Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Without a change in the law? Of course it won't.
If the brakes are taken off development? The of course it could.
Competition works.
Or more women could stop working full time when they have children, nearly half now do and that means homes which would previously have been 4x individual salary are now 8x as full time fathers and full time working mothers combine their salaries to buy the biggest property for them
You're switching around cause and effect. Many women were already working in the late 90s, early 00s, but as supply of houses was appropriate for demand, housing was still affordable.
The issue is not buying the biggest property, the biggest will always be expensive, the issue is insufficient supply means getting any property is unaffordable for too many. That can't be addressed without boosting supply.
And many people need 2 incomes as they need to pay for housing, not the other way around.
Not correct, in 1990 only 35% of working age women in the UK were in full time employment and about 32% were in part time employment and 33% not working at all.
By 2020 45% of working age women in the UK were in full time employment, a 10% rise.
Yes we need to boost housing supply but we also need to encourage more mothers to only work full time and increase child benefit for working women and married couples allowance too
Recent complaint I've seen is that the big construction firms operate a go slow policy on new developments so that prices remain high. Anyone know if Apple operate this policy when they have a new iphone? Do they deliberately restrict the numbers they release below the demand level?
If we'd had a property price crash I presume some of the builders would have gone bust and been replaced by new entrants who weren't over-leveraged and determined to keep prices high.
We need a land value tax, so they are taxed on the value of the land they are banking. And/or planning permission with a hard deadline. Use it or lose it.
So increasing the cost to builders with a new tax improves profitability and reduces prices?
I am not convinced.
Do what the Japanese have done, have a liberal zonal system so planning permission is not required if zoned for development and a land tax.
That way you either develop the land if you want to use it or dispose of it to someone who does want to. Banking land to choke supply makes no sense.
Builders only "bank land" so that they can plan ahead. Builders will build if they have the capacity to do so, and make profit by doing so.
What is it about business that you don't understand?
Builders only need to "bank land" to plan ahead because of our broken planning system that means they need a pipeline of jobs as it takes years to get permission.
If they don't need permission then there's no need to bank anymore and no need to plan ahead for many years as you can just get on with the job instead. Get the land and start work imminently.
And the issue is not merely what one builder can do, but what their competition can or can't do. If a builder has monopoly or oligopoly permission to develop an area then they can dribble out that development at the pace that maximises their profit, but if anyone can build a home then if they dribble out the development then a competitor can beat them to market.
What is it about business and competition that you don't understand?
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
No-one watching Prisoner 951 on BBC1? It is based on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's imprisonment in Iran for six years between Boris opening his mouth and Liz Truss handing over £400 million.
FPT: ydoethur - Thanks for catching my mistake. (I am slow to thank you because I was watching the Seahawks game, as most of my neighbors would expect. The Seahawks did win, however.)
That mistake wasn't a tribute to a missing commenter. There are commenters like dill pickles, fine in small quantities, but not in large.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Subdued demand, or increased cost of supply?
The fundamental problem is that we insist, via regulation, on only building houses which cost more than most people can afford.
Ergo, we have people complaining bitterly that houses are unaffordable, whilst no one is building more.
At least part of the solution is to rewind building and planning regs 30 years. If we want housing to be affordable, forget biodiversity net gain, forget nutrient neutraliry, forget stupid targets for insulation values which only permit tiny triple glazed windows. Forget carbon levys on cement works, landfill levys on hardcore etc etc etc.
That's why housing is unaffordable - and it's completely fixable, but only if the politicians are willing to rip up a whole lot of sacred cow level red tape.
Rewind planning regs 80 years.
We have never succeeded in meeting the rates of development seen in the 1930s or 1890s ever post-WWII.
Attlee screwed us. Get rid of that.
Planning and building regs.
The post Grenfell regs added billions annually to building costs - and many of them don't actually increase safety.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
No-one watching Prisoner 951 on BBC1? It is based on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's imprisonment in Iran for six years between Boris opening his mouth and Liz Truss handing over £400 million.
I am. A salutary reminder (among other recent ones) of Boris making a fucking mess of a big call. Nice counterpoint between the horrible Kafkaesque Iranian regime and the less malign but still frustratingly useless HMG.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
What's the problem if you add a storey for £630,000 and sell it for a million?
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
I saw somewhere gambling firms spend £2 billion a year on advertising.
Yet the threat of a change to Remote Gaming Duty and General Betting Duty and they are all pleading poverty and claiming the world will come to an end.
No-one watching Prisoner 951 on BBC1? It is based on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's imprisonment in Iran for six years between Boris opening his mouth and Liz Truss handing over £400 million.
I am. A salutary reminder (among other recent ones) of Boris making a fucking mess of a big call. Nice counterpoint between the horrible Kafkaesque Iranian regime and the less malign but still frustratingly useless HMG.
Was there ever an explanation for why he said it? Just a balls up? Or something in it?
The key to all this might be that even without speculation around Trump's health, the President is term-limited and shortly to enter the traditional lame duck period. Vance, Rubio and others will have an eye to the post-Trump world and succession. Trump will look to his legacy and, his enemies will say, any remaining chances to profit.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
I'm not entirely convinced that that is the best policy, and I think that perhaps needs a look at. For example in the case of single room fires I don't see why a non-adjacent lift should automatically be shut off. There are also more resilient lifts which may be a better option than a second staircase.
It has been the case for some years that non-mobile people are shunted into a cupboard-like refuge area rather than being evacuated.
But I'm not up to date on Bulding Regs in this area in detail.
No-one watching Prisoner 951 on BBC1? It is based on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's imprisonment in Iran for six years between Boris opening his mouth and Liz Truss handing over £400 million.
I am. A salutary reminder (among other recent ones) of Boris making a fucking mess of a big call. Nice counterpoint between the horrible Kafkaesque Iranian regime and the less malign but still frustratingly useless HMG.
Was there ever an explanation for why he said it? Just a balls up? Or something in it?
Not that I know of. I tend to go with the Gatsby analysis, ie Boris is a careless person who smashes up things then moves on.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
A single property fire protected staircase can be entirely adequate as far as safety is concerned.
And of course that's the case for a large amount of existing building stock.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
I'm not entirely convinced that that is the best policy, and I think that perhaps needs a look at. For example in the case of single room fires I don't see why a non-adjacent lift should automatically be shut off. There are also more resilient lifts which may be a better option than a second staircase.
It has been the case for some years that non-mobile people are shunted into a cupboard-like refuge area rather than being evacuated.
But I'm not up to date on Bulding Regs in this area in detail.
Hospitals Don't Burn Down
Made by Film Australia 1977. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. A disturbingly realistic film about a fire in a large hospital. This program pulls no punches and has never dated. The issues remain the same. Designed to blast through the complacency of the "it can't happen here" attitude, the docu-drama vividly portrays a series of credible events that could happen in a hospital, large nursing home or any high-rise complex. This film shows the terrifying speed with which flames and smoke can engulf a building and the difficulties of evacuating the seriously ill and incapacitated, especially at night with a skeleton staff and when visibility is low. The consequences are disastrous. Brian Trenchard-Smith made only one film for Film Australia and it is one that displays his talent for horror. Long recognised as a leading maker of slasher films, Quentin Tarantino has referred to him as one of his favourite directors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaqN5pCl3Q
A 20-minute fire safety film from Australia. Spoiler: hospitals can burn down.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
I'm not entirely convinced that that is the best policy, and I think that perhaps needs a look at. For example in the case of single room fires I don't see why a non-adjacent lift should automatically be shut off. There are also more resilient lifts which may be a better option than a second staircase.
It has been the case for some years that non-mobile people are shunted into a cupboard-like refuge area rather than being evacuated.
But I'm not up to date on Bulding Regs in this area in detail.
Hospitals Don't Burn Down
Made by Film Australia 1977. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. A disturbingly realistic film about a fire in a large hospital. This program pulls no punches and has never dated. The issues remain the same. Designed to blast through the complacency of the "it can't happen here" attitude, the docu-drama vividly portrays a series of credible events that could happen in a hospital, large nursing home or any high-rise complex. This film shows the terrifying speed with which flames and smoke can engulf a building and the difficulties of evacuating the seriously ill and incapacitated, especially at night with a skeleton staff and when visibility is low. The consequences are disastrous. Brian Trenchard-Smith made only one film for Film Australia and it is one that displays his talent for horror. Long recognised as a leading maker of slasher films, Quentin Tarantino has referred to him as one of his favourite directors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaqN5pCl3Q
A 20-minute fire safety film from Australia. Spoiler: hospitals can burn down.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
I'm not entirely convinced that that is the best policy, and I think that perhaps needs a look at. For example in the case of single room fires I don't see why a non-adjacent lift should automatically be shut off. There are also more resilient lifts which may be a better option than a second staircase.
It has been the case for some years that non-mobile people are shunted into a cupboard-like refuge area rather than being evacuated.
But I'm not up to date on Bulding Regs in this area in detail.
Hospitals Don't Burn Down
Made by Film Australia 1977. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. A disturbingly realistic film about a fire in a large hospital. This program pulls no punches and has never dated. The issues remain the same. Designed to blast through the complacency of the "it can't happen here" attitude, the docu-drama vividly portrays a series of credible events that could happen in a hospital, large nursing home or any high-rise complex. This film shows the terrifying speed with which flames and smoke can engulf a building and the difficulties of evacuating the seriously ill and incapacitated, especially at night with a skeleton staff and when visibility is low. The consequences are disastrous. Brian Trenchard-Smith made only one film for Film Australia and it is one that displays his talent for horror. Long recognised as a leading maker of slasher films, Quentin Tarantino has referred to him as one of his favourite directors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaqN5pCl3Q
A 20-minute fire safety film from Australia. Spoiler: hospitals can burn down.
1977 ?
Things have moved on a bit.
Nurses' hats for a start. But if you can name a better safety film (other than Traitors)...
ETA and to be serious, one area where things have moved on is to require a second staircase in tall buildings in case of fires.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
I'm not entirely convinced that that is the best policy, and I think that perhaps needs a look at. For example in the case of single room fires I don't see why a non-adjacent lift should automatically be shut off. There are also more resilient lifts which may be a better option than a second staircase.
It has been the case for some years that non-mobile people are shunted into a cupboard-like refuge area rather than being evacuated.
But I'm not up to date on Bulding Regs in this area in detail.
Hospitals Don't Burn Down
Made by Film Australia 1977. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. A disturbingly realistic film about a fire in a large hospital. This program pulls no punches and has never dated. The issues remain the same. Designed to blast through the complacency of the "it can't happen here" attitude, the docu-drama vividly portrays a series of credible events that could happen in a hospital, large nursing home or any high-rise complex. This film shows the terrifying speed with which flames and smoke can engulf a building and the difficulties of evacuating the seriously ill and incapacitated, especially at night with a skeleton staff and when visibility is low. The consequences are disastrous. Brian Trenchard-Smith made only one film for Film Australia and it is one that displays his talent for horror. Long recognised as a leading maker of slasher films, Quentin Tarantino has referred to him as one of his favourite directors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaqN5pCl3Q
A 20-minute fire safety film from Australia. Spoiler: hospitals can burn down.
1977 ?
Things have moved on a bit.
Nurses' hats for a start. But if you can name a better safety film (other than Traitors)...
ETA and to be serious, one area where things have moved on is to require a second staircase in tall buildings in case of fires.
A diagram of maximum height in different countries before "single exit routes" are banned. Two points:
1 - The UK went from no limit, to one of the tightest. 2 - The higher limits tend to be in European countries, which to my eye suggests that if it is embedded in an overall safety system as they tend to be in Europe (read some international Building Regs comparisons ) then the limit need not be so low.
If we are going to unblock the pipeline, I might suggest a change to 30m, as originally suggested in the 2022 legislation before it was changed.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
I'm not entirely convinced that that is the best policy, and I think that perhaps needs a look at. For example in the case of single room fires I don't see why a non-adjacent lift should automatically be shut off. There are also more resilient lifts which may be a better option than a second staircase.
It has been the case for some years that non-mobile people are shunted into a cupboard-like refuge area rather than being evacuated.
But I'm not up to date on Bulding Regs in this area in detail.
Hospitals Don't Burn Down
Made by Film Australia 1977. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. A disturbingly realistic film about a fire in a large hospital. This program pulls no punches and has never dated. The issues remain the same. Designed to blast through the complacency of the "it can't happen here" attitude, the docu-drama vividly portrays a series of credible events that could happen in a hospital, large nursing home or any high-rise complex. This film shows the terrifying speed with which flames and smoke can engulf a building and the difficulties of evacuating the seriously ill and incapacitated, especially at night with a skeleton staff and when visibility is low. The consequences are disastrous. Brian Trenchard-Smith made only one film for Film Australia and it is one that displays his talent for horror. Long recognised as a leading maker of slasher films, Quentin Tarantino has referred to him as one of his favourite directors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaqN5pCl3Q
A 20-minute fire safety film from Australia. Spoiler: hospitals can burn down.
1977 ?
Things have moved on a bit.
Nurses' hats for a start. But if you can name a better safety film (other than Traitors)...
ETA and to be serious, one area where things have moved on is to require a second staircase in tall buildings in case of fires.
It's a little peripheral imo. Here we are talking about difficulties imposed on construction of medium rise flats, and how we can mitigate them to get more housing in place PDQ.
1 - How many hospital buildings over 18m did not have a second staircase anyway? 2 - How many hospital buildings do not have sprinkler systems, which completely change the game. 3 - For background, the numbers of UK hospital buildings more than 18m/5 storeys high in 2020/2021 was 5%,
The whole thing looks like a charade to me. There's no chance of a peace deal emerging. Anything acceptable to Ukraine is unacceptable to Russia and vice versa. So the war goes on.
What's up for grabs - and driving the 'negotiations' - isn't a deal but the US reaction to the inevitable no deal. Do they blame Russia and keep supporting Ukraine or blame Ukraine and walk away. Russia are trying to steer Trump one way, Ukraine (and Europe) the other.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
A single property fire protected staircase can be entirely adequate as far as safety is concerned.
And of course that's the case for a large amount of existing building stock.
+1 firedoors are rated for at least 20 minutes. Surely the question becomes how long does it take for the fire to be discovered (by something triggering an alarm), the alarm going off and people getting dressed and down to the meeting area with sufficient time to spare.
And I suspect the answer to that is 9 to 10 stories and not 6...
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
I'm not entirely convinced that that is the best policy, and I think that perhaps needs a look at. For example in the case of single room fires I don't see why a non-adjacent lift should automatically be shut off. There are also more resilient lifts which may be a better option than a second staircase.
It has been the case for some years that non-mobile people are shunted into a cupboard-like refuge area rather than being evacuated.
But I'm not up to date on Bulding Regs in this area in detail.
Hospitals Don't Burn Down
Made by Film Australia 1977. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. A disturbingly realistic film about a fire in a large hospital. This program pulls no punches and has never dated. The issues remain the same. Designed to blast through the complacency of the "it can't happen here" attitude, the docu-drama vividly portrays a series of credible events that could happen in a hospital, large nursing home or any high-rise complex. This film shows the terrifying speed with which flames and smoke can engulf a building and the difficulties of evacuating the seriously ill and incapacitated, especially at night with a skeleton staff and when visibility is low. The consequences are disastrous. Brian Trenchard-Smith made only one film for Film Australia and it is one that displays his talent for horror. Long recognised as a leading maker of slasher films, Quentin Tarantino has referred to him as one of his favourite directors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaqN5pCl3Q
A 20-minute fire safety film from Australia. Spoiler: hospitals can burn down.
1977 ?
Things have moved on a bit.
Nurses' hats for a start. But if you can name a better safety film (other than Traitors)...
ETA and to be serious, one area where things have moved on is to require a second staircase in tall buildings in case of fires.
It's a little peripheral imo. Here we are talking about difficulties imposed on construction of medium rise flats, and how we can mitigate them to get more housing in place PDQ.
1 - How many hospital buildings over 18m did not have a second staircase anyway? 2 - For background, the numbers of UK hospital buildings more than 18m/5 storeys high in 2020/2021 was 5%,
The film, which I've not seen in decades, popped into my head as one that showed why lifts in fires are dangerous. A quick search of YouTube and there it is.
The motivation for the second staircase in flats is probably the Grenfell fire. In my low-rise block with only one staircase, we have had to install fire doors, alarms, emergency lights and signs, even though there is only one route to anywhere. It's not one of these massive lateral blocks with several corridors in which to get lost in the smoke. But rules is rules.
The whole thing looks like a charade to me. There's no chance of a peace deal emerging. Anything acceptable to Ukraine is unacceptable to Russia and vice versa. So the war goes on.
What's up for grabs - and driving the 'negotiations' - isn't a deal but the US reaction to the inevitable no deal. Do they blame Russia and keep supporting Ukraine or blame Ukraine and walk away. Russia are trying to steer Trump one way, Ukraine (and Europe) the other.
I'm not sure it is quite that simple. The Telegraph analysis found a few points that favour Ukraine. Clever old Russians, you might think!
The whole thing looks like a charade to me. There's no chance of a peace deal emerging. Anything acceptable to Ukraine is unacceptable to Russia and vice versa. So the war goes on.
What's up for grabs - and driving the 'negotiations' - isn't a deal but the US reaction to the inevitable no deal. Do they blame Russia and keep supporting Ukraine or blame Ukraine and walk away. Russia are trying to steer Trump one way, Ukraine (and Europe) the other.
What is arguably needed is for the US to walk away but to disengage, allowing Europe to continue supporting Ukraine. Their continued meddling is not in anybody's interests, apart from Russia
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
The way to restore profitability at lower house sale prices is to cut costs, for example by removing a lot of housing regulations, mandates to build Social Housing, remove requirements to build infrastructure etc.
Whether that would be wise is a completely different question.
Is it even possible? If we assume that the current market price and quantity for new housing is a fair one (*doubt*), then we need to find a way to shift the supply curve in such a way that the market price drops by 50%. Roughly 3/5th of the cost of a house in the actual structure. A further 1/5th is stuff like roads and utilities, legal and professional fees. The remaining 1/5 is stuff like flood remediation, environmental fees, playparks, cycle lanes, heat pumps etc etc.
And that's before we even consider the cost of land (though that is perhaps less relevant as developers already own approx 1 million plots). I don't see where that 50% is coming from unless we effectively socialise the latter 2/5ths. That's a position that has some merit, but obviously some massive costs.
If it is impossible to build houses that people can afford profitably, and there is a housing shortage then surely the only viable solution is mass building of social housing by either councils or central government. This is pretty much what went on until the Eighties. It is clear that the private sector is failing to build enough.
The teensy problem is that both councils and central government are skint.
Government building overpriced housing instead of the private sector doesn't really help matters. It all still has to be paid for by an average household covering the costs of one average house.
The government taxing the cost off the household then building it for them doesn't actually make it any more affordable. And the government can't borrow much more cheaply than anyone else at the moment, because there is already too much government debt, so that's not much of an argument either.
Round here, new build Barratt four beds are about £400k. If we knocked out the 20% that you claim is caused by regulations, that gets them down to £320k,which certainly helps. The plot is probably £30k, without planning regs it's probably only £1k even if it's prime agricultural land, so that's £291k.
Knock 10% off build costs by winding back building regs 10 years, that's another £22k, so we're now selling our £400k house for £269k, pretty much 2/3rds of the original price.
OK, it's not the 50% reduction that we'd like, but reducing the cost of housing by a third would have a massive beneficial effect on most people's lives.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
A single property fire protected staircase can be entirely adequate as far as safety is concerned.
And of course that's the case for a large amount of existing building stock.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
I'm not entirely convinced that that is the best policy, and I think that perhaps needs a look at. For example in the case of single room fires I don't see why a non-adjacent lift should automatically be shut off. There are also more resilient lifts which may be a better option than a second staircase.
It has been the case for some years that non-mobile people are shunted into a cupboard-like refuge area rather than being evacuated.
But I'm not up to date on Bulding Regs in this area in detail.
Hospitals Don't Burn Down
Made by Film Australia 1977. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. A disturbingly realistic film about a fire in a large hospital. This program pulls no punches and has never dated. The issues remain the same. Designed to blast through the complacency of the "it can't happen here" attitude, the docu-drama vividly portrays a series of credible events that could happen in a hospital, large nursing home or any high-rise complex. This film shows the terrifying speed with which flames and smoke can engulf a building and the difficulties of evacuating the seriously ill and incapacitated, especially at night with a skeleton staff and when visibility is low. The consequences are disastrous. Brian Trenchard-Smith made only one film for Film Australia and it is one that displays his talent for horror. Long recognised as a leading maker of slasher films, Quentin Tarantino has referred to him as one of his favourite directors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaqN5pCl3Q
A 20-minute fire safety film from Australia. Spoiler: hospitals can burn down.
1977 ?
Things have moved on a bit.
Nurses' hats for a start. But if you can name a better safety film (other than Traitors)...
ETA and to be serious, one area where things have moved on is to require a second staircase in tall buildings in case of fires.
It's a little peripheral imo. Here we are talking about difficulties imposed on construction of medium rise flats, and how we can mitigate them to get more housing in place PDQ.
1 - How many hospital buildings over 18m did not have a second staircase anyway? 2 - For background, the numbers of UK hospital buildings more than 18m/5 storeys high in 2020/2021 was 5%,
The film, which I've not seen in decades, popped into my head as one that showed why lifts in fires are dangerous. A quick search of YouTube and there it is.
The motivation for the second staircase in flats is probably the Grenfell fire. In my low-rise block with only one staircase, we have had to install fire doors, alarms, emergency lights and signs, even though there is only one route to anywhere. It's not one of these massive lateral blocks with several corridors in which to get lost in the smoke. But rules is rules.
Thanks for the reply.
Yes, BSA 2022 was a response to Grenfell. The 18m limit was recommended by eg the RIBA.
The "construction industry" said it was proud to be embracing "Safety First". It was a Michael Gove decision.
But if we have these problems now it suggests something is not working. There are definitely problems with the regulator responding slowly to planning applications. I wonder if they have overdo-it-to-cover-our-backside issues, or are just under-resourced or too rigid.
And I am exploring possible ways to move it forward,
The whole thing looks like a charade to me. There's no chance of a peace deal emerging. Anything acceptable to Ukraine is unacceptable to Russia and vice versa. So the war goes on.
What's up for grabs - and driving the 'negotiations' - isn't a deal but the US reaction to the inevitable no deal. Do they blame Russia and keep supporting Ukraine or blame Ukraine and walk away. Russia are trying to steer Trump one way, Ukraine (and Europe) the other.
I'm not sure it is quite that simple. The Telegraph analysis found a few points that favour Ukraine. Clever old Russians, you might think!
Plenty of sub-plots, probably, but I do think that's the nub of it.
Perhaps the 'real' purpose behind the plan was to try and split the US off from Europe. Some talk that the recent sanctions on oil are having an effect on the price of Russian crude.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
What's the problem if you add a storey for £630,000 and sell it for a million?
It's £630000 added. Once you add the actual cost of building, you may be over a million.
Besides which, what if it's the North and the four flats on level six sell for, say, £125000 each?
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
Builders can only slow down if they don't face competition, which is only the case because of our broken planning system, which the Government claimed they would fix in their manifesto.
Planning is part, but not all of the problem. I'm sure we were discussing last week a thread on twitter, the gist of which was that we've made building in London so difficult and expensive that for about half the capital it's not profitable to build, even if you were given the land with outline planning permission for free.
Two problems with London, one is that the land is extraordinarily expensive (and I don't believe its land for free too expensive), the other is that there is insufficient land.
The population of London has grown considerably in recent decades, as proportionately has the population of the country. The land used by London should have spread out proportionately too, but it has not.
The population has grown by 20% I believe in recent decades, the area occupied has not. London should have grown to accommodate its growing population and could have were it not for planning regulations.
On top of which, brownfield has all the costs of remediation. And since many of the sites are pretty small, the only way to get a meaningful number of homes is to build very tall, which is expensive to make work. If you told me that the window of viability had shrunk to zero, I wouldn't be shocked.
(My understanding is that optimal viability is around 4-6 stories... the kind of thing that cities have in many countries, but not England. Except for all those mansion blocks in Marylebone et cetera, which are insanely desirable and hence expensive.)
And six stories now needs two staircases, reducing floor area:
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
How would the Conservatives who aiui introduced this react if the Governent withdrew or delayed the implementation date? Or if it was changed to be in line with the original 30 metre proposal?
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
Lifts are normally grounded during fires to avoid the risk of passengers opening the lift doors onto a floor with a raging inferno. If this is still true, then lifts cannot obviate the second staircase as a fire exit.
A single property fire protected staircase can be entirely adequate as far as safety is concerned.
And of course that's the case for a large amount of existing building stock.
(TLDR: afaics that is not a significant risk, and would be more related to how a building is managed eg things left in corridors or blocking fire exits.)
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Without a change in the law? Of course it won't.
If the brakes are taken off development? The of course it could.
Competition works.
Are you comfortable with all the new housing they plan to build in the field behind your house?
Yes. Why would I not be?
They put the 6 acre field behind my house up for the Vale of Glamorgan 15 year development plan. Fuck that! I wrote a letter of complaint and organised an opposition group. NIMBY!
As my wife points out - if you don't own the land / view it's fair game...
Unfortunately, people don't see it that way.
Meanwhile, this looks like the right sort of thing to be doing;
Labour is plotting a green belt building blitz with plans to make it far easier to build blocks of flats near commuter stations.
Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, is preparing to grant default approval for building projects near well-connected train stations.
The new rules will extend to land within the green belt and include minimum housing density standards, implying properties must contain multiple dwellings.
Flats near stations makes sense rather than detached homes on fields as the first is key to getting the young on the ladder and then onto a semi
That's wrong end of the telescope thinking.
If everyone aspires to a detached home with some space round it (most people do), building loads of nasty flats will still mean no-one can afford what they actually want,and will end up stuck in flats they can't really have families in. It makes far more sense to build what people actually want.
The big problem with this is that our stupid planning system is really biased against building detached homes with decent gardens, because all the incentives are for developers to ram the maximum number of houses into too small a a space.
I really want a 4 bed detached house set in about 1/2 an acre of land. Round here that's £750k. I can buy the sort of house I want, absent the land, for £350k. I can buy 1/2 acre for under £10k. But the two together are insane money, purely because of planning. And the pricing tells you that I'm not alone in the desire, it's basically what everyone wants - so why don't we let it happen, at least a bit more?
Why on earth would the Tories draw attention to the lack of building when they are doubling down on nimbyism more than anyone (except probably the LDs)? Their target audience will be thrilled at Labour failing its targets.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Without a change in the law? Of course it won't.
If the brakes are taken off development? The of course it could.
Competition works.
Are you comfortable with all the new housing they plan to build in the field behind your house?
Yes. Why would I not be?
They put the 6 acre field behind my house up for the Vale of Glamorgan 15 year development plan. Fuck that! I wrote a letter of complaint and organised an opposition group. NIMBY!
As my wife points out - if you don't own the land / view it's fair game...
Unfortunately, people don't see it that way.
Meanwhile, this looks like the right sort of thing to be doing;
Labour is plotting a green belt building blitz with plans to make it far easier to build blocks of flats near commuter stations.
Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, is preparing to grant default approval for building projects near well-connected train stations.
The new rules will extend to land within the green belt and include minimum housing density standards, implying properties must contain multiple dwellings.
Flats near stations makes sense rather than detached homes on fields as the first is key to getting the young on the ladder and then onto a semi
That's wrong end of the telescope thinking.
If everyone aspires to a detached home with some space round it (most people do), building loads of nasty flats will still mean no-one can afford what they actually want,and will end up stuck in flats they can't really have families in. It makes far more sense to build what people actually want.
The big problem with this is that our stupid planning system is really biased against building detached homes with decent gardens, because all the incentives are for developers to ram the maximum number of houses into too small a a space.
I really want a 4 bed detached house set in about 1/2 an acre of land. Round here that's £750k. I can buy the sort of house I want, absent the land, for £350k. I can buy 1/2 acre for under £10k. But the two together are insane money, purely because of planning. And the pricing tells you that I'm not alone in the desire, it's basically what everyone wants - so why don't we let it happen, at least a bit more?
I do not want a 4 bed detached house in 1/2 an acre of land.
The whole thing looks like a charade to me. There's no chance of a peace deal emerging. Anything acceptable to Ukraine is unacceptable to Russia and vice versa. So the war goes on.
What's up for grabs - and driving the 'negotiations' - isn't a deal but the US reaction to the inevitable no deal. Do they blame Russia and keep supporting Ukraine or blame Ukraine and walk away. Russia are trying to steer Trump one way, Ukraine (and Europe) the other.
What is arguably needed is for the US to walk away but to disengage, allowing Europe to continue supporting Ukraine. Their continued meddling is not in anybody's interests, apart from Russia
Donald Trump is a meddler extraordinaire unfortunately. He himself is a barrier to a deal on Ukraine because he's made meaningless the thing that any deal struck now would rely on - a 'US security guarantee'.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Without a change in the law? Of course it won't.
If the brakes are taken off development? The of course it could.
Competition works.
Are you comfortable with all the new housing they plan to build in the field behind your house?
Yes. Why would I not be?
They put the 6 acre field behind my house up for the Vale of Glamorgan 15 year development plan. Fuck that! I wrote a letter of complaint and organised an opposition group. NIMBY!
As my wife points out - if you don't own the land / view it's fair game...
Unfortunately, people don't see it that way.
Meanwhile, this looks like the right sort of thing to be doing;
Labour is plotting a green belt building blitz with plans to make it far easier to build blocks of flats near commuter stations.
Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, is preparing to grant default approval for building projects near well-connected train stations.
The new rules will extend to land within the green belt and include minimum housing density standards, implying properties must contain multiple dwellings.
Flats near stations makes sense rather than detached homes on fields as the first is key to getting the young on the ladder and then onto a semi
That's wrong end of the telescope thinking.
If everyone aspires to a detached home with some space round it (most people do), building loads of nasty flats will still mean no-one can afford what they actually want,and will end up stuck in flats they can't really have families in. It makes far more sense to build what people actually want.
The big problem with this is that our stupid planning system is really biased against building detached homes with decent gardens, because all the incentives are for developers to ram the maximum number of houses into too small a a space.
I really want a 4 bed detached house set in about 1/2 an acre of land. Round here that's £750k. I can buy the sort of house I want, absent the land, for £350k. I can buy 1/2 acre for under £10k. But the two together are insane money, purely because of planning. And the pricing tells you that I'm not alone in the desire, it's basically what everyone wants - so why don't we let it happen, at least a bit more?
I do not want a 4 bed detached house in 1/2 an acre of land.
Fine. But plenty of people clearly do, when they trade at a 100% premium to 4 bed detached house with a small drive.
The fact that many mainstream politicians today are effectively anti-Green Belt is extraordinary imo. It wasn't that long ago that nearly all of them thought it was very important to preserve it.
Perhaps the 'real' purpose behind the plan was to try and split the US off from Europe. Some talk that the recent sanctions on oil are having an effect on the price of Russian crude.
Sanctions and especially the new secondary sanctions. On top of which, Ukrainian drones render supply dates uncertain. Even with massive discounts, is it worth risking being locked out of the international banking system for an unreliable supply?
And then China is not buying much, even though Russia built a shiny new pipeline especially, and that country probably does, like America, maintain a strategic oil reserve. China is not so much an ally of Russia as a selfish and independent player whose economy depends more on trading with the West than on buying Russian fuel.
The fact that many mainstream politicians today are effectively anti-Green Belt is extraordinary imo. It wasn't that long ago that nearly all of them thought it was very important to preserve it.
Most of them still do, at least the genuinely beautiful parts of it but space is needed for more affordable homes
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Without a change in the law? Of course it won't.
If the brakes are taken off development? The of course it could.
Competition works.
Are you comfortable with all the new housing they plan to build in the field behind your house?
Yes. Why would I not be?
They put the 6 acre field behind my house up for the Vale of Glamorgan 15 year development plan. Fuck that! I wrote a letter of complaint and organised an opposition group. NIMBY!
As my wife points out - if you don't own the land / view it's fair game...
Unfortunately, people don't see it that way.
Meanwhile, this looks like the right sort of thing to be doing;
Labour is plotting a green belt building blitz with plans to make it far easier to build blocks of flats near commuter stations.
Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, is preparing to grant default approval for building projects near well-connected train stations.
The new rules will extend to land within the green belt and include minimum housing density standards, implying properties must contain multiple dwellings.
Flats near stations makes sense rather than detached homes on fields as the first is key to getting the young on the ladder and then onto a semi
That's wrong end of the telescope thinking.
If everyone aspires to a detached home with some space round it (most people do), building loads of nasty flats will still mean no-one can afford what they actually want,and will end up stuck in flats they can't really have families in. It makes far more sense to build what people actually want.
The big problem with this is that our stupid planning system is really biased against building detached homes with decent gardens, because all the incentives are for developers to ram the maximum number of houses into too small a a space.
I really want a 4 bed detached house set in about 1/2 an acre of land. Round here that's £750k. I can buy the sort of house I want, absent the land, for £350k. I can buy 1/2 acre for under £10k. But the two together are insane money, purely because of planning. And the pricing tells you that I'm not alone in the desire, it's basically what everyone wants - so why don't we let it happen, at least a bit more?
You need a mixture, even £360k is too expensive for most young and many middle aged people, so you still need flats and semi detached to start off with even if yes you want some new detached homes as well to make those cheaper too
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Without a change in the law? Of course it won't.
If the brakes are taken off development? The of course it could.
Competition works.
Are you comfortable with all the new housing they plan to build in the field behind your house?
Yes. Why would I not be?
They put the 6 acre field behind my house up for the Vale of Glamorgan 15 year development plan. Fuck that! I wrote a letter of complaint and organised an opposition group. NIMBY!
As my wife points out - if you don't own the land / view it's fair game...
Unfortunately, people don't see it that way.
Meanwhile, this looks like the right sort of thing to be doing;
Labour is plotting a green belt building blitz with plans to make it far easier to build blocks of flats near commuter stations.
Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, is preparing to grant default approval for building projects near well-connected train stations.
The new rules will extend to land within the green belt and include minimum housing density standards, implying properties must contain multiple dwellings.
Flats near stations makes sense rather than detached homes on fields as the first is key to getting the young on the ladder and then onto a semi
That's wrong end of the telescope thinking.
If everyone aspires to a detached home with some space round it (most people do), building loads of nasty flats will still mean no-one can afford what they actually want,and will end up stuck in flats they can't really have families in. It makes far more sense to build what people actually want.
The big problem with this is that our stupid planning system is really biased against building detached homes with decent gardens, because all the incentives are for developers to ram the maximum number of houses into too small a a space.
I really want a 4 bed detached house set in about 1/2 an acre of land. Round here that's £750k. I can buy the sort of house I want, absent the land, for £350k. I can buy 1/2 acre for under £10k. But the two together are insane money, purely because of planning. And the pricing tells you that I'm not alone in the desire, it's basically what everyone wants - so why don't we let it happen, at least a bit more?
I do not want a 4 bed detached house in 1/2 an acre of land.
Fine. But plenty of people clearly do, when they trade at a 100% premium to 4 bed detached house with a small drive.
People want different things.
Clearly lots of people want to live in tiny apartments in Manhattan, because said apartments cost many millions of dollars, while there are pleasant houses with garden within an hour or so for a fifth of the price.
The job of the govenrment is not to try and solve for one particular set of people. It's to try and ensure that the market is responsive to needs, by having flexible planning systems (like happened around the edges of London in the 1930s): that produced an awful lot of apartments and an awful lot of houses.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Without a change in the law? Of course it won't.
If the brakes are taken off development? The of course it could.
Competition works.
Are you comfortable with all the new housing they plan to build in the field behind your house?
Yes. Why would I not be?
They put the 6 acre field behind my house up for the Vale of Glamorgan 15 year development plan. Fuck that! I wrote a letter of complaint and organised an opposition group. NIMBY!
As my wife points out - if you don't own the land / view it's fair game...
Unfortunately, people don't see it that way.
Meanwhile, this looks like the right sort of thing to be doing;
Labour is plotting a green belt building blitz with plans to make it far easier to build blocks of flats near commuter stations.
Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, is preparing to grant default approval for building projects near well-connected train stations.
The new rules will extend to land within the green belt and include minimum housing density standards, implying properties must contain multiple dwellings.
Flats near stations makes sense rather than detached homes on fields as the first is key to getting the young on the ladder and then onto a semi
That's wrong end of the telescope thinking.
If everyone aspires to a detached home with some space round it (most people do), building loads of nasty flats will still mean no-one can afford what they actually want,and will end up stuck in flats they can't really have families in. It makes far more sense to build what people actually want.
The big problem with this is that our stupid planning system is really biased against building detached homes with decent gardens, because all the incentives are for developers to ram the maximum number of houses into too small a a space.
I really want a 4 bed detached house set in about 1/2 an acre of land. Round here that's £750k. I can buy the sort of house I want, absent the land, for £350k. I can buy 1/2 acre for under £10k. But the two together are insane money, purely because of planning. And the pricing tells you that I'm not alone in the desire, it's basically what everyone wants - so why don't we let it happen, at least a bit more?
I do not want a 4 bed detached house in 1/2 an acre of land.
Fine. But plenty of people clearly do, when they trade at a 100% premium to 4 bed detached house with a small drive.
People want different things.
Clearly lots of people want to live in tiny apartments in Manhattan, because said apartments cost many millions of dollars, while there are pleasant houses with garden within an hour or so for a fifth of the price.
The job of the govenrment is not to try and solve for one particular set of people. It's to try and ensure that the market is responsive to needs, by having flexible planning systems (like happened around the edges of London in the 1930s): that produced an awful lot of apartments and an awful lot of houses.
I don't disagree with that at-all.
My grump was that the system is presently very heavily weighted against such houses, despite them being very highly in demand - and a lot of this being because the system is run by "planners" who think that putting the proles into Barratt boxes built 25 to an acre is what should happen, because that's what's good for them.
See also all the anti-driving policies which boil down to "we should make driving horrible and expensive until the proles all take the bus".
Strangely, the planners who promote these policies always seem to manage to live in a detached house in a pleasant village themselves...
@rcs1000, @TheScreamingEagles , I have uploaded my first draft of "Your Friend Susan". It is an essay on the implications of the April Supreme Court decision. It is a very rough first draft at 1,900 words not including the appendices and will need trimming. Before I ask for pre-readers can you confirm that it does not include any metadata that can be used to identify me? (download it, rightclick, select properties, look for my name etc). I've anonymised it but I want to make doubly sure.
The "rejection" is a performance, it still leaves the Russian dictated plan as the basis for agreed capitulation, which is why it needs to be taken off the table, and which is what-bit by bit- the Europeans are doing.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Without a change in the law? Of course it won't.
If the brakes are taken off development? The of course it could.
Competition works.
Are you comfortable with all the new housing they plan to build in the field behind your house?
Yes. Why would I not be?
They put the 6 acre field behind my house up for the Vale of Glamorgan 15 year development plan. Fuck that! I wrote a letter of complaint and organised an opposition group. NIMBY!
As my wife points out - if you don't own the land / view it's fair game...
Unfortunately, people don't see it that way.
Meanwhile, this looks like the right sort of thing to be doing;
Labour is plotting a green belt building blitz with plans to make it far easier to build blocks of flats near commuter stations.
Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, is preparing to grant default approval for building projects near well-connected train stations.
The new rules will extend to land within the green belt and include minimum housing density standards, implying properties must contain multiple dwellings.
Flats near stations makes sense rather than detached homes on fields as the first is key to getting the young on the ladder and then onto a semi
That's wrong end of the telescope thinking.
If everyone aspires to a detached home with some space round it (most people do), building loads of nasty flats will still mean no-one can afford what they actually want,and will end up stuck in flats they can't really have families in. It makes far more sense to build what people actually want.
The big problem with this is that our stupid planning system is really biased against building detached homes with decent gardens, because all the incentives are for developers to ram the maximum number of houses into too small a a space.
I really want a 4 bed detached house set in about 1/2 an acre of land. Round here that's £750k. I can buy the sort of house I want, absent the land, for £350k. I can buy 1/2 acre for under £10k. But the two together are insane money, purely because of planning. And the pricing tells you that I'm not alone in the desire, it's basically what everyone wants - so why don't we let it happen, at least a bit more?
I do not want a 4 bed detached house in 1/2 an acre of land.
Fine. But plenty of people clearly do, when they trade at a 100% premium to 4 bed detached house with a small drive.
People want different things.
Clearly lots of people want to live in tiny apartments in Manhattan, because said apartments cost many millions of dollars, while there are pleasant houses with garden within an hour or so for a fifth of the price.
The job of the govenrment is not to try and solve for one particular set of people. It's to try and ensure that the market is responsive to needs, by having flexible planning systems (like happened around the edges of London in the 1930s): that produced an awful lot of apartments and an awful lot of houses.
I don't disagree with that at-all.
My grump was that the system is presently very heavily weighted against such houses, despite them being very highly in demand - and a lot of this being because the system is run by "planners" who think that putting the proles into Barratt boxes built 25 to an acre is what should happen, because that's what's good for them.
See also all the anti-driving policies which boil down to "we should make driving horrible and expensive until the proles all take the bus".
Strangely, the planners who promote these policies always seem to manage to live in a detached house in a pleasant village themselves...
There's a lot of truth in that, and I think it's worth going back to the fundamental root of the problem:
Home building has externalities.
Hence most people simultaneously hold two opposing views. Firstly, they think housing is far too expensive, meaning their kid won't leave home. Secondly, they don't want things built near them, because it's going to increase congestion, and make the nearby good school harder to get into, and it's already hard enough getting an appointment with a GP.
Wimpey and Barrett are clever: they go to the council and they offer [x] and [y], which means the council in turn can sell to the voters that they're going to get (as happened in Bedford) the Oasis Leisure Centre.
Independent developers don't have that advantage.
Which means we get lots of homes of the kind you don't like.
At the same time, there is lots of farmland that sells for just 9k an acre.
As an aside, I would give the urban planners some slack. As someone who lives in Los Angeles, I've discovered what happens if you make everything about the car: it takes hours to get three miles. London, with its tube lines, and bus lines, and cycle paths, and suburban rail, and even some trams, is perfection by comparison. I am incredibly fortunate that I work from home, or commute against the traffic. Many other people are not so lucky.
Being fair - this is Iranian exploitation rather than anything to do with normal Sindy supporters.
Twitter putting everyone’s locations has been rather amusing to see.
There’s an awful lot of political activists that aren’t from where they give the impression of being from, especially those with very partisan or more extreme viewpoints.
Lots of Indians and Africans pretending to be American, and people from pretty much everywhere pretending to be Russian or Ukranian.
The context is redundant as the bar chart is accurately drawn. The zig zag shown shows there is a gap between 0 and first y-axis term of 200,000.
Dodgy bar charts omit that zig zag normally. There's nothing dodgy here.
The bigger issue is the more fundamental one that the data is accurate and that the Government has done nothing to improve the situation in future years either.
I disagree. The “zig zag” is a sale, or axis, break, which is very common in specialised contexts. But data visualisation needs to serve fundamentally different audiences with different needs, knowledge bases, and attention spans in public vs specialist contexts. Specialist audiences share disciplinary knowledge of standard visual conventions in their field. They can interpret complex encodings like log scales, or axis breaks, without explanation. Public audiences lack this shared foundation, so visualisation should use intuitive visual metaphors and limit jargon. This one utilises such visual jargon, making it as bad as a Lib Dem bar chart.
The zig zag is very common in almost all contexts that regularly use bar charts, which is why its taught at school, its not something you need a diploma for.
Which makes those who omit it all the more egregious.
Being pedantic, it's a bit unusual to put a false origin on the vertical axis of a bar chart. Much more common on scatter charts.
Not hard to see why. Having the bars zoom up through the gap without a break visually drowns out the effect of the axis break. A quick glance (which is all most people will give it) gives a very misleading impression. Yes, the numbers are there, but that's the data visualisation equivalent of putting the "X was found not guilty" in the third paragraph under a "X ACCUSED OF DOING BAD THING" headline.
Which is the point, of course.
In a column chart you are supposed to put breaks in the columns as well
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
Every government pushes to be allowed to balance its numbers by including some item about reducing fraud or collecting more tax. It saves them having to find actual money by cutting more spending or raising more tax. Then, of course, when the extra income fails to materialise, it becomes a key reason why the numbers don’t balance out in reality.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Without a change in the law? Of course it won't.
If the brakes are taken off development? The of course it could.
Competition works.
Are you comfortable with all the new housing they plan to build in the field behind your house?
Yes. Why would I not be?
They put the 6 acre field behind my house up for the Vale of Glamorgan 15 year development plan. Fuck that! I wrote a letter of complaint and organised an opposition group. NIMBY!
As my wife points out - if you don't own the land / view it's fair game...
Unfortunately, people don't see it that way.
Meanwhile, this looks like the right sort of thing to be doing;
Labour is plotting a green belt building blitz with plans to make it far easier to build blocks of flats near commuter stations.
Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, is preparing to grant default approval for building projects near well-connected train stations.
The new rules will extend to land within the green belt and include minimum housing density standards, implying properties must contain multiple dwellings.
Flats near stations makes sense rather than detached homes on fields as the first is key to getting the young on the ladder and then onto a semi
That's wrong end of the telescope thinking.
If everyone aspires to a detached home with some space round it (most people do), building loads of nasty flats will still mean no-one can afford what they actually want,and will end up stuck in flats they can't really have families in. It makes far more sense to build what people actually want.
The big problem with this is that our stupid planning system is really biased against building detached homes with decent gardens, because all the incentives are for developers to ram the maximum number of houses into too small a a space.
I really want a 4 bed detached house set in about 1/2 an acre of land. Round here that's £750k. I can buy the sort of house I want, absent the land, for £350k. I can buy 1/2 acre for under £10k. But the two together are insane money, purely because of planning. And the pricing tells you that I'm not alone in the desire, it's basically what everyone wants - so why don't we let it happen, at least a bit more?
I do not want a 4 bed detached house in 1/2 an acre of land.
Fine. But plenty of people clearly do, when they trade at a 100% premium to 4 bed detached house with a small drive.
People want different things.
Clearly lots of people want to live in tiny apartments in Manhattan, because said apartments cost many millions of dollars, while there are pleasant houses with garden within an hour or so for a fifth of the price.
The job of the govenrment is not to try and solve for one particular set of people. It's to try and ensure that the market is responsive to needs, by having flexible planning systems (like happened around the edges of London in the 1930s): that produced an awful lot of apartments and an awful lot of houses.
I don't disagree with that at-all.
My grump was that the system is presently very heavily weighted against such houses, despite them being very highly in demand - and a lot of this being because the system is run by "planners" who think that putting the proles into Barratt boxes built 25 to an acre is what should happen, because that's what's good for them.
See also all the anti-driving policies which boil down to "we should make driving horrible and expensive until the proles all take the bus".
Strangely, the planners who promote these policies always seem to manage to live in a detached house in a pleasant village themselves...
Love to know who those planners are in detached houses.
I’ve not met one in 30 years and my wife knows an awful lot of them.
As for Barratt plot layouts bein approved, planners approve what is submitted - this is not Holland where local authorities install the infrastructure - here Barratt buy a field and it’s all on them
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
Must be time for a rehash of the army of loft laggers and of course the annual new year resolution that the civil service will go on a diet with government efficiency savings, finished off with the all time time #1, better tax enforcement. Will mean 100 million new jobs, £100bn saved, £100bn raised....
Every government pushes to be allowed to balance its numbers by including some item about reducing fraud or collecting more tax. It saves them having to find actual money by cutting more spending or raising more tax. Then, of course, when the extra income fails to materialise, it becomes a key reason why the numbers don’t balance out in reality.
AIUI they are talking about reducing fraud by £1.2bn over 6 years, so £200m out of a £88bn and rising budget.
Firstly it makes very little difference to overall government spending either way. Secondly it feels more than achievable.
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
Must be time for a rehash of the army of loft laggers and of course the annual new year resolution that the civil service will go on a diet with government efficiency savings, finished off with the all time time #1, better tax enforcement. Will mean 100 million new jobs, £100bn saved, £100bn raised....
In all seriousness, a proper push on insulation rather than with the current restrictions on it would make a big difference, particularly with the aim of having heat pumps everywhere if possible.
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
It won’t even last that long - as there is a fundamental issue here.
We’ve clamped down on it in every budget for the past 15 years so either we are on to finding the last few quid or the Government has failed to fix it because what’s left isn’t easy to fix.
And remember this is a Government that decided flight details were more accurate than looking at someone’s bank account to determine if they had immigrated (hint do both as you need to sanity check any BI / AI report).
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
Must be time for a rehash of the army of loft laggers and of course the annual new year resolution that the civil service will go on a diet with government efficiency savings, finished off with the all time time #1, better tax enforcement. Will mean 100 million new jobs, £100bn saved, £100bn raised....
In all seriousness, a proper push on insulation rather than with the current restrictions on it would make a big difference, particularly with the aim of having heat pumps everywhere if possible.
The BBC ran a piece a few weeks ago that the army of loft laggers from a previous scheme used a particular approach that has resulted in damp getting trapped in homes and going to cost millions and millions to inspect and fix.
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
Must be time for a rehash of the army of loft laggers and of course the annual new year resolution that the civil service will go on a diet with government efficiency savings, finished off with the all time time #1, better tax enforcement. Will mean 100 million new jobs, £100bn saved, £100bn raised....
In all seriousness, a proper push on insulation rather than with the current restrictions on it would make a big difference, particularly with the aim of having heat pumps everywhere if possible.
But this, when you get govt schemes, always ends up with Phoenix companies running scams. Insulation is not something every home can have. Homes need to breathe. Air needs to flow. Reputable companies know this. Scammers don’t care.
It is something that needs careful consideration not another half baked govt scheme.
Every government pushes to be allowed to balance its numbers by including some item about reducing fraud or collecting more tax. It saves them having to find actual money by cutting more spending or raising more tax. Then, of course, when the extra income fails to materialise, it becomes a key reason why the numbers don’t balance out in reality.
AIUI they are talking about reducing fraud by £1.2bn over 6 years, so £200m out of a £88bn and rising budget.
Firstly it makes very little difference to overall government spending either way. Secondly it feels more than achievable.
It’s a good headline and makes people feel they’re onto it and doing something but it’s nothing more than that.
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
It won’t even last that long - as there is a fundamental issue here.
We’ve clamped down on it in every budget for the past 15 years so either we are on to finding the last few quid or the Government has failed to fix it because what’s left isn’t easy to fix.
And remember this is a Government that decided flight details were more accurate than looking at someone’s bank account to determine if they had immigrated (hint do both as you need to sanity check any BI / AI report).
Universal credit has changed significantly over the last few years with the more complex cases being added into it and spending doubling over a 5 year period. There will be a lot more opportunity to fix error and fraud than within a stable benefits system or other government spending.
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
Must be time for a rehash of the army of loft laggers and of course the annual new year resolution that the civil service will go on a diet with government efficiency savings, finished off with the all time time #1, better tax enforcement. Will mean 100 million new jobs, £100bn saved, £100bn raised....
In all seriousness, a proper push on insulation rather than with the current restrictions on it would make a big difference, particularly with the aim of having heat pumps everywhere if possible.
I wouldn’t trust the people the Government would involve to do it, to correctly do it. As Taz says spray loft insulation has become a grade A disaster because the Government allowed cowboys to do it on the cheap
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Same here on the South Coast. At least 800 nearing completion in this solid blue area. A good part will be social housing which the local and London councils will fill with homeless families. The rest are being offered on shared equity (bloody expensive way to do it). Some may get purchased but will compete with the BTR lot.
Were there no green belt these would be part of London.
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
Must be time for a rehash of the army of loft laggers and of course the annual new year resolution that the civil service will go on a diet with government efficiency savings, finished off with the all time time #1, better tax enforcement. Will mean 100 million new jobs, £100bn saved, £100bn raised....
In all seriousness, a proper push on insulation rather than with the current restrictions on it would make a big difference, particularly with the aim of having heat pumps everywhere if possible.
I wouldn’t trust the people the Government would involve to do it, to correctly do it. As Taz says spray loft insulation has become a grade A disaster because the Government allowed cowboys to do it on the cheap
The Government could subsidise British sheepswool insulation - thus helping beleagured British farmers.
The context is redundant as the bar chart is accurately drawn. The zig zag shown shows there is a gap between 0 and first y-axis term of 200,000.
Dodgy bar charts omit that zig zag normally. There's nothing dodgy here.
The bigger issue is the more fundamental one that the data is accurate and that the Government has done nothing to improve the situation in future years either.
I disagree. The “zig zag” is a sale, or axis, break, which is very common in specialised contexts. But data visualisation needs to serve fundamentally different audiences with different needs, knowledge bases, and attention spans in public vs specialist contexts. Specialist audiences share disciplinary knowledge of standard visual conventions in their field. They can interpret complex encodings like log scales, or axis breaks, without explanation. Public audiences lack this shared foundation, so visualisation should use intuitive visual metaphors and limit jargon. This one utilises such visual jargon, making it as bad as a Lib Dem bar chart.
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
Must be time for a rehash of the army of loft laggers and of course the annual new year resolution that the civil service will go on a diet with government efficiency savings, finished off with the all time time #1, better tax enforcement. Will mean 100 million new jobs, £100bn saved, £100bn raised....
In all seriousness, a proper push on insulation rather than with the current restrictions on it would make a big difference, particularly with the aim of having heat pumps everywhere if possible.
I wouldn’t trust the people the Government would involve to do it, to correctly do it. As Taz says spray loft insulation has become a grade A disaster because the Government allowed cowboys to do it on the cheap
The Government could subsidise British sheepswool insulation - thus helping beleagured British farmers.
The only reason that British upland sheep farmers can survive is the massive subsidies that already exist. I'm not sure how you could justify even more cash for a sector that doesn't have national security considerations.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Same here on the South Coast. At least 800 nearing completion in this solid blue area. A good part will be social housing which the local and London councils will fill with homeless families. The rest are being offered on shared equity (bloody expensive way to do it). Some may get purchased but will compete with the BTR lot.
Were there no green belt these would be part of London.
Considering that builders have land-banks extending several years into the future, doesn't the chart simply show that housing demand is down?
Now, we can speculate why that may be. Higher interest rates impacting on mortgages preventing upshifting, over stretched youngsters unable to afford a move, low fertility rates meaning people do not need family homes, more BTL and second homes moving to market because of tax changes, house prices stagnating in parts of the country, lack of government funding for social housing etc.
Ultimately the builders will build as fast as they can sell properies at a profit. They have enough land and permissions to do so, but have clearly slowed down in response to subdued demand.
There is a well known mechanism to respond to subdued demand called price.
That's why they are building like mad in and around Edinburgh, but not elsewhere in Scotland. Anyone who thinks the market will deliver enough new housing to drive prices down to 4x median salary (rather than 8x) is utterly deluded.
Plenty of houses being built in the West of Scotland.
Where are you? In Midlothian the number of dwellings has increased by 18% in the last 10 years. In Inverclyde it's 3%.
(Over the last 20 years it's 33% and 0.7%).
Inverclyde will be because they have demolished all the Port Glasgow tenements and probably a good few in Greenock as well I imagine.
Any “clampdown on benefit fraud” will last about as long as the first handful of out-of-context Guardian sob-stories of people “kicked out of their homes” or “denied their benefits”.
It won’t even last that long - as there is a fundamental issue here.
We’ve clamped down on it in every budget for the past 15 years so either we are on to finding the last few quid or the Government has failed to fix it because what’s left isn’t easy to fix.
And remember this is a Government that decided flight details were more accurate than looking at someone’s bank account to determine if they had immigrated (hint do both as you need to sanity check any BI / AI report).
You are presupposing anything is actually going to happen, that wouldn’t have, anyway.
I’ve seen it dozens of times, in local government. You have a budget that won’t balance, and you’ve done all the easy stuff, and you’ve done all the difficult stuff that politicians think they can accept and sell. You’re still left with a gap, or balancing number. The temptation to conjure up some initiative and put whatever the balancing number is against it becomes very strong - whatever it is you use always boils down to “unspecified unidentified efficiency savings”, but the more convincingly you can name and describe it (or alternatively bury it in the details and hope it won’t be spotted) the more likely it will get you through the budget meeting intact.
Comments
If they don't need permission then there's no need to bank anymore and no need to plan ahead for many years as you can just get on with the job instead. Get the land and start work imminently.
And the issue is not merely what one builder can do, but what their competition can or can't do. If a builder has monopoly or oligopoly permission to develop an area then they can dribble out that development at the pace that maximises their profit, but if anyone can build a home then if they dribble out the development then a competitor can beat them to market.
What is it about business and competition that you don't understand?
https://www.centreforcities.org/reader/breaking-the-bottlenecks/dual-staircase-requirements/
"Unfortunately, the second staircase requirement is very expensive. Normally, adding one storey onto an apartment building above five storeys increases the cost of every flat in the structure by £600. Recent evidence suggests that the new dual staircase requirement increases the cost of every flat in new apartment buildings by £22,500, including those below the threshold. For a building with four flats on each floor and a single staircase, adding the fifth storey would normally cost £14,400 – but the dual staircase requirement means adding a further sixth storey now costs £630,000."
That mistake wasn't a tribute to a missing commenter. There are commenters like dill pickles, fine in small quantities, but not in large.
(It was in the Building Safety Act 2022, and is due for implementation from Sept 30 2026.)
The post Grenfell regs added billions annually to building costs - and many of them don't actually increase safety.
Edit time expired. I don't see a need for 2 staircases if there is also a lift, or two lifts. Lifts are now a requirement for this sort of building (ie any block of flats of 2 or more storeys) for accessibility reasons. I think that changes the game.
As an aside, unless it has changed 6-7 storeys is what you can do as "medium rise timber frame".
A salutary reminder (among other recent ones) of Boris making a fucking mess of a big call. Nice counterpoint between the horrible Kafkaesque Iranian regime and the less malign but still frustratingly useless HMG.
Yet the threat of a change to Remote Gaming Duty and General Betting Duty and they are all pleading poverty and claiming the world will come to an end.
Colour me unconvinced.
1. Vance key to US embrace of Russia plan on Ukraine, Rubio (and even Trump) out of the loop.
2. Vance-Rubio relations “awful.”
3. Rubio told the senators what they said he told them.
4. Hegseth paranoid he’ll be shoved out for Driscoll.
https://x.com/BillKristol/status/1992602375773966541
I never thought I'd be rooting for Trump's health. At the very least, until the midterms.
These fools are still high on their own supply, and think that their armies are breaking through all along the lines.
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-22-2025/
https://x.com/NewsWire_US/status/1992334239942267041
Thoughts & prayers for PB's anti-woke brigade.
It has been the case for some years that non-mobile people are shunted into a cupboard-like refuge area rather than being evacuated.
But I'm not up to date on Bulding Regs in this area in detail.
I tend to go with the Gatsby analysis, ie Boris is a careless person who smashes up things then moves on.
And of course that's the case for a large amount of existing building stock.
Hospitals Don't Burn Down
Made by Film Australia 1977. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. A disturbingly realistic film about a fire in a large hospital. This program pulls no punches and has never dated. The issues remain the same. Designed to blast through the complacency of the "it can't happen here" attitude, the docu-drama vividly portrays a series of credible events that could happen in a hospital, large nursing home or any high-rise complex. This film shows the terrifying speed with which flames and smoke can engulf a building and the difficulties of evacuating the seriously ill and incapacitated, especially at night with a skeleton staff and when visibility is low. The consequences are disastrous. Brian Trenchard-Smith made only one film for Film Australia and it is one that displays his talent for horror. Long recognised as a leading maker of slasher films, Quentin Tarantino has referred to him as one of his favourite directors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaqN5pCl3Q
A 20-minute fire safety film from Australia. Spoiler: hospitals can burn down.
Things have moved on a bit.
ETA and to be serious, one area where things have moved on is to require a second staircase in tall buildings in case of fires.
1 - The UK went from no limit, to one of the tightest.
2 - The higher limits tend to be in European countries, which to my eye suggests that if it is embedded in an overall safety system as they tend to be in Europe (read some international Building Regs comparisons
If we are going to unblock the pipeline, I might suggest a change to 30m, as originally suggested in the 2022 legislation before it was changed.
Link: https://secondegress.ca/Jurisdictions
Slight 1970s Dr Who incidental soundtrack vibe.
1 - How many hospital buildings over 18m did not have a second staircase anyway?
2 - How many hospital buildings do not have sprinkler systems, which completely change the game.
3 - For background, the numbers of UK hospital buildings more than 18m/5 storeys high in 2020/2021 was 5%,
(https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-safety-programme-estimates-of-hospital-and-residential-crown-buildings-in-england/building-safety-programme-estimates-of-hospital-and-residential-crown-buildings-in-england#:~:text=Hospital buildings * an estimated 274 (5%),estimated to be over 11m in height.)
What's up for grabs - and driving the 'negotiations' - isn't a deal but the US reaction to the inevitable no deal. Do they blame Russia and keep supporting Ukraine or blame Ukraine and walk away. Russia are trying to steer Trump one way, Ukraine (and Europe) the other.
And I suspect the answer to that is 9 to 10 stories and not 6...
The motivation for the second staircase in flats is probably the Grenfell fire. In my low-rise block with only one staircase, we have had to install fire doors, alarms, emergency lights and signs, even though there is only one route to anywhere. It's not one of these massive lateral blocks with several corridors in which to get lost in the smoke. But rules is rules.
Pretty bleak take on the relations between young men and women!
The government taxing the cost off the household then building it for them doesn't actually make it any more affordable. And the government can't borrow much more cheaply than anyone else at the moment, because there is already too much government debt, so that's not much of an argument either.
Round here, new build Barratt four beds are about £400k. If we knocked out the 20% that you claim is caused by regulations, that gets them down to £320k,which certainly helps. The plot is probably £30k, without planning regs it's probably only £1k even if it's prime agricultural land, so that's £291k.
Knock 10% off build costs by winding back building regs 10 years, that's another £22k, so we're now selling our £400k house for £269k, pretty much 2/3rds of the original price.
OK, it's not the 50% reduction that we'd like, but reducing the cost of housing by a third would have a massive beneficial effect on most people's lives.
Yes, BSA 2022 was a response to Grenfell. The 18m limit was recommended by eg the RIBA.
The "construction industry" said it was proud to be embracing "Safety First". It was a Michael Gove decision.
But if we have these problems now it suggests something is not working. There are definitely problems with the regulator responding slowly to planning applications. I wonder if they have overdo-it-to-cover-our-backside issues, or are just under-resourced or too rigid.
And I am exploring possible ways to move it forward,
Besides which, what if it's the North and the four flats on level six sell for, say, £125000 each?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/means-of-escape-in-residential-buildings-research/means-of-escape-in-residential-buildings
(TLDR: afaics that is not a significant risk, and would be more related to how a building is managed eg things left in corridors or blocking fire exits.)
If everyone aspires to a detached home with some space round it (most people do), building loads of nasty flats will still mean no-one can afford what they actually want,and will end up stuck in flats they can't really have families in. It makes far more sense to build what people actually want.
The big problem with this is that our stupid planning system is really biased against building detached homes with decent gardens, because all the incentives are for developers to ram the maximum number of houses into too small a a space.
I really want a 4 bed detached house set in about 1/2 an acre of land. Round here that's £750k.
I can buy the sort of house I want, absent the land, for £350k. I can buy 1/2 acre for under £10k. But the two together are insane money, purely because of planning. And the pricing tells you that I'm not alone in the desire, it's basically what everyone wants - so why don't we let it happen, at least a bit more?
They didn’t reverse the change because of embarrassment at revealing all the overseas MAGA accounts. The change has gone through.
And then China is not buying much, even though Russia built a shiny new pipeline especially, and that country probably does, like America, maintain a strategic oil reserve. China is not so much an ally of Russia as a selfish and independent player whose economy depends more on trading with the West than on buying Russian fuel.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/proof-scottish-pro-indy-account-network-operated-from-iran/
Being fair - this is Iranian exploitation rather than anything to do with normal Sindy supporters.
https://x.com/antoguerrera/status/1992386389871333779
Dies he think he's Donald Trump ?
Clearly lots of people want to live in tiny apartments in Manhattan, because said apartments cost many millions of dollars, while there are pleasant houses with garden within an hour or so for a fifth of the price.
The job of the govenrment is not to try and solve for one particular set of people. It's to try and ensure that the market is responsive to needs, by having flexible planning systems (like happened around the edges of London in the 1930s): that produced an awful lot of apartments and an awful lot of houses.
My grump was that the system is presently very heavily weighted against such houses, despite them being very highly in demand - and a lot of this being because the system is run by "planners" who think that putting the proles into Barratt boxes built 25 to an acre is what should happen, because that's what's good for them.
See also all the anti-driving policies which boil down to "we should make driving horrible and expensive until the proles all take the bus".
Strangely, the planners who promote these policies always seem to manage to live in a detached house in a pleasant village themselves...
Home building has externalities.
Hence most people simultaneously hold two opposing views. Firstly, they think housing is far too expensive, meaning their kid won't leave home. Secondly, they don't want things built near them, because it's going to increase congestion, and make the nearby good school harder to get into, and it's already hard enough getting an appointment with a GP.
Wimpey and Barrett are clever: they go to the council and they offer [x] and [y], which means the council in turn can sell to the voters that they're going to get (as happened in Bedford) the Oasis Leisure Centre.
Independent developers don't have that advantage.
Which means we get lots of homes of the kind you don't like.
At the same time, there is lots of farmland that sells for just 9k an acre.
As an aside, I would give the urban planners some slack. As someone who lives in Los Angeles, I've discovered what happens if you make everything about the car: it takes hours to get three miles. London, with its tube lines, and bus lines, and cycle paths, and suburban rail, and even some trams, is perfection by comparison. I am incredibly fortunate that I work from home, or commute against the traffic. Many other people are not so lucky.
There’s an awful lot of political activists that aren’t from where they give the impression of being from, especially those with very partisan or more extreme viewpoints.
Lots of Indians and Africans pretending to be American, and people from pretty much everywhere pretending to be Russian or Ukranian.
That’s a new one. 🙄
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/23/rachel-reeves-benefit-fraud-crackdown-two-child-limit-budget
When a perfectly normal and apparently pleasant person takes on the kind of role she has the explanation is surely that she is being paid to do so.
I’ve not met one in 30 years and my wife knows an awful lot of them.
As for Barratt plot layouts bein approved, planners approve what is submitted - this is not Holland where local authorities install the infrastructure - here Barratt buy a field and it’s all on them
Firstly it makes very little difference to overall government spending either way. Secondly it feels more than achievable.
We’ve clamped down on it in every budget for the past 15 years so either we are on to finding the last few quid or the Government has failed to fix it because what’s left isn’t easy to fix.
And remember this is a Government that decided flight details were more accurate than looking at someone’s bank account to determine if they had immigrated (hint do both as you need to sanity check any BI / AI report).
It is something that needs careful consideration not another half baked govt scheme.
I wouldn’t have spray foam anywhere near my loft.
Were there no green belt these would be part of London.
This idea that they would come to Ukraines aid is delusional.
NEW THREAD
I’ve seen it dozens of times, in local government. You have a budget that won’t balance, and you’ve done all the easy stuff, and you’ve done all the difficult stuff that politicians think they can accept and sell. You’re still left with a gap, or balancing number. The temptation to conjure up some initiative and put whatever the balancing number is against it becomes very strong - whatever it is you use always boils down to “unspecified unidentified efficiency savings”, but the more convincingly you can name and describe it (or alternatively bury it in the details and hope it won’t be spotted) the more likely it will get you through the budget meeting intact.