Please don’t build on river flood plains though!
Unfortunately, many cities past, present and likely future have and will be built on flood plains!
That said, there are ways of better mitigating flooding. More dense housing that occupies less space reduces the amount of surface run-off and frees up land to soak up rainfall. This is also why building tons of car infrastructure can be really bad, wide roads and large surface parking lots go a long way to exacerbate the issue.
Having good storm drainage and building infrastructure to deal with sudden downpours before releasing it slowly helps.
Adding city trees and wildlife can also help act as a 'soak' for rainfall.
There are 5 main areas :
1) Right to buy as been a disaster, had 4.5m Council houses in 1970s, everyone sold was discounted, and not replaced, so now far too few
2) Asset stripping, if public land is sold off, private developers make all the profit selling new homes, and then less land remaining
3) Need to have massive building programme of standard apartments that remain permanently as cheap rentals.
4) Not everyone wants to live in flats so got to encourage existing home owners to move out of family houses when retired and no family and no longer need big house (stamp duty system discourages it) and lack of retirement villages in UK
5) Also need to make available more student homes, and better control houses in multiple occupancy (HMO), limit the licences so landlords not incentivised to turn scarce family houses into shared properties
As for the cost, basic economics controls it, if provide cheap and easily available rental properties then rest of market will sort itself out, anything expensive will be undercut. But as already stated, some politicians have vested interest in high property prices as they own multiple properties.
Council / public housing works where it isn’t obvious. No one wants stigma of cheap run down estate. Go to somewhere like Poundbury (which I think is 37% rented), but you won’t know which are owned and which rented as you walk around. It just works. Making Council houses stand out by being basic featureless boxes externally does not work (and most people who object to council houses actually mean cheap looking estates, not the principal of having cheap rentals for the poorer)
Totally agree with council housing working where it isn't obvious!
Really, developments should be built in and around existing areas, in small clumps. In that way, you don't end up with 1000's of displaced people all from different areas who don't know each other, and the social issues to boot.
Basic economics is also very applicable to this situation! At the end of the day, all the changes in policy that aren't just building more housing aren't going to have the desired impact unless more housing is built.
Affordable housing, expensive housing, mid priced, high rise, mid rise, low rise, we need more of all of it to some extent!
Private developers seem to be good at building overpriced and still crampt suburban homes, so we'll leave them to that game. In the mean time, mid priced and affordable homes should be made by the government and still sold/rented at a profit, so the programme is actually sustainable. However, the margins don't need to be as high as in the private market.
I agree with all of the above.
First and foremost there needs to be a rational debate about population numbers, along with some hard choices potentially being made as to how various factors can be managed, in particular what trade-offs we might be prepared to accept. Such a debate needs to be devoid of emotive issues like race.
Linked to this is the continuing issue of London overspill. If London is content to have a hefty increase in population then there needs to be some realisation that this shouldn’t be allowed to overspill into the wider south-east. The parochial Mayor of London setup hasn’t helped this IMO as it has contributed to London becoming politically out of alignment with the surrounding area.
Yeah, London really needs to sort out its housing and fast. For too long historic preservation has been seen as mutually exclusive to New development.
Honestly though, I think the sensible option would be to not offer child tax credits, benefits, free childcare beyond two kids. (unless you have your second kid as twins, or in rare circumstances, triplets, etc...) Things like China's one child policy are way too draconian, but it seems fair to cut back the extra support after two kids.
However, the conversation around population shouldn't be mutually exclusive to observing the many other contributing factors to high housing cost!
How would you define London overspill? Is the corollary that people in the home counties aren't allowed to commute in?
Oh London has already massively over spilled into the home counties. Areas like Surrey are basically part of the standard commute now.
Problem is, prices are now going up in the home counties too, so places as far out as Bristol are becoming part of the London commuter belt!
If you are looking to buy then you are absolutely in the position to cut out "luxuries". If you aren't you rent. That is life. This debate always seems to throw up people making excuses why they cant save up. I know, I made them for long enough. Whats your excuse for not saving towards a house?
BTW - I have rented so know the frustrations and I have been on housing benefit when I was out of work and living on £47 a week. I would have been homeless without HB so I know about not being in a position to cut out luxuries. The luxuary for me was do I have the light on on use the electric to cook my dinner. I wasn't looking to buy a house then. I was looking not to be on the street.
Are you trying to sell that to me (as a mortgagor) as a negative? Bring it on I say!
Emotive nonsesne.
Ah the Corbyn policy: Too lazy to put in the hard work like other people? Don't worry here is a free house. Nah, someone else will pay for you.
lets be honest - if i wasn't saving for a house I would have spent the money on the things I cut out and I would still be looking for excuses why I didn't save that money. Your argument, essentially, is that you should have a nice house (free) AND A fancy car and iphone and trainers and euro breaks. It isnt realistic. Make a choice. If you chose to priorotise a nice new Iphone that is your choice. You cant ( or at least I couldn't) have both. Don't complain about your choice.
Maybe. But if you chose not to save don't complain. It seems that younger people ( God I sound old) expect to be given everything for free. Stop making excuses.
All that said we still need to build more houses. I would return to what council houses were originally about: A good quality range of homes for a range of people across most of normal society. Coupled with a proper right to buy scheme this could enable a whole new generation of people to earn towards ownership and allow the proceeds to be reinvested in more housing helping the next generation.
I would run the right to buy like a shared ownership stair-casing system and sell owners defined chunks of their property on agreed timescales. There would be a certain period of time renting the house to allow the funds required ( if you want) to buy your first chunk. Thereafter chunks are offered on the agreed time scale at the agreed price until you own all the property. I would also have a staged transfer of maintenance responsibility to the prospective owner as they stair case. I might make part of the agreement a contract that you remain owning the house ( not rented out) for X years after complete ownership to stop carpet bagging.
That would remove some of the heat under the rented market but preserve the buying market because as people change and families grow they would need more space and so would move out into other properties.
of course, it will never happen.........................
Well we might disagree on some of the finer details of the economics, but I think we can agree that more should be done to resolve issues in the UK housing market.
At the end of the day, many people would happily build their own wooden shed to live in would it be allowed, but it isn't. If you want to enforce minimum housing standards, then it is only right you make sure these are affordable to everyone.
One point I do want to bring up, which ties into buying, is how slow and painful the process of buying/selling property is in the UK.
Funnily enough, I'm mostly in a position to actually buy a property. However, I'm unsure where I will be in a couple of years time. Due to the fact buying/selling is such a laborious and difficult process, as well as a costly one, I'm hesitent to take the jump and buy.
I was chatting to a Canadian real estate seller, who knows a bit about the UK market and he said how awful the process can be in England. In fact, it was reflected by another Canadian who had just moved to England on my flight back!
In Canada, pulling out of a sale after making an offer is sticky legally. Once you have agreed to make the purchase, you're pretty well binded into following it through.
However, in the UK this is not the case. Chains frequently fall apart as your buyer has someone pull out of purchasing their property, so they pull out of yours. This then sends you back to square one, with more viewings, estate agent costs, solicitors costs, etc.
Then there are the legal issues. Obviously buyer protection is important, but this shouldn't be coming at the expense of crippling the movement of the whole market. Solicitors also take absolutely ages, mostly to squeeze out all the cash they can, or employ as few people as possible on as many jobs as possible.
Really, some robust laws would help sort this out. Make it harder to pull out of a purchase, but also give the buyer some legal recourse if a property is mis-sold.
Then mortgage providers tend to insist on their own independent surveyors, which always take like a month to come out and say the exact same thing the previous five surveyors who have come to your house said.
