Sites for Labour's New Towns that already have rail connections

[Meerkat]

That doesn't make sense, imagine if you sold your house to someone, they upgraded it and sold it again, why should you deserve their profit?

How is it "dubious" to buy something at the price it's worth, increase it's value and then sell it, that's how manufacturing and many businesses work.

Because under your plan I wouldn't be choosing to sell my land - you would be forcefully taking it from me with minimal compensation.

 

[joieman]

Because under your plan I wouldn't be choosing to sell my land - you would be forcefully taking it from me with minimal compensation.

Yeah, this is a recipe for a lot of insecurity.

 

[BrianW]

Yeah, this is a recipe for a lot of insecurity.

Compulsory Purchase is on the statute book. The Great British public has voted for 'the common good' above 'the right of the individual'. People want and need housing and infrastructure. No-one likes taxation, other than of others.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Compulsory Purchase is on the statute book. The Great British public has voted for 'the common good' above 'the right of the individual'. People want and need housing and infrastructure. No-one likes taxation, other than of others.

Misuse of compulsory purchase would be seriously damaging to future electability. It's fair enough to use it for infrastructure where you can't realistically just move it a bit, whereas while it may be legal using it to buy houses to profit from building more expensive houses is seriously questionable (though it is occasionally done).

 

[HSTEd]

We could always just reclaim a polder to put a city in.
Functionally, all land below high tide belongs to the state.

If we are going to have to pay ludicrously inflated land prices, we'd be better off simply reclaiming the Thames Estuary - it'd still be cheaper than paying those rates.

 

[Recessio]

We could always just reclaim a polder to put a city in.
Functionally, all land below high tide belongs to the state.

If we are going to have to pay ludicrously inflated land prices, we'd be better off simply reclaiming the Thames Estuary - it'd still be cheaper than paying those rates.

Not much capacity on the Kent side of the estuary. Besides if there was then there was always that plan to build an airport on reclaimed land there, rather than a new town.

Not sure about the Essex side of things, would LTS lines have capacity?

 

[The Ham]

Finally we need to get rid of the social housing requirements, simply building enough housing will make housing affordable and the social housing requirements vastly distort the market.

The opposite argument could be made, if there was more social housing there wouldn't be such high rents for renting, if a buyer wasn't competing with a landlord to buy a house then the cost of the homes would be less.

 

[Technologist]

The opposite argument could be made, if there was more social housing there wouldn't be such high rents for renting, if a buyer wasn't competing with a landlord to buy a house then the cost of the homes would be less.

That building more houses reduces the price of them wasn't my point. My point is that social housing ranges from a good deal to effectively winning the national lottery depending on where you are. Some social housing in London is sitting on land worth a fortune and rented out at very low costs. We'd be much better off selling those properties to people who would pay a lot more to either live in them or re-develop them and then re-cycle that money back into the economy.

This would result in people having to move out of expensive areas but the corrections for that are improved transport and ultimately higher wages to allow people to live closer or travel further. The market distortion isn't a pure unalloyed benefit for people who have got social housing in expensive areas, firstly it means that they are incentivised to never move and give up their lottery win and secondly it's a factor in the neglect of these properties. It's definitely a factor in events like Grenfell that many of the residents were getting to live in flats that would have cost £500k+ on the open market for a limited amount of money that reduced officialdoms desire to listen to them, "why help them when I couldn't live there?".

Regional authorities should have long term housing affordability targets and then release sufficient housing to gradually bring the cost of house relative to salaries down over time.

 

[BrianW]

That building more houses reduces the price of them wasn't my point. My point is that social housing ranges from a good deal to effectively winning the national lottery depending on where you are. Some social housing in London is sitting on land worth a fortune and rented out at very low costs. We'd be much better off selling those properties to people who would pay a lot more to either live in them or re-develop them and then re-cycle that money back into the economy.

This would result in people having to move out of expensive areas but the corrections for that are improved transport and ultimately higher wages to allow people to live closer or travel further. The market distortion isn't a pure unalloyed benefit for people who have got social housing in expensive areas, firstly it means that they are incentivised to never move and give up their lottery win and secondly it's a factor in the neglect of these properties. It's definitely a factor in events like Grenfell that many of the residents were getting to live in flats that would have cost £500k+ on the open market for a limited amount of money that reduced officialdoms desire to listen to them, "why help them when I couldn't live there?".

Regional authorities should have long term housing affordability targets and then release sufficient housing to gradually bring the cost of house relative to salaries down over time.

Sounds like rather a callous application of 'market economics'? Government has dallied with such approaches by 'encouraging' families on benefit to move out of the expensive south to north of Luton, where rents are lower, as reflected in local housing allowances. Families suffer by having to up sticks and move to unfamiliar areas; children suffer by having to change schools, make new friends etc.

May I suggest that the treatment of Grenfell residents owes as much to incipient racism as to councillors' disdain for unworthy recipients of their largesse.

 

[HSTEd]

Not much capacity on the Kent side of the estuary. Besides if there was then there was always that plan to build an airport on reclaimed land there, rather than a new town.

Not sure about the Essex side of things, would LTS lines have capacity?

Just loading the traffic onto the LTS lines would probably be pushing it, but something probably has to be done about capacity in that direction regardless.

You might be able to get some capacity if you used a somewhat upscoped Euston rebuild to absorb the Midland Main Line St Pancras traffic and then converted those platforms to serve HS1.
Resignalling on HS1 would then allow you to pile lots and lots of trains through to Ebbsfleet.

But I think it would have to be a combination of work on HS1, the LTS, a Crossrail Extension (likely with new depots to enable the supposedly allowed for train lengthening to happen) and some other such things.

But housing in the Thames Estuary is certain to be very valuable given its proximity to London, so I think its probably justifiable regardless.

 

[urbophile]

Sounds like rather a callous application of 'market economics'? Government has dallied with such approaches by 'encouraging' families on benefit to move out of the expensive south to north of Luton, where rents are lower, as reflected in local housing allowances. Families suffer by having to up sticks and move to unfamiliar areas; children suffer by having to change schools, make new friends etc.

May I suggest that the treatment of Grenfell residents owes as much to incipient racism as to councillors' disdain for unworthy recipients of their largesse.

Quite. The 'value' of properties like Grenfell or more desirable social housing in similar areas, is pure fiction. It's like saying the squirrels in Hyde Park are especially favoured because they live on some of the highest valued land in the country. If social housing in city centres were to remain unavailable for sale, as it should, then it would only have value as a place to live for its tenants, and not an added financial bonus. Parkland is protected (and ever may it remain so); similarly social housing should be protected even if occasional deals and swaps might be made.

(PS I'm not sure if there is anything 'incipient' in the racism with which Grenfell tenants and survivors have been treated.)

 

[Technologist]

Sounds like rather a callous application of 'market economics'? Government has dallied with such approaches by 'encouraging' families on benefit to move out of the expensive south to north of Luton, where rents are lower, as reflected in local housing allowances. Families suffer by having to up sticks and move to unfamiliar areas; children suffer by having to change schools, make new friends etc.

May I suggest that the treatment of Grenfell residents owes as much to incipient racism as to councillors' disdain for unworthy recipients of their largesse.

That's why I used the word factor, but yes customers with options tend to get treated much better than benefit claimants. There were plenty of other towers with dodgy clad on them in similar context where the occupants were white British, this one just happened to be where the disaster waiting to happen occurred.

People have to move house for a load of reasons, I'd suggest that any reform needs to be gradual but the current scenario clearly doesn't work. Slightly expanding the franchise of housing lottery winners who are stuck where they are in a house they otherwise couldn't afford is not really helping. The fact that housing is expensive is a market failure due to there not being enough of them due to 80 years of needing explicit and discretionary permission to build. The jobs market is failing if people can't afford to move to be near jobs and companies aren't moving to exploit cheap land, this is where transport come in. We easily have enough resources to give every family a 200m3 5 bed house as actual build costs are a fraction of the current cost of property (and we are **** and primitive at actually building houses, if we built them on a production line the cost would come down to negligible amounts).

My argument is that we shouldn't be handing out housing except to people who literally lack the capacity to budget for a household or need housing with support. For everybody else we need to fix the housing market and/or fix the low/no income problem.

 

[urbophile]

My argument is that we shouldn't be handing out housing except to people who literally lack the capacity to budget for a household or need housing with support.

Which in many places, especially London, means the vast majority of under-40s except those in extremely highly paid jobs, or lucky enough to inherit housing from their parents.

 

[Recessio]

Just loading the traffic onto the LTS lines would probably be pushing it, but something probably has to be done about capacity in that direction regardless.

You might be able to get some capacity if you used a somewhat upscoped Euston rebuild to absorb the Midland Main Line St Pancras traffic and then converted those platforms to serve HS1.
Resignalling on HS1 would then allow you to pile lots and lots of trains through to Ebbsfleet.

But I think it would have to be a combination of work on HS1, the LTS, a Crossrail Extension (likely with new depots to enable the supposedly allowed for train lengthening to happen) and some other such things.

But housing in the Thames Estuary is certain to be very valuable given its proximity to London, so I think its probably justifiable regardless.

You'd have to demolish most of Camden and Euston/Somerstown to pull that plan off though - they couldn't even tunnel underneath it to link HS1 and HS2 together.

 

[HSTEd]

You'd have to demolish most of Camden and Euston/Somerstown to pull that plan off though - they couldn't even tunnel underneath it to link HS1 and HS2 together.

The existing station complex, plus terrain cleared for HS2, is sufficient for a very large station with a full redevelopment.

And MML traffic is already packed into only four platforms.
The post HS2 Euston is expected to have on order of 25 platforms, even if they don't rebuild the classic side.

 

[Technologist]

Quite. The 'value' of properties like Grenfell or more desirable social housing in similar areas, is pure fiction. It's like saying the squirrels in Hyde Park are especially favoured because they live on some of the highest valued land in the country. If social housing in city centres were to remain unavailable for sale, as it should, then it would only have value as a place to live for its tenants, and not an added financial bonus. Parkland is protected (and ever may it remain so); similarly social housing should be protected even if occasional deals and swaps might be made.

The point is that there is a benefit to living in an area which is reflected in the value of the housing. Those squirrels get to live in their locations by aggressively fighting for them, direct violence is the ultimate means of settling who gets to live where and it's notable that one of the few careers that still comes with a house is the armed forces!

We are always likely to have an issue where more people want to live in some areas than already do. There are basically 3 solutions, increase supply, ration supply or reduce demand. Social housing doesn't really contribute to any of those factors, it reduces the profitability of developing more units and reduces the churn of existing units as people aren't going to move if they have essentially won the lottery. It gives housing resources to people on an arbitrary basis and those people occupying them aren't necessarily the people who would be best occupying them from an economic perspective. It also gives a subsidy to existing residents by essentially subsidising their low value service costs.

Inequality and the concentration of resources are other problems than need solving by other means, most basically by proper inheritance and land value taxes.

The way that you reduce demand in an area is to make travelling to that area cheaper from lower demand areas which is where transport comes in.

However I think the best way to solve the housing crisis is planning reform and making housing affordability the duty of regional authorities while giving them the tools to do something about it. Similar to how the bank of England has a duty to keep inflation in a certain place. Regional authorities could have a duty to keep local wage inflation 2% ahead of property price inflation, in 35 years this would halve the price of housing (obviously there would be controls so they wouldn't need to do this where houses were already cheap). They could achieve this by increasing incomes, building transport so houses in lower priced locations could access better paying jobs or by directly developing the marginal supply of housing using their powers of compulsory purchase and planning (if not enough houses are being built they acquire land and build them). 2% a year would mean that nobody is going to be seriously impacted by negative equity.

 

[Meerkat]

We are always likely to have an issue where more people want to live in some areas than already do. There are basically 3 solutions, increase supply, ration supply or reduce demand. Social housing doesn't really contribute to any of those factors, it reduces the profitability of developing more units and reduces the churn of existing units as people aren't going to move if they have essentially won the lottery. It gives housing resources to people on an arbitrary basis and those people occupying them aren't necessarily the people who would be best occupying them from an economic perspective. It also gives a subsidy to existing residents by essentially subsidising their low value service costs.

If you don’t have cheap housing eventually the richer people who have taken it over find there aren’t any teachers, police, bin collectors, shop assistants etc etc.

 

[urbophile]

We are always likely to have an issue where more people want to live in some areas than already do. There are basically 3 solutions, increase supply, ration supply or reduce demand. Social housing doesn't really contribute to any of those factors, it reduces the profitability of developing more units and reduces the churn of existing units as people aren't going to move if they have essentially won the lottery. It gives housing resources to people on an arbitrary basis and those people occupying them aren't necessarily the people who would be best occupying them from an economic perspective. It also gives a subsidy to existing residents by essentially subsidising their low value service costs.

You appear to ignore totally the need of the rich in these areas to have people to staff their offices, clean their houses, empty their bins, care for them when they are ill, teach their children, drive their taxis (and buses and trains, should they ever need to use them). Already night buses are full of cleaners and other low-paid workers commuting for hours because they can neither find or afford housing closer to work. Not to mention the danger of creating ghettoes within cities; one of the joys - albeit threatened - of living in London is the mix of rich and poor, different cultures and lifestyles, cheek-by-jowl in the inner city. (PS just noticed the post above which says what I have said only much more concisely).

 

[Technologist]

You appear to ignore totally the need of the rich in these areas to have people to staff their offices, clean their houses, empty their bins, care for them when they are ill, teach their children, drive their taxis (and buses and trains, should they ever need to use them). Already night buses are full of cleaners and other low-paid workers commuting for hours because they can neither find or afford housing closer to work. Not to mention the danger of creating ghettoes within cities; one of the joys - albeit threatened - of living in London is the mix of rich and poor, different cultures and lifestyles, cheek-by-jowl in the inner city. (PS just noticed the post above which says what I have said only much more concisely).

If you re-read what I've written that is precisely what I'm saying.

"It also gives a subsidy to existing residents by essentially subsidising their low value service costs."

As it currently stands the rich get all their service workers located close to where they live in subsidised but exceptionally poor quality housing. This means that we don't need to pay them properly, provide them with good transport so they can live somewhere else or some combination of the two. We don't end up with some lovely melting pot we end up with a barbel like distribution of wealth where we have the poor and the young and motivated at one end and the wealthy at the other end and very little in between.

The costs of the subsidy is paid not just by the wealthy who receive the services but also by the people who can't move into those city centres to get a high value career or the population in general who can't afford to live there.

 

[BrianW]

If you re-read what I've written that is precisely what I'm saying.

"It also gives a subsidy to existing residents by essentially subsidising their low value service costs."

As it currently stands the rich get all their service workers located close to where they live in subsidised but exceptionally poor quality housing. This means that we don't need to pay them properly, provide them with good transport so they can live somewhere else or some combination of the two. We don't end up with some lovely melting pot we end up with a barbel like distribution of wealth where we have the poor and the young and motivated at one end and the wealthy at the other end and very little in between.

The costs of the subsidy is paid not just by the wealthy who receive the services but also by the people who can't move into those city centres to get a high value career or the population in general who can't afford to live there.

What you refer to as 'social housing' is not subsidised at all, esp not by 'the rich'. There may be cross-subsidy of some social tenants by other social tenants of the same landlord; local authority Housing Revenue Accounts have to balance, if they are allowed to have 'council housing' at all. Previous governments have made such provision increasingly difficult. Governments have prohibited the use of receipts from the sale (at discount from market value) of council houses to finance the construction of replacements.

If anything social housing tenants (some of the least well off and most economically and/or socially deprived) are subsidising the rich/ comfortably-off through their VAT, income tax even on their meagre 'Living Wage', when their 'employer' is sheltering their income (which may be unearned, inheritance etc) offshore and the value of their 'physical assets' (aka 'property') continues to rise disproportionately due to shortage of supply.

Widening of wealth inequalities is hardly supportive of social mobility; arguably it is a factor in criminality (petty theft on the one hand; insider trading on another?) health inequalities and social cohesion.

In passing, I'm wondering where rail-workers, or RaillUKforum contributors live relative to their workplace?

 

[Technologist]

What you refer to as 'social housing' is not subsidised at all, esp not by 'the rich'. There may be cross-subsidy of some social tenants by other social tenants of the same landlord; local authority Housing Revenue Accounts have to balance, if they are allowed to have 'council housing' at all. Previous governments have made such provision increasingly difficult. Governments have prohibited the use of receipts from the sale (at discount from market value) of council houses to finance the construction of replacements.

If anything social housing tenants (some of the least well off and most economically and/or socially deprived) are subsidising the rich/ comfortably-off through their VAT, income tax even on their meagre 'Living Wage', when their 'employer' is sheltering their income (which may be unearned, inheritance etc) offshore and the value of their 'physical assets' (aka 'property') continues to rise disproportionately due to shortage of supply.

Widening of wealth inequalities is hardly supportive of social mobility; arguably it is a factor in criminality (petty theft on the one hand; insider trading on another?) health inequalities and social cohesion.

In passing, I'm wondering where rail-workers, or RaillUKforum contributors live relative to their workplace?

The subsidy is multi faceted, when you build a development you must build social housing and then sell that housing to a local council at less than the market value. This reduces the amount of market value housing that would otherwise be built and results in higher housing costs in the surrounding area than there otherwise would have been. The result is that fewer people can live in areas of high demand which are ultimately a good proxy for where the jobs are. The net result is that people are under employed and the pot for us all is smaller.

We need growth which means we need to build things, which means people need to move around. Shackling low income people to social housing while occupying prime real estate is hardly the means to help with economic dynamism.

 

[GusB]

We need growth which means we need to build things, which means people need to move around. Shackling low income people to social housing while occupying prime real estate is hardly the means to help with economic dynamism.

I'm not going to completely disagree with you here. Having a mobile workforce is probably a good thing, but people are going to be reluctant to up-sticks and move to an area that they're not familiar with if there's no guarantee of secure housing when they get to the other end.

The thing about social housing is that tenancies tend to be secure and those who live in such homes don't have the uncertainty of having to move again should their landlord decide to sell the property or otherwise kick them out.

Shackling low income people to a life of not knowing how long they will be able to stay in a particular place is not conducive to a burgeoning economy. If you want productive people to grow your economy, they need to be fairly happy and those people need a bit of stability in their lives. People aren't happy when they know that there's a chance that they might have to move house after six months; if they've got kids that means having to change schools etc.

Having a larger supply of social housing means that those who will never be able to afford to buy their own homes will still be able to live with a bit of security.

 

[Technologist]

I'm not going to completely disagree with you here. Having a mobile workforce is probably a good thing, but people are going to be reluctant to up-sticks and move to an area that they're not familiar with if there's no guarantee of secure housing when they get to the other end.

The thing about social housing is that tenancies tend to be secure and those who live in such homes don't have the uncertainty of having to move again should their landlord decide to sell the property or otherwise kick them out.

Shackling low income people to a life of not knowing how long they will be able to stay in a particular place is not conducive to a burgeoning economy. If you want productive people to grow your economy, they need to be fairly happy and those people need a bit of stability in their lives. People aren't happy when they know that there's a chance that they might have to move house after six months; if they've got kids that means having to change schools etc.

Having a larger supply of social housing means that those who will never be able to afford to buy their own homes will still be able to live with a bit of security.

To be clear I'm not proposing throwing people out and in fact if we were to re-develop social housing in high rent areas I'd propose compensating residents in some manner. At the moment said residents don't have choices at all, there have been quite a few successful schemes where areas with social housing in London have been re-developed at higher density with existing residents getting accommodation in the new schemes. In these scenarios residents voted for it.

I'd much rather help people earn/manage money than give out free housing.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Compulsory Purchase is on the statute book. Roughly 20-25% of The Great British public has voted for 'the common good' above 'the right of the individual'. People want and need housing and infrastructure. No-one likes taxation, other than of others.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Snow1964]

The thing about social housing is that tenancies tend to be secure and those who live in such homes don't have the uncertainty of having to move again should their landlord decide to sell the property or otherwise kick them out.

I think you are mixing up social housing and type of tenancies.

There used to be assured tenancies (I think they were dropped in 1997) which basically allowed people to stay for life.

My grandfather rented all his life (private rent, not Council nor social), he had another type called a protected tenancy, they are rent controlled. I think it applies to houses rented out since before 1978 and built before mid 1950s (doesn't have to be same tenant to keep the status)

Due to lack of Council Housing (was about 6.5m in 1978 before sell off started), private landlords have little competition so nowadays only offer insecure short term tenancies

 

[The exile]

Which in many places, especially London, means the vast majority of under-40s except those in extremely highly paid jobs, or lucky enough to inherit housing from their parents.

Not many under 40s will inherit from their parents (which is another factor in the housing issue - people living longer) they might have already inherited from grandparents.

 

[Magdalia]

Having a mobile workforce is probably a good thing, but people are going to be reluctant to up-sticks and move to an area that they're not familiar with if there's no guarantee of secure housing when they get to the other end.

Having a mobile workforce is definitely a good thing.

The more people can move around, the more they can switch from lower productivity jobs to higher productivity jobs, and that's a big part of growing the economy.

One of the reasons why economic growth is so poor is that workforce mobility is so heavily inhibited by the housing market.

It is interesting and good that you use the word security. Moving jobs can be a big upheaval, especially for people with families. When people move jobs they need security in housing and also some security of employment in their new job. Some of the new government's proposals on employment regulations will hopefully help in this regard, despite the protestations of short sighted employers. But that's another story!

 

[HSTEd]

I'm honestly not sure if social housing really matters that much. The main reason landlords etc can get away with various distasteful practices is not because there is no social housing, it is because there is not enough housing full stop.

You have to flood the market with millions of housing units, unless someone buys them all and leaves them empty (which is very unlikely), it almost doesn't matter what precise ownership arrangements are used.
The price of housing has to come down, then the slumlords etc will be less able to pack people into wildly unsuitable accomodation.

These houses have to be built where the demand is most acute to do the most good - and that means the South East of England and in/around a handful of other urban agglomerations.

 

[Meerkat]

I'm honestly not sure if social housing really matters that much. The main reason landlords etc can get away with various distasteful practices is not because there is no social housing, it is because there is not enough housing full stop.

You have to flood the market with millions of housing units, unless someone buys them all and leaves them empty (which is very unlikely), it almost doesn't matter what precise ownership arrangements are used.
The price of housing has to come down, then the slumlords etc will be less able to pack people into wildly unsuitable accomodation.

These houses have to be built where the demand is most acute to do the most good - and that means the South East of England and in/around a handful of other urban agglomerations.

Flood the market in underdeveloped areas - that will attract workers and lower wages to attract employers.
Can’t keep hothousing the southeast - it’s overcrowded, and the north needs the investment.

 

[HSTEd]

Flood the market in underdeveloped areas - that will attract workers and lower wages to attract employers.

Or the councils in the South East would see the cheaper housing and use it as a way to dispense with their housing waiting lists and troublesome families in social housing - which is hardly a recipe for economic dynamism in the North

I think the standard of living would have to get very low indeed for employers to forgo the economic agglomeration advantages of major urban blocks.

Also "underdeveloped areas" tend to involve AONBs and National Parks in my experience.

Can’t keep hothousing the southeast - it’s overcrowded, and the north needs the investment.

The problem is that the economic realities of the time favour ever larger economic agglomerations.
People living in larger city areas tend to be richer on average because the local economy is better able to leverage specialised chains of production and services.

Whilst it is likely possible to brute force this through financial transfers to rural areas, it would be enormously expensive and I have little faith that the resources are actually available given all the other stresses on the British state.

Many of the small settlements in England and elsewhere have little reason to exist in an economy without massive manufacturing and with little agricultural employment.
Pit villages with no pits are not going to function as real sources of wealth and improving living standards, no matter how much money is thrown at them.
Neither are agricultural market towns with no agricultural markets.

If not for planning law, many of these places would have gone the way of Old Sarum already - but they can't because urban development is functionally frozen in 1947.

The central question is, do we want to level up towns, or the people in them?
By far the easiest way to do the latter is to ensure that people who wish to move to London or other wealthier areas, can do so.