The I cant believe it’s not politics thread.

[weller54]

25 minutes ago, bovril said:

I didn't want him as PM. We might though have had at least a bit of housing or transport infrastructure built and we probably wouldn't have a hard Brexit which is disastrous for Brits long term. 

It's proving disastrous right now, nevermind long term!!

[kenny]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

I didn't want him as PM. We might though have had at least a bit of housing or transport infrastructure built and we probably wouldn't have a hard Brexit which is disastrous for Brits long term. 

We are currently building 200k houses a year and have plenty of infrastructure projects going including HS2. How many more houses do you think jezza would have built?

[Parafox]

10 minutes ago, kenny said:

We are currently building 200k houses a year and have plenty of infrastructure projects going including HS2. How many more houses do you think jezza would have built?

Well at least every single home in England would have had free wi-fi.

[Foxdiamond]

20 minutes ago, kenny said:

We are currently building 200k houses a year and have plenty of infrastructure projects going including HS2. How many more houses do you think jezza would have built?

Not enough of the housing is truly affordable for far too many people. 

[StanSP]

39 minutes ago, kenny said:

We are currently building 200k houses a year

Is there proof of this? 

[kenny]

6 minutes ago, StanSP said:

Is there proof of this? 

Hundreds of websites have the stats though they vary from 190k to 240k per year currently. Interestly, a higher proportion of houses than in previous years too.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/home-building-stats-show-continued-increase-in-starts-and-completions-despite-pandemic

[kenny]

28 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

Not enough of the housing is truly affordable for far too many people. 

There were around 50k affordable units completed last year of which 5k were acquisitions of existing properties rather than new build.

[Foxdiamond]

Just now, kenny said:

There were around 50k affordable units completed last year of which 5k were acquisitions of existing properties rather than new build.

50k is a lot less than 200k. What is the criteria of affordable?

[kenny]

7 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

50k is a lot less than 200k. What is the criteria of affordable?

Social, shared ownership and PRS mostly.

 

25% is decent percentage I reckon.

 

The issue is the population increases by 300k each year.

[Foxdiamond]

6 minutes ago, kenny said:

Social, shared ownership and PRS mostly.

 

25% is decent percentage I reckon.

 

The issue is the population increases by 300k each year.

What is defined as affordable. Shelter is a lot more worried. 

[kenny]

12 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

What is defined as affordable. Shelter is a lot more worried. 

Housing association, private rental schemes and shared ownership...

[Foxdiamond]

Just now, kenny said:

Housing association, private rental schemes and shared ownership...

The housing crisis won't be solved by the sticking plaster approach. I still maintain that not enough is being done to solve the housing crisis. I think I read somewhere the target was 300k homes were required per year so the are failing on this score even before we look at affordable.

[kenny]

5 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

The housing crisis won't be solved by the sticking plaster approach. I still maintain that not enough is being done to solve the housing crisis. I think I read somewhere the target was 300k homes were required per year so the are failing on this score even before we look at affordable.

Very true. The planners and lack of skilled workers probably mean we won't be able to do more.

 

On top of this, the ever more onerous building regulations as well as cost increases make building harder as well as slower.

[StanSP]

Truss is making a rod for her own back backing Johnson so much. 

Incredible. 

 

She refuses outright to say sorry as well. For anything. 

[ajthefox]

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1084558/Housing_Supply_Indicators_Mar_2022.pdf

 

There is some very useful stuff in here if anyone is interested.

 

Part of the reason we don't building more "affordable" housing is because local authority planning departments funding has been hammered over the last decade and developers are able to get away with effectively bribing councils with increased Section 106 contributions to reduce the requirement for affordable homes and make themselves more money.

 

We are slowly progressing our capacity for "modern methods of construction" i.e. building using more prefabrication which has helped with overall output but it's still not enough.

 

Everything is shifting pretty quickly at the moment with the regs rightly going up a notch in terms of energy efficiency for new builds. Unfortunately the whole industry is shit at change though.

 

[Foxdiamond]

24 minutes ago, kenny said:

Very true. The planners and lack of skilled workers probably mean we won't be able to do more.

 

On top of this, the ever more onerous building regulations as well as cost increases make building harder as well as slower.

What is lacking is political will.

[kenny]

5 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

What is lacking is political will.

It takes a little more than a form of will to build a house. It's just a stick to beat the government with.

 

If they make it easier to build houses then they are only doing it for their Tory mate property developers.

 

If they did reform planning, I doubt production would speed up much as the labour isn't there.

[Foxdiamond]

6 minutes ago, kenny said:

It takes a little more than a form of will to build a house. It's just a stick to beat the government with.

 

If they make it easier to build houses then they are only doing it for their Tory mate property developers.

 

If they did reform planning, I doubt production would speed up much as the labour isn't there.

If we approached these issues as if we were fighting a war then a solution could be found

[kenny]

3 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

If we approached these issues as if we were fighting a war then a solution could be found

The solution would be low quality housing as we did in the 1950s most of which was designed to last 10 years.

 

I'd rather we kept our building standards high and we stopped encouraging everyone into university. If young people are encouraged into being tradesman now then the situation will improve.

 

Furthermore, as with all other areas of our lives, automation, ai and robotics need to be used to reduce the reliance on skilled workers.

 

This would take 5-10 years I reckon.

 

Either way, our island is over populated and we will run out of room for this new housing.

[ajthefox]

8 minutes ago, kenny said:

It takes a little more than a form of will to build a house. It's just a stick to beat the government with.

 

If they make it easier to build houses then they are only doing it for their Tory mate property developers.

 

If they did reform planning, I doubt production would speed up much as the labour isn't there.

There is a balance to be struck between ensuring housebuilding works for developers and giving local authorities what they need to ensure the houses we need get built. It is yet to be found, that's for sure.

 

We definitely need to invest in skills though. We should be encouraging youngsters to take up trades more - we need the skills and many of them will make good money doing so.

 

 

Quote

 

Persimmon has unveiled pre-tax profits of £966.8m for last year while making margins of 31.4%.

The house building giant completed 14,551 homes in 2021 with an average selling price of £237,078 and an average profit of £66,442 per home.

Shareholders received dividends of £748m during 2021 with similar returns earmarked for this year.

 

 

 

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8354/documents/85292/default/

Quote

The Government’s home ownership schemes come with an opportunity cost and evidence suggests that, particularly in areas where help is most needed, these schemes inflate prices by more than their subsidy value. In the long term, funding for home ownership schemes do not provide good value for money, which would be better spent on increasing housing supply. (Paragraph 50) 6.

 

Those living in the private rented sector are more likely to live in poor quality, overcrowded conditions than owner–occupiers, and often have limited forms of redress. Many tenants who would previously have been in social housing are now living in expensive private rented accommodation, with their rents subsidised by housing benefit, which is costing the Government around £23.4 billion per year. A transition to spending more on the social housing stock would address this problem over time and help meet the most critical needs.

 

 

[Foxdiamond]

6 minutes ago, kenny said:

The solution would be low quality housing as we did in the 1950s most of which was designed to last 10 years.

 

I'd rather we kept our building standards high and we stopped encouraging everyone into university. If young people are encouraged into being tradesman now then the situation will improve.

 

Furthermore, as with all other areas of our lives, automation, ai and robotics need to be used to reduce the reliance on skilled workers.

 

This would take 5-10 years I reckon.

 

Either way, our island is over populated and we will run out of room for this new housing.

I agree we need more young people to learn a trade. I can only add on a personal experience that the house I grew up in was built in 1954 and was regarded by my parents as a dream compared what they had before the war. 

[yorkie1999]

10 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

I agree we need more young people to learn a trade. I can only add on a personal experience that the house I grew up in was built in 1954 and was regarded by my parents as a dream compared what they had before the war. 

Not interested. We take school leavers on as apprentices, more interested in their phones than learning anything. I don’t know what it is, but you try getting a 17 year old to concentrate on something for any longer then 5 minutes, and there’s no  actual appreciation of failure. 

[weller54]

2 hours ago, StanSP said:

Truss is making a rod for her own back backing Johnson so much. 

Incredible. 

 

She refuses outright to say sorry as well. For anything. 

Bring it on.. she'll put the final nail into the Tories coffin!..

Only downside is we've got to put up with the silly cow for 2 years!!

[leicsmac]

4 hours ago, kenny said:

The solution would be low quality housing as we did in the 1950s most of which was designed to last 10 years.

 

I'd rather we kept our building standards high and we stopped encouraging everyone into university. If young people are encouraged into being tradesman now then the situation will improve.

 

Furthermore, as with all other areas of our lives, automation, ai and robotics need to be used to reduce the reliance on skilled workers.

 

This would take 5-10 years I reckon.

 

Either way, our island is over populated and we will run out of room for this new housing.

Do come to Korea and see how they do with roughly the same population in roughly 10-15% of the available living area of the UK before being so sure about "overpopulation".

[kenny]

6 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Do come to Korea and see how they do with roughly the same population in roughly 10-15% of the available living area of the UK before being so sure about "overpopulation".

I would like to visit at some point.

 

That doesn't mean that many people living that close together is healthy though. I suspect without knowing that apartments in Korea wouldn't meet the UK minimum space standards. It would also involve a shift in attitude for the UK population to accept living in high rise apartments.