My point Colwyn is that there is a lot of back slapping and congratulations going on about stopping developments - green or brownfield - with no regard for the necessity for building homes for families/pensioners/single adults - perhaps even Syrian migrants - who invariably cannot afford to rent, let alone buy, much of the so called 'social' and 'affordable' housing that are being built these days. And the little of this social and affordable housing that is built is invariably on the back of executive home/luxury apartments, as a sop to planning gain to that development.
This is made worst by the government in its attempts to hit its austerity targets, hitting the working poor - in the main - with either no or reduced or capped housing benefit payments. In a growing number of areas this is also leading to them being driving out - ethnically cleansed might be a better term - from affluent or desirable areas, into poorer areas where there is even less chance of getting a decent home. And this is happening in both urban and rural areas. We are seeing a return to Rachmanism in many urban areas, and sadly it is being paid for in many cases by housing benefit, because of the absence of reputable large volume providers of such as council housing or even housing associations, who strangely enough no longer building in any sort of required numbers, as the government has turned off the money, and are now being told to sell off their existing housing stock to tenants at discount prices!!!
As regards the argument of environment vs homes, I am afraid that the pendulum has swung too far in favour of the so called environment, which I am sorry to say that in my experience usually provides a mask for NIMBYism. And if you want the proof of that, look at how environmentally active those NIMBYs were before Council Planning tells them that they are going to build X number of houses near to them, and indeed how many go on to be life time environmental activists after they have overturned the planning application of the big bad developers and councils!!
There is a chronic housing shortage, and shortage of the right type of housing, in most parts of the UK. This needs to be addressed if we are ever to do anything about our children and grand-childrens futures housing prospects (both in terms of affordability and availability), or even for those who say we should take in migrants or foreign workers from wherever. And for those who say it can't be done then look at what happened in post-war Britain in the 50s, 60s and parts of the 70s, where we had next to bugger all but still managed to build homes numbered in the hundreds of thousands, not as today where it is measured in tens of thousands. And much of the housing stock built then has become highly desirable today, not just because of location (many on what would be considered green field sites today) but also in terms of the quality, where the building standards set the bar high .... unlike today where they try to get the bar as low and as cheap as possible. Oh yes and if you are building homes you'll need new or improved schools, hospitals, roads and transport... the Post-War Generation also done that much better than today!!
Finally, for info Colwyn is a great pal of mine, and my contributions in this thread have in no way been an attack on him personally, but are my attempt to get people to see the bigger picture on development.
