77002 wrote:
On Aug 23, 1:33 pm, "It's only me"
wrote:
Proper urban development will beget more business rates and council

tax, so there is local government interest here. As more homes are

built the market loosens and becomes more affordable.

If there is an oversupply of offices and shops, rents and therefore
rateable values will decrease. There is no sense in having empty
commercial properties unless rents are rising quickly. Remember
Centre Point?

Centre Point was a ploy to not pay any taxes to the council as the building
was not completed and waiting because the land prices were rocketing because
the boom in the economy meant community created economic growth soaked into
the land and crystallized as land values. That is where land values come
from - economic community activity not the landowner. In short the
landowner was freeloading.

Unless the UK indulges in another round of building "new towns", the
national housing shortage is actually only solvable at the local
level. In other words build homes where the people and jobs are, or
move the people and jobs.

I lot of sense in that. But the archaic Stalinist Town & Country Planning
act prevents building on green fields. Only 7.5% of the UKs land mass is
settled and that figure includes green spaces and gardens which brings
masonry on land to about 2.5%. Ignore right-wing propaganda that we are
concreting over the Countryside.

Stopping public money pouring into London would help in keeping people out
of the Capital. 50% of the transport budget is spent in and around London.
Moving the Capital out of London would greatly help - which is well overdue.

In the case of London there is ample opportunity for "Transit Oriented
Development". The principle behind ToD is that the area around
transit nodes is densified while the hinterland remains the domain of
single family homes and other lower density housing.

That is the case for many cities. The dumbos in Liverpool pretend they do
not have a large urban rail network - the largest outside London. New
developments do not crowd around Merseyrail stations, or new stations on the
lines. The disused underground Dingle station could have been reused and
been the centre of the road it is on. But Tesco built a new store way up
the road because no one seemed to realize there was a station ready to be
used to regenerate the district. The network has great potential to project
the city forwards but they just can't see it.

It needs directives from Whitehall to force cities into TOC where possible -
the environment gains are substantial. The infighting of councils can be
destructive. Modern eco flat developments need little heating. Also
apartments must be a minimum size, as most new apartments are poky holes
with little sound insulation. Also they should be forced to be Commonhold
not leasehold. Only England & Wales has leasehold which is rent and money
for nothing for freeloading landlords.

Introducing Land Valuation Taxation and relaxing planning laws will
eliminate the housing problem and no state intervention will be needed. The
private sector will take up the slack and ensure housing fulfils need and
stays at a high quality of build. Look at houses on the Continent and the
shabby rubbish dished out in the UK.

snip good stuff

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 07:58:14 +0100, Graeme Wall wrote:

On 30/08/2012 07:39, Martin Edwards wrote:
On 29/08/2012 14:52, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 29/08/2012 14:10, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
04:27:26 on Wed, 29 Aug 2012, 77002 remarked:
Unless the UK indulges in another round of building "new towns", the
national housing shortage is actually only solvable at the local
level. In other words build homes where the people and jobs arne, or
move the people and jobs.

Unfortunately the policy for most of the country seems to be to build
new estates on largely brownfield and rural sites, in places where they
get the least objection. Correlating it with workplaces is the last
thing on the agenda.

At least some brownfield sites may be close to where jobs are. In
Southampton the two major brownfields developments are part of the old
docks (Ocean Village) and currently the old Vosper Thorneycroft shipyard
in Woolston. Both of which allow relatively easy access to town centre
jobs.

Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. My comment was only meant to apply to
rural sites.


Some "brownfield" sites are rural. Old RAF airfields for instance I
believe count as brownfield for the purposes of legislation.

Soon fields just after ploughing will be included in the definition of "brownfield".

"Oh look! We've got all those brownfield sites! Let's build over the rest of XXXshire!"

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 08:00:04 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 07:37:29 on Thu, 30 Aug
2012, Martin Edwards remarked:
Unless the UK indulges in another round of building "new towns", the
national housing shortage is actually only solvable at the local
level. In other words build homes where the people and jobs are, or
move the people and jobs.

Unfortunately the policy for most of the country seems to be to build
new estates on largely brownfield and rural sites, in places where they
get the least objection. Correlating it with workplaces is the last
thing on the agenda.

An added irony is that they are often paraded as "eco" towns, when the
residents would all need cars to get to jobs.

The aim of eco-towns is to get car journeys down to 50% of all trips.
I'm not sure if that counts very local trips, but they should be
provided with enhanced public transport in order to qualify for the
name.

Policy should be to get the hundreds of thousands of empty homes back into use, rather than consuming more countryside.

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 08:46:05 +0100, "News" wrote:

77002 wrote:
On Aug 23, 1:33 pm, "It's only me"
wrote:
Proper urban development will beget more business rates and council

tax, so there is local government interest here. As more homes are

built the market loosens and becomes more affordable.

If there is an oversupply of offices and shops, rents and therefore
rateable values will decrease. There is no sense in having empty
commercial properties unless rents are rising quickly. Remember
Centre Point?

Centre Point was a ploy to not pay any taxes to the council as the building
was not completed and waiting because the land prices were rocketing because
the boom in the economy meant community created economic growth soaked into
the land and crystallized as land values. That is where land values come
from - economic community activity not the landowner. In short the
landowner was freeloading.

Unless the UK indulges in another round of building "new towns", the
national housing shortage is actually only solvable at the local
level. In other words build homes where the people and jobs are, or
move the people and jobs.

I lot of sense in that. But the archaic Stalinist Town & Country Planning
act prevents building on green fields. Only 7.5% of the UKs land mass is
settled and that figure includes green spaces and gardens which brings
masonry on land to about 2.5%. Ignore right-wing propaganda that we are
concreting over the Countryside.

England already has over 400 people per square kilometre, one of the most crowded in Europe. As we have to import much
of our food, we are vulnerable to worldwide food shortages. Over-development is causing problems with the hydrology, as
heavy rainfall is flushed out to sea rather than recharge the aquifers. Much of the undeveloped land is not suitable
for building on, unless you propose to put new towns on moorland and on the Pennines. Opinion in this country is
overwhelmingly against urbanisation, which is why local authorities do it by stealth.

We should be making sure that empty homes are brought back into occupation (compulsorily after a year, say), and
discourage the growth of population by limiting child benefit to two children per family and reducing immigration to
below the emigration rate.

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 09:09:54 +0100
Optimist wrote:
act prevents building on green fields. Only 7.5% of the UKs land mass is
settled and that figure includes green spaces and gardens which brings
masonry on land to about 2.5%. Ignore right-wing propaganda that we are
concreting over the Countryside.

England already has over 400 people per square kilometre, one of the most
crowded in Europe. As we have to import much
of our food, we are vulnerable to worldwide food shortages. Over-development
is causing problems with the hydrology, as
heavy rainfall is flushed out to sea rather than recharge the aquifers. Much
of the undeveloped land is not suitable
for building on, unless you propose to put new towns on moorland and on the
Pennines. Opinion in this country is

Careful, you're trying to argue with a lefty using facts. They don't like
that and get all confused. Bluster, dogma and empty rhetoric they're much
more comfortable with.

We should be making sure that empty homes are brought back into occupation
(compulsorily after a year, say), and

Agreed.

discourage the growth of population by limiting child benefit to two children
per family and reducing immigration to
below the emigration rate.

Cue mass wailing from Liberty and similar human rights bed wetters.

B2003

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 08:46:27 +0000 (UTC), d wrote:

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 09:09:54 +0100
Optimist wrote:
act prevents building on green fields. Only 7.5% of the UKs land mass is
settled and that figure includes green spaces and gardens which brings
masonry on land to about 2.5%. Ignore right-wing propaganda that we are
concreting over the Countryside.

England already has over 400 people per square kilometre, one of the most
crowded in Europe. As we have to import much
of our food, we are vulnerable to worldwide food shortages. Over-development
is causing problems with the hydrology, as
heavy rainfall is flushed out to sea rather than recharge the aquifers. Much
of the undeveloped land is not suitable
for building on, unless you propose to put new towns on moorland and on the
Pennines. Opinion in this country is

Careful, you're trying to argue with a lefty using facts. They don't like
that and get all confused. Bluster, dogma and empty rhetoric they're much
more comfortable with.

We should be making sure that empty homes are brought back into occupation
(compulsorily after a year, say), and

Agreed.

discourage the growth of population by limiting child benefit to two children
per family and reducing immigration to
below the emigration rate.

Cue mass wailing from Liberty and similar human rights bed wetters.

B2003

Labour's attitude to open spaces is best summed up by John Prescott in a radio interview in January 1998 :

"The green belt is a Labour achievement, and we mean to build on it."

Optimist wrote:
On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 08:46:05 +0100, "News"
wrote:

77002 wrote:
On Aug 23, 1:33 pm, "It's only me"
wrote:
Proper urban development will beget more business rates and
council

tax, so there is local government interest here. As more homes are

built the market loosens and becomes more affordable.

If there is an oversupply of offices and shops, rents and therefore
rateable values will decrease. There is no sense in having empty
commercial properties unless rents are rising quickly. Remember
Centre Point?

Centre Point was a ploy to not pay any taxes to the council as the
building was not completed and waiting because the land prices were
rocketing because the boom in the economy meant community created
economic growth soaked into the land and crystallized as land
values. That is where land values come from - economic community
activity not the landowner. In short the landowner was freeloading.

Unless the UK indulges in another round of building "new towns", the
national housing shortage is actually only solvable at the local
level. In other words build homes where the people and jobs are, or
move the people and jobs.

I lot of sense in that. But the archaic Stalinist Town & Country
Planning act prevents building on green fields. Only 7.5% of the
UKs land mass is settled and that figure includes green spaces and
gardens which brings masonry on land to about 2.5%. Ignore
right-wing propaganda that we are concreting over the Countryside.

England already has over 400 people per square kilometre, one of the
most crowded in Europe.

That figure is meaningless. Again... Only 7.5% of the UKs land mass is
settled and that figure includes green spaces and gardens which brings
masonry on land to about 2.5%.

As we have to import much of our food, we
are vulnerable to worldwide food shortages.

There are never world wide food shortage, only regional crop failures. Fast
ships mean we can import food from around the world preventing famines.

Far too much land is given over to agriculture, about 78%, which only
accounts for about 2.5% of the UK economy. This poor performing over
subsidised industry is absorbing land that could be better used economically
in commerce and for much needed spacious higher quality homes for the
population. Much of the land is paid to remain idle out of our taxes. The UK
could actually abandon most of agriculture and import most of its food, as
food is obtainable cheaper elsewhere.

50% of the EU budget is allocated to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
CAP is supporting a lifestyle of a very small minority of country dwellers
in a poor performing industry. In effect that is its prime function.

The city of Sheffield, a one industry city of steel, was virtually killed by
allowing imports of cheaper steel from abroad. This created great misery and
distress to its large population. Yet agriculture is subsidised to the hilt
having land allocated to it which clearly can be better utilised for the
greater good of British society.

The justification for subsidising agriculture is that we need to eat. We
also need steel and cars in our modern society, yet the auto and steel
industries were allowed to fall away to cheaper competition from abroad, and
especially the Far East. Should taxpayers money be propping up an
economically small industry that consumes vast tracts of land that certainly
could be better used? What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

The overall agricultural subsidy is over £5 billion per year. This is £5
billion to an industry whose total turnover is only £15 billion per annum.
Unbelievable. This implies huge inefficiency in the agricultural industry,
about 40% on the £15 billion figure. Applied to the acres agriculture
absorbs, and approximately 16 million acres are uneconomic. Apply real
economics to farming and you theoretically free up 16 million acres, which
is near 27% of the total UK land mass.

This is land that certainly could be put to better use for the population of
the UK. Allowing the population to spread out and live amongst nature is
highly desirable and simultaneously lowering land prices. This means lower
house prices which the UK desperately needs. Second country homes could be
within reach of much of the population, as in Scandinavia, creating large
recreation and construction industries, and keeping the population in touch
with the nature of their own country. In Germany the population have access
to large forests which are heavily used at weekends. Forests and woods are
ideal for recreation and absorb CO2 cleaning up the atmosphere. Much land
could be turned over to public forests.

Over-development is
causing problems with the hydrology, as heavy rainfall is flushed out
to sea rather than recharge the aquifers.

As only 2.5% of the UK has masonry on it that is far fetched to say the
least. New developments have separate rainwater drains that feed water that
is used for potable uses.

We should be making sure that empty homes are brought back into
occupation (compulsorily after a year, say),

Land Valuation Taxation does that - payable land only not the building, even
if a building is not on the plot. Harrisburg, and other towns and cities in
the USA, cleared up derelict buildings that way bringing them back into use.

Harrisburg....
http://www.labourland.org/downloads/...chapters/3.pdf
"Furthermore, crime has fallen by 58 per cent, and the number of fires has
been reduced by 76 per cent, which the authorities say is due to more
employment opportunities, and the elimination of derelict sites, making
vandalism less likely."

and discourage the
growth of population by limiting child benefit

Social engineering. Hitler did that. It is best to have a self controlling
economic system - Geonomics.

Optimist wrote:

"The green belt is a Labour achievement, and we mean to build on it."

Emotive terms have been formed and liberally used such as concreting over
the countryside and urban sprawl. With only about 7.5% of the land settled,
we can't concrete over the countryside even if we wanted to. About two
thirds of all new housing is built within existing urban areas with the
remainder mainly built on the edge of urban areas. Very little is built on
open countryside.

Cities have a natural footprint limit. The generally accepted limit is that
if it takes over an hour to travel from one side to the other its expansion
naturally tails off. In olden times this hour was on foot or on horseback,
now it is in cars or on public transport. So we can't "sprawl" too far
either. In England the area of greenbelt has doubled since 1980, with nearly
21 million acres absorbed in total. The UKactually has greenbelt sprawl.

Greenbelts, extensively introduced in the 1950s, were intended to be narrow
and primarily used for recreation by the inhabitants of the towns and cities
they surrounded. The belts were expanded in width, but continued to be used
for farming. The shire counties used greenbelts to hold back the disliked
populations of nearby towns and cities. Recreational uses disappeared and
the greenbelts became green barriers to keep large numbers of urban
inhabitants from mixing with a very small number of rural residents. This is
a clear case of the few exercising their will over a massive majority. Often
these greenbelts were not even green, containing industry and intensive
industrial agriculture. Instead of being a sports jacket for the urban
dwellers geenbelts became a straight jacket..

The biggest propaganda organs a the Council for the Protection of Rural
England and the Countryside Alliance. Green movements like Friends of the
Earth have been accused of being fronts for large landowners. Large
landowners use green groups to keep the population out of the countryside.
The former is an organisation formed by large landowners and the latter is
funded by large landowners. Their angle is keep the status quo by keeping
townies out of the countryside, and also keeping villagers in villages. A
Cabinet Office report described the countryside as, "the near exclusive
preserve of the more affluent sections of society."

The Council for the Protection of Rural England have protected little of the
character of the English countryside since world war two, despite their
claims. In 1940 the German air force took photo reconnaissance photos of
largely southern England. The captured photos, when compared to the ordnance
survey maps of 1870, 70 years before, clearly indicated there was little
difference in topology. When compared to the ordnance survey maps of today,
there are vast changes. The 1947 T&C planning act just allowed landscape
raping agriculturalists, who contribute no more than around 2.5% to the UK
economy, to go wild.

The Council for the Protection of Rural England claim to be acting in the
interest of the land, wildlife and the countryside in general. This is far
from the case. It is the obscene profits of large landowners they are
primarily interested in, protecting little of rural England.

In Medieval times 100% of all taxes came from taxes on land. Up until the
late 1600s 3/4 of all taxes came from land taxes. The aristocracy peeled
back taxes on land and put it onto individual people's efforts, income tax.
By the mid 1800s, only 5% of taxes came from land. The shift away from
comprehensively taxing land created the scourge of the modern world's
economy - boom and bust.

On 30/08/2012 08:51, Optimist wrote:
On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 07:58:14 +0100, Graeme wrote:

On 30/08/2012 07:39, Martin Edwards wrote:
On 29/08/2012 14:52, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 29/08/2012 14:10, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
04:27:26 on Wed, 29 Aug 2012, remarked:
Unless the UK indulges in another round of building "new towns", the
national housing shortage is actually only solvable at the local
level. In other words build homes where the people and jobs arne, or
move the people and jobs.

Unfortunately the policy for most of the country seems to be to build
new estates on largely brownfield and rural sites, in places where they
get the least objection. Correlating it with workplaces is the last
thing on the agenda.

At least some brownfield sites may be close to where jobs are. In
Southampton the two major brownfields developments are part of the old
docks (Ocean Village) and currently the old Vosper Thorneycroft shipyard
in Woolston. Both of which allow relatively easy access to town centre
jobs.

Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. My comment was only meant to apply to
rural sites.


Some "brownfield" sites are rural. Old RAF airfields for instance I
believe count as brownfield for the purposes of legislation.

Soon fields just after ploughing will be included in the definition of "brownfield".

"Oh look! We've got all those brownfield sites! Let's build over the rest of XXXshire!"

Is that UKIP policy then?

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

On 30/08/2012 08:57, Optimist wrote:
On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 08:00:04 +0100, Roland wrote:

In , at 07:37:29 on Thu, 30 Aug
2012, Martin remarked:
Unless the UK indulges in another round of building "new towns", the
national housing shortage is actually only solvable at the local
level. In other words build homes where the people and jobs are, or
move the people and jobs.

Unfortunately the policy for most of the country seems to be to build
new estates on largely brownfield and rural sites, in places where they
get the least objection. Correlating it with workplaces is the last
thing on the agenda.

An added irony is that they are often paraded as "eco" towns, when the
residents would all need cars to get to jobs.

The aim of eco-towns is to get car journeys down to 50% of all trips.
I'm not sure if that counts very local trips, but they should be
provided with enhanced public transport in order to qualify for the
name.

Policy should be to get the hundreds of thousands of empty homes back into use, rather than consuming more countryside.

Very laudable in theory. In practice many of those empty properties are
in areas no one wants to live.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail