originals were all about impressing the credulous proles with the Awesome Power of the Rulers….
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
The Duchy of Cornwall are currently doing a 'Poundbury: The Next Generation' in South-East Faversham.
It's basically a plan to extend the town's southern edge from the A2 about 300m south to the M2. High quality housing that's very similar (or a pastiche of) the historic centre of the town. Good transport links with the aforementioned roads and the HS1 line to London.
It's only 2,500 houses and is the most NIMBY-friendly development you could possibly imagine, yet people are still going nuts: https://archive.ph/N9Z0Q
It strikes me that the vast majority of PBers, who I assume are owner occupiers, are quick to denigrate any form of rent control, but also don't have any solutions to the problems faced by (young, in particular) renters. Down here on the south coast average private-sector rents are around 56% of take-home pay, rising to over 60% when bills are included. On average pay, this means life is a struggle. And, of course, many rental properties at the lower end are pretty abysmal and/or pokey.
The obvious solution is more house-building, but this a) may not happen, and b) even if it does, will take many years to have an impact. The second solution is to move somewhere cheaper. But for all sorts of reasons - family, friends, work - many people can't, or don't want to, uproot. And of course, the third solution is to buy. But for most young renters down here, you're having a laugh.
So, I'd be genuinely interested if anybody has any practical solutions to the short-term and mid-term rental crisis.
Council housing. Build lots more council housing.
We already see from Scotland that rent controls don't work. They are not the anwer to the problem. The answer is to build more housing on a not for profit basis - Council houses.
Question about the "we already see from Scotland" trope. Where's the data? I looked on the ONS earlier and there was a caveat saying "don't compare this with other countries/regions of the UK, it's not the same." But that dataset was from January. So where's the recent data that's suddenly gotten people talking about it?
Zero curiosity about this question, then. Just, here's a narrative that will play well to landlords, so we'll just accept it as true. But is it true? Does nobody ever dig into the things they read? Do you just, I dunno, instinctively trust journalists?
If the Tele and Speccie are pushing it that’s good enough for most PBers. See also how much worse the Scottish NHS is than the rUK.
It strikes me that the vast majority of PBers, who I assume are owner occupiers, are quick to denigrate any form of rent control, but also don't have any solutions to the problems faced by (young, in particular) renters. Down here on the south coast average private-sector rents are around 56% of take-home pay, rising to over 60% when bills are included. On average pay, this means life is a struggle. And, of course, many rental properties at the lower end are pretty abysmal and/or pokey.
The obvious solution is more house-building, but this a) may not happen, and b) even if it does, will take many years to have an impact. The second solution is to move somewhere cheaper. But for all sorts of reasons - family, friends, work - many people can't, or don't want to, uproot. And of course, the third solution is to buy. But for most young renters down here, you're having a laugh.
So, I'd be genuinely interested if anybody has any practical solutions to the short-term and mid-term rental crisis.
Council housing. Build lots more council housing.
We already see from Scotland that rent controls don't work. They are not the anwer to the problem. The answer is to build more housing on a not for profit basis - Council houses.
Question about the "we already see from Scotland" trope. Where's the data? I looked on the ONS earlier and there was a caveat saying "don't compare this with other countries/regions of the UK, it's not the same." But that dataset was from January. So where's the recent data that's suddenly gotten people talking about it?
Zero curiosity about this question, then. Just, here's a narrative that will play well to landlords, so we'll just accept it as true. But is it true? Does nobody ever dig into the things they read? Do you just, I dunno, instinctively trust journalists?
If the Tele and Speccie are pushing it that’s good enough for most PBers. See also how much worse the Scottish NHS is than the rUK.
The article I "saw" was The Times. Sadly, I couldn't read it all to see whether it gave a more precise trail to the source data. All I saw was "ONS" which is why I went there myself, but the most recent data I found was for January and had the caveat I identified above.
It would be a shame if it was a dataset that the ONS specifically advised was not suitable for comparison with other geographies, because that would mean carelessness or deceit from the journalist, and blind credulity from those who amplified it. But that might not be the case.
There will be some obscure personal tiff behind it, that's what usually causes defections. About a quarter of the Conservative group in Havering have left the party since the last elections.
Also, how come Fascism produced good architecture? Because it did. Especially Italian Fascism
There’s quite a lot in Taranto. You spot it immediately: austere stripped back neo-classicism. Firmly unadorned - but harmonious with the Italian street scapes. Honestly itself but respectful to its surroundings
And then you see the odd example of utter shit produced since 1945 and you wince
I think you are assessing on what it looks like, and the impression it gives you.
That is only about 10% of what makes "good architecture".
Fascist architecture was about borrowing as much as possible from a semi-mythical past and increasing the scale.
Given the originals were all about impressing the credulous proles with the Awesome Power of the Rulers….
Yep. Speer's (inspired by Hitler, Goering and so on) "architecture of ruins" is a fascinating mental contortion, where they considered themselves as creating a new 'Roman Empire', and wanted what they were building now to be enduring in 2000 years as what is left standing now from Roman times.
But equally, cities and communities from the past were formed and lived in by humans on a human scale, and can be used for patterns that still work because we are still human.
Speer and Hitler looked at it through a mirror darkly, and missed their personal 90%.
If @Leon were to ask, I'd recommend him to read "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander et al., which is still one of the best books on this 'building to human scale for communities" stuff after nearly 50 years, and stretches the mind very creatively.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
The Duchy of Cornwall are currently doing a 'Poundbury: The Next Generation' in South-East Faversham.
It's basically a plan to extend the town's southern edge from the A2 about 300m south to the M2. High quality housing that's very similar (or a pastiche of) the historic centre of the town. Good transport links with the aforementioned roads and the HS1 line to London.
It's only 2,500 houses and is the most NIMBY-friendly development you could possibly imagine, yet people are still going nuts: https://archive.ph/N9Z0Q
Multiply that by about a hundred a year, every year, for a decade or so, and we might start getting somewhere.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
The Duchy of Cornwall are currently doing a 'Poundbury: The Next Generation' in South-East Faversham.
It's basically a plan to extend the town's southern edge from the A2 about 300m south to the M2. High quality housing that's very similar (or a pastiche of) the historic centre of the town. Good transport links with the aforementioned roads and the HS1 line to London.
It's only 2,500 houses and is the most NIMBY-friendly development you could possibly imagine, yet people are still going nuts: https://archive.ph/N9Z0Q
My truism:"If people go nuts, it's because they are nuts."
I love the idea of a pastiche of Poundbury.
If it's in Kent, it's like The Hobbits' Shire, at Third Remove.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
I see they are looking to buy the extra land from BAE. That'll be interesting - they'll get it 8 years too late on a 3 year plan, at 4x the cost. Call the extra school "Boxer Ferry Park".
It strikes me that the vast majority of PBers, who I assume are owner occupiers, are quick to denigrate any form of rent control, but also don't have any solutions to the problems faced by (young, in particular) renters. Down here on the south coast average private-sector rents are around 56% of take-home pay, rising to over 60% when bills are included. On average pay, this means life is a struggle. And, of course, many rental properties at the lower end are pretty abysmal and/or pokey.
The obvious solution is more house-building, but this a) may not happen, and b) even if it does, will take many years to have an impact. The second solution is to move somewhere cheaper. But for all sorts of reasons - family, friends, work - many people can't, or don't want to, uproot. And of course, the third solution is to buy. But for most young renters down here, you're having a laugh.
So, I'd be genuinely interested if anybody has any practical solutions to the short-term and mid-term rental crisis.
Council housing. Build lots more council housing.
We already see from Scotland that rent controls don't work. They are not the anwer to the problem. The answer is to build more housing on a not for profit basis - Council houses.
Question about the "we already see from Scotland" trope. Where's the data? I looked on the ONS earlier and there was a caveat saying "don't compare this with other countries/regions of the UK, it's not the same." But that dataset was from January. So where's the recent data that's suddenly gotten people talking about it?
Zero curiosity about this question, then. Just, here's a narrative that will play well to landlords, so we'll just accept it as true. But is it true? Does nobody ever dig into the things they read? Do you just, I dunno, instinctively trust journalists?
If the Tele and Speccie are pushing it that’s good enough for most PBers. See also how much worse the Scottish NHS is than the rUK.
The article I "saw" was The Times. Sadly, I couldn't read it all to see whether it gave a more precise trail to the source data. All I saw was "ONS" which is why I went there myself, but the most recent data I found was for January and had the caveat I identified above.
It would be a shame if it was a dataset that the ONS specifically advised was not suitable for comparison with other geographies, because that would mean carelessness or deceit from the journalist, and blind credulity from those who amplified it. But that might not be the case.
Yeah, inspired by you to check the ONS it says the Scottish numbers are mainly based on advertised new rentals which are not subject to rent controls, and would seem to me likely to have a distorting effect.
Also, how come Fascism produced good architecture? Because it did. Especially Italian Fascism
There’s quite a lot in Taranto. You spot it immediately: austere stripped back neo-classicism. Firmly unadorned - but harmonious with the Italian street scapes. Honestly itself but respectful to its surroundings
And then you see the odd example of utter shit produced since 1945 and you wince
I think you are assessing on what it looks like, and the impression it gives you.
That is only about 10% of what makes "good architecture".
Fascist architecture was about borrowing as much as possible from a semi-mythical past and increasing the scale.
Given the originals were all about impressing the credulous proles with the Awesome Power of the Rulers….
"Create an image of a military uniform, in the style of Hugo Boss" is one of my favourite jailbreaky prompts forimage generators. It gives you, er, exactly what you'd expect.
Say what you like about the fash, they were undeniably aesthetes.
Which makes you wonder where it all went wrong with skinheads and bovva boys. Surely a well tailored suit is more in keeping with the clean cut image they want to represent.
On an architectural level, I'm not sure we'll ever escape our obsession with classicism. It's memetically ingrained on us as culture + authority + beauty from an early age. But is that a uniquely western thing? You don't see a lot of doric columns in Japan, for example.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
I see they are looking to buy the extra land from BAE. That'll be interesting - they'll get it 8 years too late on a 3 year plan, at 4x the cost. Call the extra school "Boxer Ferry Park".
That’s a foul libel on Big And Expensive’s management team
It strikes me that the vast majority of PBers, who I assume are owner occupiers, are quick to denigrate any form of rent control, but also don't have any solutions to the problems faced by (young, in particular) renters. Down here on the south coast average private-sector rents are around 56% of take-home pay, rising to over 60% when bills are included. On average pay, this means life is a struggle. And, of course, many rental properties at the lower end are pretty abysmal and/or pokey.
The obvious solution is more house-building, but this a) may not happen, and b) even if it does, will take many years to have an impact. The second solution is to move somewhere cheaper. But for all sorts of reasons - family, friends, work - many people can't, or don't want to, uproot. And of course, the third solution is to buy. But for most young renters down here, you're having a laugh.
So, I'd be genuinely interested if anybody has any practical solutions to the short-term and mid-term rental crisis.
Council housing. Build lots more council housing.
We already see from Scotland that rent controls don't work. They are not the anwer to the problem. The answer is to build more housing on a not for profit basis - Council houses.
Question about the "we already see from Scotland" trope. Where's the data? I looked on the ONS earlier and there was a caveat saying "don't compare this with other countries/regions of the UK, it's not the same." But that dataset was from January. So where's the recent data that's suddenly gotten people talking about it?
Zero curiosity about this question, then. Just, here's a narrative that will play well to landlords, so we'll just accept it as true. But is it true? Does nobody ever dig into the things they read? Do you just, I dunno, instinctively trust journalists?
If the Tele and Speccie are pushing it that’s good enough for most PBers. See also how much worse the Scottish NHS is than the rUK.
The article I "saw" was The Times. Sadly, I couldn't read it all to see whether it gave a more precise trail to the source data. All I saw was "ONS" which is why I went there myself, but the most recent data I found was for January and had the caveat I identified above.
It would be a shame if it was a dataset that the ONS specifically advised was not suitable for comparison with other geographies, because that would mean carelessness or deceit from the journalist, and blind credulity from those who amplified it. But that might not be the case.
Yeah, inspired by you to check the ONS it says the Scottish numbers are mainly based on new rentals which are not subject to rent controls, and would seem to me to likely have a distorting effect.
Presumably you mean new rental contracts?
Yes - with an inflation linked policy which retains tenants, normal practice would be to reset to market at a new tenancy, or 5-10% below market to get and keep a good new tenant.
Changing tenants is the most expensive operation, and unless there is a big jump in rent the admin, charges, mini-refurb and upgrade costs would take anything from 1-5 years to recover from the increase.
It strikes me that the vast majority of PBers, who I assume are owner occupiers, are quick to denigrate any form of rent control, but also don't have any solutions to the problems faced by (young, in particular) renters. Down here on the south coast average private-sector rents are around 56% of take-home pay, rising to over 60% when bills are included. On average pay, this means life is a struggle. And, of course, many rental properties at the lower end are pretty abysmal and/or pokey.
The obvious solution is more house-building, but this a) may not happen, and b) even if it does, will take many years to have an impact. The second solution is to move somewhere cheaper. But for all sorts of reasons - family, friends, work - many people can't, or don't want to, uproot. And of course, the third solution is to buy. But for most young renters down here, you're having a laugh.
So, I'd be genuinely interested if anybody has any practical solutions to the short-term and mid-term rental crisis.
Council housing. Build lots more council housing.
We already see from Scotland that rent controls don't work. They are not the anwer to the problem. The answer is to build more housing on a not for profit basis - Council houses.
Question about the "we already see from Scotland" trope. Where's the data? I looked on the ONS earlier and there was a caveat saying "don't compare this with other countries/regions of the UK, it's not the same." But that dataset was from January. So where's the recent data that's suddenly gotten people talking about it?
Zero curiosity about this question, then. Just, here's a narrative that will play well to landlords, so we'll just accept it as true. But is it true? Does nobody ever dig into the things they read? Do you just, I dunno, instinctively trust journalists?
If the Tele and Speccie are pushing it that’s good enough for most PBers. See also how much worse the Scottish NHS is than the rUK.
The article I "saw" was The Times. Sadly, I couldn't read it all to see whether it gave a more precise trail to the source data. All I saw was "ONS" which is why I went there myself, but the most recent data I found was for January and had the caveat I identified above.
It would be a shame if it was a dataset that the ONS specifically advised was not suitable for comparison with other geographies, because that would mean carelessness or deceit from the journalist, and blind credulity from those who amplified it. But that might not be the case.
Yeah, inspired by you to check the ONS it says the Scottish numbers are mainly based on new rentals which are not subject to rent controls, and would seem to me to likely have a distorting effect.
Presumably you mean new rental contracts?
Yes - with an inflation linked policy which retains tenants, normal practice would be to reset to market at a new tenancy, or 5-10% below market to get and keep a good new tenant.
Changing tenants is the most expensive operation, and unless there is a big jump in rent the admin, charges, mini-refurb and upgrade costs would take anything from 1-5 years to recover from the increase.
I actually edited it to ‘advertised new rentals’ which I imagine may have an even greater tendency to distort.
F1: apologies for the lack of a pre-qualifying ramble, my time proved shorter than expected. The pre-race tosh should be up tomorrow morning at some point.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
The Duchy of Cornwall are currently doing a 'Poundbury: The Next Generation' in South-East Faversham.
It's basically a plan to extend the town's southern edge from the A2 about 300m south to the M2. High quality housing that's very similar (or a pastiche of) the historic centre of the town. Good transport links with the aforementioned roads and the HS1 line to London.
It's only 2,500 houses and is the most NIMBY-friendly development you could possibly imagine, yet people are still going nuts: https://archive.ph/N9Z0Q
My truism:"If people go nuts, it's because they are nuts."
I love the idea of a pastiche of Poundbury.
If it's in Kent, it's like The Hobbits' Shire, at Third Remove.
I always thought the Hobbits’ Shire was somewhere in the West Midlands. A bit like Borsetshire in The Archers. Then Frodo et al travelled in the general direction of Aberystwyth, or maybe Machynlleth.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
The Duchy of Cornwall are currently doing a 'Poundbury: The Next Generation' in South-East Faversham.
It's basically a plan to extend the town's southern edge from the A2 about 300m south to the M2. High quality housing that's very similar (or a pastiche of) the historic centre of the town. Good transport links with the aforementioned roads and the HS1 line to London.
It's only 2,500 houses and is the most NIMBY-friendly development you could possibly imagine, yet people are still going nuts: https://archive.ph/N9Z0Q
My truism:"If people go nuts, it's because they are nuts."
I love the idea of a pastiche of Poundbury.
If it's in Kent, it's like The Hobbits' Shire, at Third Remove.
I always thought the Hobbits’ Shire was somewhere in the West Midlands. A bit like Borsetshire in The Archers. Then Frodo et al travelled in the general direction of Aberystwyth, or maybe Machynlleth.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
I live in Cambourne; a 'village' that did not exist before 1997. It now has a population of well over 12,000. It was originally envisaged as three villages, separated by green spaces, but is now officially a town - especially with the new build area in Cambourne West.
I'd give Cambourne 9/10 as a place to live for a couple with young kids - it's actually quite good, but not flawless. I fear that many of the lessons learnt from its construction appear to have been forgotten with Waterbeach and Northstowe, whose densities and respect of the existing environment (perhaps because they are old airfield sites...) are poorer.
Waterbeach, in particular, is going to be interesting to watch. Having lived in ye olde Waterbeach for a few years (off Bannold Road), it'll be hard for the old village centre to meld well with the new - especially when they move the railway station.
Also, how come Fascism produced good architecture? Because it did. Especially Italian Fascism
There’s quite a lot in Taranto. You spot it immediately: austere stripped back neo-classicism. Firmly unadorned - but harmonious with the Italian street scapes. Honestly itself but respectful to its surroundings
And then you see the odd example of utter shit produced since 1945 and you wince
I think you are assessing on what it looks like, and the impression it gives you.
That is only about 10% of what makes "good architecture".
Fascist architecture was about borrowing as much as possible from a semi-mythical past and increasing the scale.
Given the originals were all about impressing the credulous proles with the Awesome Power of the Rulers….
Yep. Speer's (inspired by Hitler, Goering and so on) "architecture of ruins" is a fascinating mental contortion, where they considered themselves as creating a new 'Roman Empire', and wanted what they were building now to be enduring in 2000 years as what is left standing now from Roman times.
But equally, cities and communities from the past were formed and lived in by humans on a human scale, and can be used for patterns that still work because we are still human.
Speer and Hitler looked at it through a mirror darkly, and missed their personal 90%.
If @Leon were to ask, I'd recommend him to read "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander et al., which is still one of the best books on this 'building to human scale for communities" stuff after nearly 50 years, and stretches the mind very creatively.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
I see they are looking to buy the extra land from BAE. That'll be interesting - they'll get it 8 years too late on a 3 year plan, at 4x the cost. Call the extra school "Boxer Ferry Park".
That’s a foul libel on Big And Expensive’s management team
They would be 15 years late and 12x the cost.
It's very sad that the British aviation industry was so let down by governments of all stripes - but mostly Labour. Quite why abandoning good enterprises and subsidising diabolical ones became the norm escapes me. Government interaction with industry now seems woeful.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
The Coalition Government came to an end in 2015.
Try voting Lib Dem next time.
Lib Dems, the NIMBYiest of the NIMBYs.
Where developments ought to be opposed, most certainly. And where not, not.
What's your problem with that?
When people talk rubbish about being all in favour of backing the ‘right’ developments, but in practice vehemently oppose every single specific development proposal.
Quite untrue. Why do you bother to send us this nonsense from the middle of the Arabian desert?
On CCHQ payroll by any chance?
Given Sandpit's location, I don't think CCHQ can afford to do that, tbh... 😀
More seriously, apart from our Saturday troll, the people who make comments here usually do so from inner belief not imposed behaviour. Their inner belief may be utterly insane, but it's usually sincere...
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
The Duchy of Cornwall are currently doing a 'Poundbury: The Next Generation' in South-East Faversham.
It's basically a plan to extend the town's southern edge from the A2 about 300m south to the M2. High quality housing that's very similar (or a pastiche of) the historic centre of the town. Good transport links with the aforementioned roads and the HS1 line to London.
It's only 2,500 houses and is the most NIMBY-friendly development you could possibly imagine, yet people are still going nuts: https://archive.ph/N9Z0Q
My truism:"If people go nuts, it's because they are nuts."
I love the idea of a pastiche of Poundbury.
If it's in Kent, it's like The Hobbits' Shire, at Third Remove.
I always thought the Hobbits’ Shire was somewhere in the West Midlands. A bit like Borsetshire in The Archers. Then Frodo et al travelled in the general direction of Aberystwyth, or maybe Machynlleth.
Poundbury will always be an outlier, because of its circumstances and motive. But those brutalist concrete jungles Meades seems to love were an utter failure, both for the people forced to live in them and the nation. Would you prefer to live on the fifth floor of Skenfrith House or on Blackbird Close?
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
I see they are looking to buy the extra land from BAE. That'll be interesting - they'll get it 8 years too late on a 3 year plan, at 4x the cost. Call the extra school "Boxer Ferry Park".
That’s a foul libel on Big And Expensive’s management team
They would be 15 years late and 12x the cost.
It's very sad that the British aviation industry was so let down by governments of all stripes - but mostly Labour. Quite why abandoning good enterprises and subsidising diabolical ones became the norm escapes me. Government interaction with industry now seems woeful.
It dates back to before there was an aviation industry.
Mind you, the revisionism that the Royal Aircraft Factory was awesome and Sopwith were actually not very good is quite fun. Probably not from the point of view of the cockpit of a BE2c…
There really should be rules that state if you wish to do this, you must resign and stand for re-election unless there is a some limited time before the next opportunity for public to vote in an election i.e. MPs currently defecting from Tories to Labour in HoC, is pointless to have a by-election with max 6 months to go to GE.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
The Coalition Government came to an end in 2015.
Try voting Lib Dem next time.
Lib Dems, the NIMBYiest of the NIMBYs.
Where developments ought to be opposed, most certainly. And where not, not.
What's your problem with that?
When people talk rubbish about being all in favour of backing the ‘right’ developments, but in practice vehemently oppose every single specific development proposal.
Quite untrue. Why do you bother to send us this nonsense from the middle of the Arabian desert?
On CCHQ payroll by any chance?
Given Sandpit's location, I don't think CCHQ can afford to do that, tbh... 😀
More seriously, apart from our Saturday troll, the people who make comments here usually do so from inner belief not imposed behaviour. Their inner belief may be utterly insane, but it's usually sincere...
It would of course be totally illegal for a UK political party to be paying overseas residents to influence an election.
For the avoidance of doubt, I’m on no-one’s payroll except for my IT customers.
I do, however, consume a fair amount of US media, probably more than most UK-based posters here, and see that the likelyhood of a change of presidency is increasing by the day. The swing state polling is currently around 4% better for Trump today than it was in 2016.
The NY prosecution might be the straw that broke the camel’s back, as the prosecution have almost certainly failed to make their case, and the whole thing comes across as the same sort of political persecution we see in the third world.
FWIW, I don’t like Biden or Trump, and would much rather the parties could come up with sensible candidates.
Poundbury will always be an outlier, because of its circumstances and motive. But those brutalist concrete jungles Meades seems to love were an utter failure, both for the people forced to live in them and the nation. Would you prefer to live on the fifth floor of Skenfrith House or on Blackbird Close?
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
I live in Cambourne; a 'village' that did not exist before 1997. It now has a population of well over 12,000. It was originally envisaged as three villages, separated by green spaces, but is now officially a town - especially with the new build area in Cambourne West.
I'd give Cambourne 9/10 as a place to live for a couple with young kids - it's actually quite good, but not flawless. I fear that many of the lessons learnt from its construction appear to have been forgotten with Waterbeach and Northstowe, whose densities and respect of the existing environment (perhaps because they are old airfield sites...) are poorer.
Waterbeach, in particular, is going to be interesting to watch. Having lived in ye olde Waterbeach for a few years (off Bannold Road), it'll be hard for the old village centre to meld well with the new - especially when they move the railway station.
How are the transport links? (I used to pass the tiny village of Camborne on the way into Cambridge from Bedford.)
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
The Coalition Government came to an end in 2015.
Try voting Lib Dem next time.
Lib Dems, the NIMBYiest of the NIMBYs.
Where developments ought to be opposed, most certainly. And where not, not.
What's your problem with that?
When people talk rubbish about being all in favour of backing the ‘right’ developments, but in practice vehemently oppose every single specific development proposal.
Quite untrue. Why do you bother to send us this nonsense from the middle of the Arabian desert?
On CCHQ payroll by any chance?
Given Sandpit's location, I don't think CCHQ can afford to do that, tbh... 😀
More seriously, apart from our Saturday troll, the people who make comments here usually do so from inner belief not imposed behaviour. Their inner belief may be utterly insane, but it's usually sincere...
It would of course be totally illegal for a UK political party to be paying overseas residents to influence an election.
For the avoidance of doubt, I’m on no-one’s payroll except for my IT customers.
I do, however, consume a fair amount of US media, probably more than most UK-based posters here, and see that the likelyhood of a change of presidency is increasing by the day. The swing state polling is currently around 4% better for Trump today than it was in 2016.
The NY prosecution might be the straw that broke the camel’s back, as the prosecution have almost certainly failed to make their case, and the whole thing comes across as the same sort of political persecution we see in the third world.
FWIW, I don’t like Biden or Trump, and would much rather the parties could come up with sensible candidates.
I’d say that it’s more that because of the incremental seriousness of the prosecutions against him, Trump has been able to rachet this one into the persecution column.
He should have been tried for insurrection - first out of the gate. And don’t give me the 4 years to build a case thing.
A senior Conservative, who asked not to be named, said...
Rishi?
Normally senior Conservative = somebody you never never heard of on the back of the back benches. Grandee is somebody you might have heard of, but now in no position of power....
I'll say what I said before: the Conservatives have forgotten how to govern. What is the point of the party if it doesn't stand by "what we have, we hold"? Shouldn't there be some variant of "gauntlet, heavy, for the smiting (1)"?
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
The Coalition Government came to an end in 2015.
Try voting Lib Dem next time.
Lib Dems, the NIMBYiest of the NIMBYs.
Where developments ought to be opposed, most certainly. And where not, not.
What's your problem with that?
When people talk rubbish about being all in favour of backing the ‘right’ developments, but in practice vehemently oppose every single specific development proposal.
Quite untrue. Why do you bother to send us this nonsense from the middle of the Arabian desert?
On CCHQ payroll by any chance?
Given Sandpit's location, I don't think CCHQ can afford to do that, tbh... 😀
More seriously, apart from our Saturday troll, the people who make comments here usually do so from inner belief not imposed behaviour. Their inner belief may be utterly insane, but it's usually sincere...
It would of course be totally illegal for a UK political party to be paying overseas residents to influence an election.
For the avoidance of doubt, I’m on no-one’s payroll except for my IT customers.
I do, however, consume a fair amount of US media, probably more than most UK-based posters here, and see that the likelyhood of a change of presidency is increasing by the day. The swing state polling is currently around 4% better for Trump today than it was in 2016.
The NY prosecution might be the straw that broke the camel’s back, as the prosecution have almost certainly failed to make their case, and the whole thing comes across as the same sort of political persecution we see in the third world.
FWIW, I don’t like Biden or Trump, and would much rather the parties could come up with sensible candidates.
I think it's almost exactly 50/50, with the proviso that Trump probably has more "explosives" that he needs to avoid stepping on. In particular, the desire of Republican legislatures to pass deeply unpopular abortion laws is a real risk to Trump.
Fwiw, I think Trump would be a disaster for Ukraine, because Trump admires Putin and despises zelenskyy
A senior Conservative, who asked not to be named, said...
Rishi?
Normally senior Conservative = somebody you never never heard of on the back of the back benches. Grandee is somebody you might have heard of, but now in no position of power....
What the mysterious Conservative said was interesting:
Half of the world’s shipping passes through the Straits of Gibraltar. It’s therefore essential that we should have proper control of what happens there.
Dangerous Dave imperilling England's divine right to rule the Med and world shipping.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
The Coalition Government came to an end in 2015.
Try voting Lib Dem next time.
Lib Dems, the NIMBYiest of the NIMBYs.
Where developments ought to be opposed, most certainly. And where not, not.
What's your problem with that?
When people talk rubbish about being all in favour of backing the ‘right’ developments, but in practice vehemently oppose every single specific development proposal.
Quite untrue. Why do you bother to send us this nonsense from the middle of the Arabian desert?
On CCHQ payroll by any chance?
Given Sandpit's location, I don't think CCHQ can afford to do that, tbh... 😀
More seriously, apart from our Saturday troll, the people who make comments here usually do so from inner belief not imposed behaviour. Their inner belief may be utterly insane, but it's usually sincere...
It would of course be totally illegal for a UK political party to be paying overseas residents to influence an election.
For the avoidance of doubt, I’m on no-one’s payroll except for my IT customers.
I do, however, consume a fair amount of US media, probably more than most UK-based posters here, and see that the likelyhood of a change of presidency is increasing by the day. The swing state polling is currently around 4% better for Trump today than it was in 2016.
The NY prosecution might be the straw that broke the camel’s back, as the prosecution have almost certainly failed to make their case, and the whole thing comes across as the same sort of political persecution we see in the third world.
FWIW, I don’t like Biden or Trump, and would much rather the parties could come up with sensible candidates.
I’d say that it’s more that because of the incremental seriousness of the prosecutions against him, Trump has been able to rachet this one into the persecution column.
He should have been tried for insurrection - first out of the gate. And don’t give me the 4 years to build a case thing.
Indeed: the fake electors scheme was by far the most serious threat to US democracy in the last 100 years. It's staggering how many people seek to brush it under the table.
Speaking of which, the decades delayed Ajax and Ares are nearly ready to be deployed, honest. Ajax is too big for reconnaissance, too lightly armed to be effective, and insufficiently armoured to fight. Ares is similarly kak. I could continue but you get the point. ☹️
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
I'll say what I said before: the Conservatives have forgotten how to govern. What is the point of the party if it doesn't stand by "what we have, we hold"? Shouldn't there be some variant of "gauntlet, heavy, for the smiting (1)"?
Unfortunately, Cameron has shown he's a crap negotiator time after time. He also has no democratic accountability as FS but also knows he has limited time in office to make a mark.
My guess is he does a crap deal, tries to polish the turd, and argue Labour would make an even worse one if it isn't passed before he leaves office.
(And, to be fair, he might have a point re: David Lammy in a SKS administration)
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
On topic: To me, the most signficant thing in that graph is how consistent the trends are among Democrats, independents, and Republicans. We don't see that kind of agreement as often as we should, in the US.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
He of all people should know how to negotiate with Spain. He can contrast his love of in-out referenda with Spain’s granny-bashing approach to separatism.
Comments
It also means that even £500,000 is going to buy you a 700sq ft flat in outer(ish) London...
Depressing isn’t it?
After the crash what we really needed was a serious burst of inflation to effectively write off that debt but, instead, we had overly restrictive monetary polices to comply with an absurdly low and largely irrelevant inflation target where we dipped in and out of deflation. Ultra low interest rates kept the show on the road but it also kept far too much of the debt still on the books.
Now we have had a modest burst of inflation but the response has been interest rate increases and those pesky debts becoming real again. This is making new investment very difficult which in turn gives us slow growth.
We need more inflation. We need more bad debt written off or consolidated. We need to clean up our balance sheets. And then we will be in a position to go again.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welborne,_Hampshire
Basic concept announced 2014, building might be starting about now.
First project was on their land - the next stage (for which planning permission was granted ignoring waterboard complaints as I mentioned earlier today) is on land the council owned...
Later today an Opinium with at least 2 point rise in Tory rating, showing the Ref to Tory melt back is very real and happening quite quickly now at this stage. Perhaps tonight is the first time the penny drops with many people. I won’t say I told you so when election is 39 33.
Oh I probably will. 🤭
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/18/people-smugglers-flew-migrants-france-essex-jailed/
The group’s pilot would take off from North Weald Airfield in Epping Forest, Essex, and fly to Le Touquet airport on the coast of northern France to collect three to four migrants to smuggle into the UK on each trip.
The pilot would then fly to Stapleford Aerodrome, also in Epping Forest, where the migrants would leave the plane and be collected by Kadena.
The Albanian migrants would pay “up to £10,000” for transit into the UK and then “a few hundred pounds extra” for fake documents, the NCA said.
On CCHQ payroll by any chance?
If you think that locking kids in a draft, leaking shed for the night isn’t The Thing, then you’ll need to pay.
Strangely the staff are ungrateful and want to earn more than minimum wage. And some barsteward changed the law, and serfs can now leave the feudal demise without so much as saying thank you to their Rightful Masters.
You should cover the locations of 1759 for the gazette - Madras, Guadeloupe, Minden, Lagos, Quiberon Bay, Quebec.
Welcome to the Process State.
I get it to £128,370 before I factor in any contingency for management, sickness or another else - that's literally Minimum wage 11.44*24*365 + holiday pay + employer NI + apprenticeship levy.
He was certainly right when he said that while he was President.
Trump was also right when he said that Europe was too dependent upon Russian energy supplies.
I'm not sure how Trump telling Europe those things aligns with the 'Trump is a Russian puppet' claims.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
https://youtu.be/NVCgReNi3nM?t=282
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
Orpheus and the Sirens. In terracotta. Looted by the Sacra Corona Unita - the Pugliese mafia. Sold to the Getty in Malibu - boo! - but recently repatriated to Taranto! Yay!
https://www.britishexpatsinitaly.org/2022/10/04/review-terracotta-statues-of-orpheus-and-the-sirens/
That would be enough for most provincial museums - it certainly knocks Hereford’s “badly stuffed fox weirdly staring at decomposing weasel” into a cocked hat
But the museum ALSO has one of the greatest collections of jewellery from the ancient world anywhere on the planet
I tell you. Taranto. You read it here first
In ten years time EVERYONE will be raving about Taranto
There’s quite a lot in Taranto. You spot it immediately: austere stripped back neo-classicism. Firmly unadorned - but harmonious with the Italian street scapes. Honestly itself but respectful to its surroundings
And then you see the odd example of utter shit produced since 1945 and you wince
The point was that it's very easy to see the cost hitting £200,000 once you add sick leave, some management costs and the building itself...
Local context gives them more relevance in Taranto but they're still pretty crude work - perhaps not surprising as it was a Spartan colony.
The issue is that hard-pressed councils can't invest in in-house capacity, so contract with commercial providers for the bare minimum number of places. Sometimes they skimp a bit too much and get caught out - so, as a result, have to pay punitive rates for extra capacity out of contract.
It's exactly what you'd expect to happen by pushing finances to the ragged edge - minor things like quality of service and value for money always get dumped when you're in perpetual crisis mode.
That is only about 10% of what makes "good architecture".
The actual rate charged differs according to the actual needs of the child, and the in-house provision is often used for kids with more complex needs - so is likely rather better value than a simple comparison of averages would suggest.
Please remain calm. The Police will arrive momentarily to ProtectServe you.
Given the originals were all about impressing the credulous proles with the Awesome Power of the Rulers….
It's basically a plan to extend the town's southern edge from the A2 about 300m south to the M2. High quality housing that's very similar (or a pastiche of) the historic centre of the town. Good transport links with the aforementioned roads and the HS1 line to London.
It's only 2,500 houses and is the most NIMBY-friendly development you could possibly imagine, yet people are still going nuts: https://archive.ph/N9Z0Q
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck7722vzxemo
It would be a shame if it was a dataset that the ONS specifically advised was not suitable for comparison with other geographies, because that would mean carelessness or deceit from the journalist, and blind credulity from those who amplified it. But that might not be the case.
But equally, cities and communities from the past were formed and lived in by humans on a human scale, and can be used for patterns that still work because we are still human.
Speer and Hitler looked at it through a mirror darkly, and missed their personal 90%.
If @Leon were to ask, I'd recommend him to read "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander et al., which is still one of the best books on this 'building to human scale for communities" stuff after nearly 50 years, and stretches the mind very creatively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
I love the idea of a pastiche of Poundbury.
If it's in Kent, it's like The Hobbits' Shire, at Third Remove.
It is notable for the council wildly underestimating how many school places would be needed for the size of development.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-65920931#:~:text=A council which miscalculated the number of places,short of up to 1,000 primary school places.
Then I expect things will start to get ugly.
This stuff has been basic for many decades.
I see they are looking to buy the extra land from BAE. That'll be interesting - they'll get it 8 years too late on a 3 year plan, at 4x the cost. Call the extra school "Boxer Ferry Park".
Say what you like about the fash, they were undeniably aesthetes.
Which makes you wonder where it all went wrong with skinheads and bovva boys. Surely a well tailored suit is more in keeping with the clean cut image they want to represent.
On an architectural level, I'm not sure we'll ever escape our obsession with classicism. It's memetically ingrained on us as culture + authority + beauty from an early age. But is that a uniquely western thing? You don't see a lot of doric columns in Japan, for example.
They would be 15 years late and 12x the cost.
Yes - with an inflation linked policy which retains tenants, normal practice would be to reset to market at a new tenancy, or 5-10% below market to get and keep a good new tenant.
Changing tenants is the most expensive operation, and unless there is a big jump in rent the admin, charges, mini-refurb and upgrade costs would take anything from 1-5 years to recover from the increase.
F1: apologies for the lack of a pre-qualifying ramble, my time proved shorter than expected. The pre-race tosh should be up tomorrow morning at some point.
Then Frodo et al travelled in the general direction of Aberystwyth, or maybe Machynlleth.
I'd give Cambourne 9/10 as a place to live for a couple with young kids - it's actually quite good, but not flawless. I fear that many of the lessons learnt from its construction appear to have been forgotten with Waterbeach and Northstowe, whose densities and respect of the existing environment (perhaps because they are old airfield sites...) are poorer.
Waterbeach, in particular, is going to be interesting to watch. Having lived in ye olde Waterbeach for a few years (off Bannold Road), it'll be hard for the old village centre to meld well with the new - especially when they move the railway station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KJhCbwEcbA
More seriously, apart from our Saturday troll, the people who make comments here usually do so from inner belief not imposed behaviour. Their inner belief may be utterly insane, but it's usually sincere...
Poundbury will always be an outlier, because of its circumstances and motive. But those brutalist concrete jungles Meades seems to love were an utter failure, both for the people forced to live in them and the nation. Would you prefer to live on the fifth floor of Skenfrith House or on Blackbird Close?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledbury_Estate
Mind you, the revisionism that the Royal Aircraft Factory was awesome and Sopwith were actually not very good is quite fun. Probably not from the point of view of the cockpit of a BE2c…
For the avoidance of doubt, I’m on no-one’s payroll except for my IT customers.
I do, however, consume a fair amount of US media, probably more than most UK-based posters here, and see that the likelyhood of a change of presidency is increasing by the day. The swing state polling is currently around 4% better for Trump today than it was in 2016.
The NY prosecution might be the straw that broke the camel’s back, as the prosecution have almost certainly failed to make their case, and the whole thing comes across as the same sort of political persecution we see in the third world.
FWIW, I don’t like Biden or Trump, and would much rather the parties could come up with sensible candidates.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/18/tory-mps-warn-sovereignty-risk-in-gibraltar-deal/
Rishi?
He should have been tried for insurrection - first out of the gate. And don’t give me the 4 years to build a case thing.
Fwiw, I think Trump would be a disaster for Ukraine, because Trump admires Putin and despises zelenskyy
Half of the world’s shipping passes through the Straits of Gibraltar. It’s therefore essential that we should have proper control of what happens there.
Dangerous Dave imperilling England's divine right to rule the Med and world shipping.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yq3FUOjWOns
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
My guess is he does a crap deal, tries to polish the turd, and argue Labour would make an even worse one if it isn't passed before he leaves office.
(And, to be fair, he might have a point re: David Lammy in a SKS administration)