Even if the government reduced legal migration and stops illegal through its policing of the gangs the U.K. population is likely to continue to expand quickly from Ā migration over the next five years as during the last 20 years.
This means the government needs to get to its target of 300,000 new homes a year, which is stretching.
The government has floated the idea of establishing new towns or cities to achieve this new higher target. It has yet to identify where and how these will be established. Previous new towns were pioneered by New Town Corporations charged with assembling land and granting planning permission. Public money or guarantees were used to get it going, by harnessing large amounts of private capital and ending up with plenty of private ownership. Milton Keynes was one of the later examples.
At the recent peak rate of 750,000 additional people coming to live here you would need to build 3 Southamptons a year. This has not been happening and is impossible. There is discussion of building 3 or 4 new towns over a period of years. They could be near Bristol, York and Oxford. There is Labour pressure for a new town between Oxford and Cambridge along the improved east-west rail line being put in between them.
If they want to do this they will need to speed up the process and legislate to give them planning override and control of the area designated.
I would be interested in your thoughts on what is a realistic level of migration. Are new towns a good idea? Where should they be located? Is it right to override current planning controls and local opposition to large scale development?
August 15, 2024
Where are these āboat peopleā going to get the āplenty of private capitalā to fund all of this disaster?
Or is the plan to get British people to āsellā their current homes for what the market price in the 3rd world areas of the U.K. command (ie be robbed) and spend their lifeās work purchasing a new house in an area not yet devalued by the incoming hoards?
Anyway we need the government to announce which areas are to be sacrificed next so we can all move well away from them.
August 15, 2024
I assume it will be in the few Tory or LibDim areas left mainly.
August 15, 2024
Lynn, I’d suggest the Government go a step further.
The biggest problem on Earth is the massive increase of the human population over the last 200 years (1800 = 1bn, now at 8bn). Put aside how much this affects climate change – it does affect land usage/habitat destruction, natural resource depletion, water consumption, pollution, etc. Also has effects on world order and national security.
We should aim for net zero migrtation in the UK and from there to gradual population decline. That would be a truely worthwhile target for our Government to lead the world in.
August 15, 2024
Well they seem to be encouraging lots of knife crime and cycling both rather dangerous activities and men boxing with females. Plus they gave out million of Covid Vaccines which have killed many tens of thousands and the NHS is dire on Cancer Care and prompt ambulances. It this all part of the population reduction plan.
August 16, 2024
There is massive population decline in the very near future. Look at the stats. It will cause GDP shrinkage which scares the political class.
August 15, 2024
It won’t be necessary Lynn. Sensible people with any skill are leaving the country.
We are being displaced by third world unskilled labour as government policy. Tax revenues will drop, public services will have to be slashed and many will seek refuge elsewhere
By this time the liblabcon will have completely destroyed our nation and lifestyle at the alter EDI and net zero. Hold on for a bumpy ride as the recent demos are only a precursor.
August 15, 2024
I can’t see how it will happen.
The log-jams are lack of 1/ trades 2/ materials 3/ available land and 4/ finance.
So Labour can in theory print money for 4, compulsorily purchase and legislate for 3, but without indigenous materials a supply chain blockage will happen, and without trades the whole shebang just can’t happen. The only way round it is to import more trades from Poland etc. and those sources are likely exhausted and would add to housing demand in itself. No way people already here will be bothered enough to do the job. It will get stuck in the mess alongside all the other Labour mistakes.
August 16, 2024
Yes we need to become more like t Greeks, share houses between generations and the the younger ones inherit. So if we all have homes, why bother with building homes for themselves we donāt want here anyway?
August 15, 2024
Will our new government pick up the Oxford Cambridge expressway or is it dead in the water.
Reply Doubt it will. They seem to hate new roads though they would work.
August 15, 2024
Cancelling new rail plans too. Every single thing Labour are doing, (other than relaxing planning which they will surely botch anyway) is totally bonkers and anti-growth.
August 15, 2024
In my voluntary work as a listener I am hearing harrowing stories about cuckooing and people being intimidated out of their homes by gangs.
The authorities well know that this is now going on.
In 20 years I expect that many areas will be ruled by religious leaders and you will be told when to sell your house and what you are going to get paid for it.
What our major parties have done is to facilitate evil.
There will have to be a news blackout for the next major atrocity – for our own good of course.
August 16, 2024
Wow. Jacob Rees Mogg need to know this, he rejected the information Powellās constituent in Wolverhampton told him along the same lines, and therefore Powellās famous speech which forewarned of our current problem.
August 15, 2024
Good morning.
* Zero immigration.
* No !
* If any, Scotland. They have plenty of space. Or Northern Ireland. Failing all that, the Falklands.
*These will be in Conservative voting areas. So who cares ? It is about time they had their noses rubbed in diversity and their house prices crashed. This is the price the Tory’s must pay for betraying BREXIT.
August 15, 2024
I agree. Just how many Doctor’s, engineers, teachers and other high flyers can a small country such as ours absorb or need?
August 15, 2024
Iām always surprised that the middle-east and the sub-continent can train more nurses & doctors then the UK
August 15, 2024
Well voters gave their thought in four manifestos and the Tories promised to deliver – Net levels to the tens of thousands Cameron promised and Ā£1m IHT. They lied and failed even to try, delivered a fake half Brexit, botched Covid, coerced net harm vaccines into most people & so now we have to suffer even worse from the vile two tier kier and Stasi (hugely anti-free speech) Starmer. Plus his appalling team the worse ones being Lammy, Ed Balls (you are all far right scum Rayner) and two tier Evette Cooper. Plus net zero mad zealot Miliband what is a few Ā£ trillion her or there?
August 15, 2024
Children are being murdered in our streets and rather than tackle knife crime Starmer attacks people for social media posts. He is quickly becoming the most hated Prime Minister ever and is totally out of touch with the British people who just want this madness to end.
August 15, 2024
To train a doctor in the UK cost about Ā£300k (about Ā£150k of this paid by the student). They then have to work to about 40 (15 years) before most will ever repay this Ā£150k from after tax income let alone have made a net profit.
Leave school at 16 and work in a supermarket and you will prob. be better off in general up to about 40 if you do the maths.
August 17, 2024
Better yet, leave school at 16 and become a train driver…
August 15, 2024
Well Mark! you seem content just to say ānot in my kingdomā I firmly support Reform Uk which say ā Net Zero migration. We have allowed the politicians to destroy Great Britain, now is the time to drive out the murderers , crooks and lowlife , restoring OUR country back to what our fathers fought for!.
Sir John, the new town idea is very slow, as demonstrated by the efforts of building Craigavon in Northern Ireland! Looking at that effort, I would suggest that present day incompetent politicians have neither the brains nor the ability to see that through, their attention span is short before they leap to another plan!
August 15, 2024
Merkel invited the world to the EU. Therefore Germany must bear the costs. It is now clear that our taxes sent to France is a contribution to EU mass immigration costs, illegal boat people are accepted and delivered to our shores as a physical contribution. There is no legal basis to accept them. They are in and have passed through a safe country. UK is not obliged in international law to accept economic migrants they apply by visa.
No financial, housing or public service support should be given by the Tory/Labour Govt. To legal or illegal immigrants. We are repeatedly told there is a cost of living crisis, NHS crisis, Housing crisis. If true what is the Govt. Policy to stop immigrants and illegal immigrants from being a burden on the taxpayer for an overtaxed nation. This is our money not Govt.ās. Therefore the salary threshold should be set so that no welfare claim can be made from immigrants, ie like US and other countries. Therefore if the Ā£50,000 child benefit limit applies to indigenous people that is the threshold for any visa application. It cannot be right to give taxpayers money to those who have not contributed but hand out welfare to those who chip up on our doorstep.
No social housing for immigrants because the Govt. Tells us there is a housing crisis, the priority must be indigenous people first. Stay in tents at Calais- that was their preferred choice before arriving here.
August 15, 2024
I thought that the Reform party objective of a net zero level of migration was right after twenty years of unprecedented growth in net migration. Unfortunately too many of the ruling elite (politicians, the Treasury, think tanks) believe it is the way to increase GDP and unsaid, perhaps the way to compensate for a declining fertility rate. Their calculations would appear to ignore the cost of accommodating the new arrivals and of providing public services(schools, hospitals, etc) to support them.
It would be quicker to attempt to absorb the increase within established communities than to build new towns. New towns would be but another opportunity for the ruling elite to impose their “solutions” on the rest of us, driven by dogma not by economic and social realities. Local communities would be right to protest. I have zero confidence in the ability of the political class to manage any of this effectively, especially as the Labour government appears content to see the continued surge in inward migration (legal and illegal) and to do nothing about it.
August 15, 2024
New Labour used the dwindling workforce as an excuse for immigration.
Reading through a Hansard debate back in the early 2000’s it was pointed out by a Conservative (remember them?) that in fact the workforce was fine even going forward to as far as 2020, even noting that were numbers an issue mass immigration was not a sensible answer.
The reason so many are not having families is because they cannot afford to buy a house and there is little if any council housing available. What was an offer was going to others coming in as a priority. Nothing changed once Cameron and successive pretend Conservatives took over.
August 15, 2024
The trashing of the economy and its replacement by welfare is a social disaster that has been going on for over 20 years. Brown’s attacks on pensions and creation of the house price bubble that culminated in the financial crash and massive government borrowing crowded out productive investment which has been further hit by green policy that has seen industry close and move abroad have been disasters. We only survive by borrowing, with the full government debt (if you include that implied by off balance sheet trickery like PFI) probably now approaching Ā£4trillion, plus further sums for households in mortgages, PCP, and credit cards. Much of this is now financed using asset backed securities sold abroad. The other leg of financing welfare consumption has been asset sales abroad of companies and property.
The combined effect has been that it is impossible for most to afford a home, a family and a pension on top of daily living costs. Different groups have made different choices as to where to economise. The younger generations can only afford a small home which cannot even properly accommodate a family, so they don’t have one. That is reserved to immigrant populations given subsidised housing with long run demographic consequences of population replacement.
We are running out of borrowing capacity and assets to sell, which is why we see the Labour government looking at higher taxes and expropriation to fund their programme of destruction. Economic and social collapse may not hold off much longer. A collapse in the pound would see imports become unaffordable, leaving us with sharply lower standards of living.
August 15, 2024
I have zero confidence in the ability of the political class to manage any of this effectively. Labour even less chance than Sunak but both has entirely the wrong policies 180 degrees out. Sunak did put a tiny tough on the net zero break where Miliband has his foot on the accelerator heading straight for the Ā£trillions cliff. Is Ed really so damn thick as to believe the net zero climate con trick? Well perhaps he did read PPE but Miliband and Starmer both have Bs in physics A levels and some maths so no excuse for not seeing that net zero is a con trick and the Covid Vaccines did huge harm as will Vat on school fees, open door immigration, abolition of non domsā¦
August 15, 2024
Miliband has a SPAD who had a prominent position in XR, along with otters on the lunatic green fringe. Expect bad consequences.
August 15, 2024
Our local council have an up to date Local Plan and a five year land bank as required. We have accepted 5000 new houses round a small market town, yet this new so called government (increasingly becoming an autocracy) have binned this and our new share of immigration is another 500 new houses per year. Good luck with that, as the houses now being built are not selling as expected and I cannot see any builder erecting new houses on spec when they have hundreds already on their books waiting for new buyers. This lot do not have a clue of what goes on outside the Westminster bubble and are heading for another disaster. As I said recently, but unpublished, you can push immigrants anywhere you want, but you cannot make them stay there, if as we are always told they have relatives etc. in other parts of the country.
August 15, 2024
We have had 3,000 new homes in our 600-house village with no increased facilities. The latest enterprise has just gone bankrupt as they sold the houses before the huge increase in raw materials.
Rather than building on prime farmland, we should be demolishing or renovating the many slum areas in our towns. Build up not out.
August 15, 2024
+1
August 16, 2024
We really should stop speaking of ānet migrationā. How many alien people are flooding into our country every year?
August 15, 2024
Poor Truss pushing her new book and still they get at her for wrecking the economy in Suffolk somewhere.
She did not wreck the economy that was by Sunak as Chancellor under Boris and the BoE incompetence with his vast waste, QE, currency debasement, 12%+ inflation, net harm lockdowns, net harm vaccines, test and trace, loan for duff degrees, PPE corruption, vast low skilled, net cost immigration levelsā¦
Very clever of him to blame it all on Truss and Kwartang, Knife her in the back and replace her and appoint the appalling PPE tax to death Hunt as Chancellor and then claim credit for taking inflation from 12% to 2% when he created the 12% as Chancellor.
August 15, 2024
The quality of life will keep falling until people from the worst part of planet turn their noses up at us.
August 15, 2024
Immigrants can return to their homeland taking with them the wealth they have generated. They don’t have to pay inheritance tax like we are expected to do. Few of us have this option.
August 15, 2024
While we keep giving them money and homes, they’ll keep coming
August 15, 2024
If Hawaii gave me free accommodation, medical/dentist, phone, TV, food and pocket-money guaranteed for the rest of my life, (and my family could follow) Iād been on the next boat !
August 15, 2024
We need Net Zero immigration and only genuinely high skilled / high worth individuals allowed to settle here.
I don’t want any new towns. Enough of our countryside has already been sacrificed to build little boxes made of ticky-tacky because Governments for the last 30 years opened the floodgates and imported 10 million people against the wishes of the settled population.
If we must have a new town, build it on the Sandringham Estate or Highgrove. It’s about time the “Elite” made some sacrifices.
August 15, 2024
Turn Sandringham and Balmoral into HMOs! Charles is a strong advocate for Republicanism. He also has enough land for tent cities like Calais.
August 15, 2024
King Charles is a big fan of open door immigration (King Charles calls for mutual respect and understanding after Britain’s racist riots) but nothing āracistā about the anti open door immigration āprotestsā Charlie, the rioters were mainly just tagging on vandals & criminals.
Also Charlie is big fan of being a protector of all the faiths (alas nearly all the faiths so often contradict each other & many hate each other). Also a big fan of the evil economic vandalism & climate lunacy, the net harm Covid Vaccines, net zero, gross personal hypocrisy, so called ārenewablesā (he has huge person interest here). Informed by his B in History and C in French A level. It must have been a very good interview at Trinity Camb. I suppose to get in. But I am sure it was completely fair I suppose he was sort of brought up in several council houses & so got extra points?
August 16, 2024
There are 100 bedrooms at Balmoral (which Charles owns); Sandringham also could house a few.
August 15, 2024
I’d say we need Zero Immigration, only some exceptions, but only the rarest and we must first look here and get individuals to make a sacrifice, not a Net anything.
I’m afraid Net is intended to mislead people like us and we must not use it. The policy now is to destroy England in particular.
As is known we could get Net Zero if 500k like us left the country and 500k immigrants not like us came in.
It would be called a success but it is a disaster.
August 15, 2024
People who bring Ā£1 million with them for their houses say Ā£500K at least and another Ā£500K for contribution to road, rail, police, schools, the energy grid, water & gas infrastructure… plus they have to get decent a job, Any less and they will be lower everyone living standards per cap. Virtually zero growth in GDP per cap for 16 years. This despite vast efficiencies in manufacturing and so much else. But all eaten up by parasitic ever larger government, low skilled migrants…
August 15, 2024
It must never be forgotten, SJR, that your party in government allowed mass migration on the scale that gave us this crisis. They were unfit to govern and were rightly kicked out. Now this country is becoming an increasingly unpleasant place to live. Thanks to the overcrowding, we need three Southamptons a year, you say, but we can’t build on that scale. Why discuss something which you say is impossible? We have to grit our teeth and get through the next few years in the hope that we’ll then have a government that acts responsibly. One which will at least have the sense to turn off the tap, when we’re being flooded out with rising levels of migrants. Until then, all I know is that any sensible advice you or anyone else commenting on this blog might come up with won’t be followed.
August 15, 2024
Indeed and the voting system we have meant we have to replace them with even worse. If this is democracy I’am a banana as Hislop might put it.
August 15, 2024
I would question the need to increase the population at all. Not only would I halt immigration, legal and illegal, but I would make strenuous efforts to remove all the illegals already in our system living unidentifiable lives.
One of my first steps would be to intoduce, via an expanded MI5/ Special Branch, a biometric ID card such as I carried in Spain. There was no problem in getting one providing the applicants information given matched the information the Policia National already had. Possesion greatly simplyfied daily life. I have no expectation of the arrival of the political will to do it here in the UK.
Another step would be the onus of mandatory training of the skills that all enterprises required, negating the need to import them except in exceptional circumstances. Specifically aimed at such as the NHS. Back loading the population to satisfy needs within our infrastructure only further overloads that infrastructure.
Only when all the above has been achieved can you assess the size of the housing problem you have, and the alternative steps you might take to rectify the situation. So rushing to build new towns or expand rural villages is not a first step, though could be a later one. Not every area of the UK is the same.
Take Cornwall for instance. Industries are tourism, farming, and fishing. Tourism and the desire for second homes has inflated the price of housing those who work in those three industries and any others based in Cornwall. My suggestion is to look at two tier housing a la Guernsey. A local market for the cornish and an open market for incomers. That way demands on either market do not clash and the incomers continue as local periodic customers. One solution for one problem.
I cannot begin to solve London’s problems where 50% of those living there were not born in the UK. Where the people think the disasterous reign of their mayor is better than where they originated, so re- elect him to continue the process of running it into the ground. Would it be desireable to dump chunks of it in the form of satellite towns on our countryside , I think not. It would just spread the problems that London contains. London’s problems need solutions within London. I am not optimistic.
August 15, 2024
Politicians of all ilk think city and London. Some of us like living in the country, we do not need to be smeared and labelled nimbys to silence us. Nor do we have the luxury of being given two houses or accommodation at taxpayer expense- this needs to be stopped. MPs are now laid Ā£93,000 so can afford from their salary. Rachel Thieves complained she could not live on Ā£82, 000 therefore demonstrating she is incapable of being chancellor because she cannot manage her own budget let alone the country!
I also note Labour has started to employ donors, lawyers from Extinction Rebellion etc. clearly conflict of interests and against what Two-Tier Keir said before gaining office.
August 15, 2024
Today we have the A level results which once again show grade inflation. The good news is that STEM subjects are becoming more popular and there is some decline in soft social science (however languages were not popular). A national newspaper offered 4 sample maths questions. I would assess them as about 11+ standard, perhaps O level. Our education system is gravity devalued and low productivity. It handicaps the rising generations for their futures.
August 16, 2024
It knocks the future out for them altogether.
August 15, 2024
High levels of immigration, requiring new cities or the equivalent numbers of new dwellings in existing towns, is obviously incompatible with the desire to reach net zero quickly, which is shared by most political parties. More people means more resources are required: electricity, water, heating, food (and more building means less farmland to produce it), transport ( whether private or public) and of course the building materials needed to construct the new houses.
August 15, 2024
Net migration should be zero for 10 years, then re-assess because we are already one of the most densely populated countries of the World.
The more people we have, then the more Land is required to house them, unless you build upwards.
An interesting tour many years ago around San Diago.
Before that city was developed a few rules were put in place by the corp[oration having seen the stress and chaos of living in many other expanding Cities.
They wanted development to mimic the feeling of living within an open hand, rather than in a stressful clench fist.
A simple rule was put in place that no building would be allowed, which put another in the shade for more than 2 hours a day, thus density and height would be limited by this natural but simple requirement.
August 15, 2024
For decades prior to the advent of Blair immigration ticked along at about 10,000 p.a., a figure which could easily be assimilated and which met the needs of the country. Blair deliberately opened the doors to flood us with what he hoped would be new Labour voters and also to rub the rightās nose in diversity. Since then the so-called Conservative government failed to get a grip on the situation.
We need to get back to the historic levels of net immigration. People ask where we will get those we need to do certain jobs from. Two answers, get the 5 million on long-term out of work benefits back to work and improve productivity.
Meanwhile we have to solve the present housing problem we have. Both rents and prices are too high. The rental market is a question of supply and demand. The alterations made to taxation and the imposition of additional burdens on landlords has reduced the supply of rental properties, as it always does when governments interfere. Property prices are high for two reasons: lack of supply and recently the availability of cheap credit. The price of credit is now normalising. The baby boomers are beginning to fall off their perches, which will help a little. However, the real constraint to house building is not the lack of planning permissions granted, but the lack of people with the skills to build the houses. Perhaps it is time to admit the comprehensive education system has failed and to go back to a selective system, as they have in Germany, for example, so that schools can once again teach the non-academic trade skills.
August 15, 2024
Yes! that’s what we want. 300,000 new houses every year.
Concreting over England to house the world ……….
August 15, 2024
New towns? Yes, certainly. Where? Somewhere around Calais or Boulogne. The government should control our borders. We have had enough migration to last us for the next century at least. We don’t need any more, legal or illegal.
August 15, 2024
scottish hebrides ….there’s an ex-army camp ready & waiting
August 16, 2024
The Hebrides are wonderful. I donāt want them desecrated and ruined! They are OURS!
August 16, 2024
agree – they must be confined to the camp
August 15, 2024
The reason we have seen a collapse in house building is because it is nowadays such an onerous and time consuming activity, with contributions having to be made to āinfrastructureā and other such completely unrelated issues which were previously never required. We have only had what is in effect socialist town planning legislation since 1947. Most listed buildings and architectural gems were built prior to that date. The solution is to thwart the absurd delays within the town planning system, and make it much easier to build houses, by initially simply providing a deemed planning consent if a town planning application is not decided within 28 days, and no requirement to contribute to āinfrastructure. House building activity would explode, which is what is needed.
August 16, 2024
Yes the planners have delivered not one architectural gem or beautiful village. They have been an unmitigated disaster. All we need is Building Control which must apply to all building including those built by Councils – they often exempt themselves hence the crumbling 70ās schools and Council HQs.
August 15, 2024
Many think that the new Chancellor’s desire to grow the economy is going to involve more net growth in migration. The migrants need somewhere to live, so as Sir John points out, building more houses is necessary.
Building new towns is probably the least worst option. Huge acreages of prime agricultural land are being permanently lost to housing anyway – only currently it’s piecemeal, nibbling at the green belts.
The recent, regrettable, outbreak of summer riots were targeted at asylum seekers and the boat people. Many suggest that Britain is now full up; we have taken in as many as we can. Angela Rayner has now scrapped Govey’s plan to limit social housing applications to long-term British residents – this is likely to cause more friction between our communities
Maybe its time to strictly control inward migration on the Australian system. Improved productivity and making work more economically desirable to those who are currently inactive would give us a breathing space
August 15, 2024
‘Sakara’ As a total believer in ‘climate change’ you should surely understand, building houses creates Co2. You should surely understand, turning our agricultural land into houses (plus solar farms) reduces our ability to grow our own food. Leading to more food imports which increases Co2.
Rayner has pushed the heritage English to the back of the queue, to favour new arrivals. Then the half-wit Labour government wonders why there are street riots.
Re. your last paragraph;
Maybe that time came twenty years ago and nothing was, or ever has been done to reduce immigration “to the tens of thousands” Though net zero immigration is more desirable.
August 15, 2024
Two Houses Rayner and Two Tier Starmer really are trying to rub our noses in it arenāt they? Apparently there are around 1.2 million people lanquising on the waiting list for social housing in England yet they have no problems with their plans to push them to the back of the queue by people who have just arrived on a boat.
August 15, 2024
I see nothing about new towns in the draft National Planning Policy Framework document. They aren’t going to be part of the local authority planning agenda for a long time to come, it would seem.
August 15, 2024
We need zero immigration except for families of first generation Brits who meet a spouse while abroad (or who use Russian wives type websites) following a rigorous visa approval process to determine that the union is sound.
The responsibility for Councils to house immigrants when they turn up with no accommodation needs to be removed so low paid immigrants have no expectation of being housed and NO in work or out of work benefits should be paid to any immigrant until they have paid at least full time minimum wage levels of tax and NI for five years.
While withdrawing any benefit entitlement from immigrants the benefits system needs to be looked at so no one except the TRULY infirm are better off on benefits than working full time.
The government should state that their aim is to increase GDP per capita not just to get growth.
Building towns and overriding planning laws addresses the symptom not the cause.
August 15, 2024
Oh I thought these were mainly students who would pay their extortionate fees to prop up mainly faux academic institutions then leave? So if this doesn’t turn out to be the case, perhaps we should cede Northern Ireland properly on the basis that the mainland remains of a stable, highly qualified population and will need no further houses to be built.
August 15, 2024
With a reported 9 per cent the working age people not in employment we don’t need more immigrants- any illegals that do get through can be rounded up and sent to the new British settlements on South Georgia Island – they’ll be still technically in Britain so won’t be able to complain. The biggest mistake we make with the illegals is allowing them to settle wherever they want irrespective of the draw on public services and utilities. It’s time to get real.
August 15, 2024
England certainly is overpopulated. If immigration continues we will lose what’s left of our countryside through housing, if Labour haven’t by then built wind turbines or solar farms over it.
The housing issue is serious because the shortage of land and houses forces up prices, which mean young families cannot afford to buy. And home owners tend to become more conservative.
Although we are now a multiracial nation, the multi-culturalism part of it is not working well. In particular, certain Islamic communities are not integrating well with British culture.
The fourth issue is of course the home-grown (and growing) benefits class, displaced by keen to work and lower paid immigrants.
So, no, we need zero net immigration until
August 16, 2024
Plenty of land with PP available. Nobody can afford to build houses on it because there are no buyer with actual money – plenty of demand for free houses of course.
August 15, 2024
Zero Migration
When we have sorted out
Electricity Infrastructure
Water
Sewage
Schools
NHS
Housing
Then we can make a plan
August 15, 2024
police, social services, transport, roads, energy, prisons, justice, crime, universities, tax levels…
August 15, 2024
Yes it is right to override all local objections and planning regulations because otherwise it will be impossible to build ANYTHING in this country including but not limited to houses, towns, onshore wind, solar farms, nuclear reactors of all types, rail improvements, new roads, new offices and labs, film studios, hotels, bridges, reservoirs, tunnels, electricity pylons etc. etc. It will also be necessary in all those cases to override objections from the local MP even if theyāre Labour.
August 15, 2024
The most stupid blog I have ever read. What about consent of local people? Without it unrest will follow as sure as night and day. That applies to policing as well. Hence current problems will not be solved until po.kce and justice serves everyone equally. TwoTier Keir clearly out of his depth and learnt nothing from his former ivory post at CPS. Then has a special pension just for him!!
August 15, 2024
I hope they build everything on your doorstep Roy. We wouldn’t need what you propose if we didn’t import te worlds dross.
August 16, 2024
In Wokingham we have had all of what Hope lists in his blog built literally on our doorstep, except possibly pylons, and I wouldn’t be surprised if mini-nukes get commissioned here also – Aldermaston is just down the road.
I would welcome some mixed zone development, ie residential, commercial and manufacture, but all we typically get are giant, ugly dormitories with no additional infarstructure so what is already here becomes overloaded.
August 15, 2024
‘Impossible to build new houses in this country’, Roy? How come 133,000 homes were built last year alone?
As for solar farms, I have to wonder how much you get out these days. They’re everywhere now. A solar energy energy website says there were in July 2024 1,336 operational solar farms in the UK, according to the latest government data, 142 under construction, and 1,957 awaiting construction. So that’s nearly 2,000 more that have received planning permission. How so, if as you say it’s so difficult to get solar farms approved?
August 15, 2024
Wokingham has seen huge housing growth in recent years, stretching road capacity (which the LibDems have made worse by adding underused cycle lanes) and amenities like shops, surgeries and dentists. Much of the South-East has undergone similar unsustainable change like this. We lack the political will to DRAMATICALLY reduce legal immigration, to stop the illegal migration by boat which is a huge security risk, and to get the 10 million currently not working back into work or something else productive. We’re heading inexorably and inexcusably to import dependency for our energy, food and many other daily needs. It’s economic suicide, politicians preferring solar farms and wind farms instead of crop fields; our fishing industry decimated by lack of Government support, it’s so depressing. Let Scotland, Wales and Northern England have the new towns and add in a massive increase in apprenticeships to upskill those areas to the industries we need to grow.
August 15, 2024
I’d be inclined to build new towns, but not in the already over-crowded England – Why aren’t we taking advantage of the vast amount of land available in Scotland or the Scottish Islands.
Clearly we treat immigrants, especially illegals with too much comfort.
Let’s establish basic infrastructure, power, water, and so on, in areas that could sustain a town, provide some equipment then get the illegals to build their own town, or at least help in the construction?
During construction they would live in tents.
If they can’t be bothered to contribute in this way put them on a slow boat to Rwanda.
August 15, 2024
The new towns in Scotland and Wales are depressing places. I can see no argument for building more of them. The ones to the North of London are only slightly better, by virtue of having become commuter suburbia. But they are now too in decay.
August 15, 2024
Since multiculturalism where individual groups have their own language, practices and laws has been decided to be preferable to integration I expect the plan for the inevitable housing shortage will be the allowed development of favelas.
As far as I know the allegedly illegal migrant encampment in the middle of Park Lane has not yet been removed.
August 15, 2024
O R: Yes it is still there and larger than it was when first reported on way back when. There were some rather unsavoury goings on taking place at that time too. It’s not reported on very much. I don’t suppose anyone has any idea who they all are but I understand from some reports that the numbers include eastern Europeans, homeless and without paperwork. It seems there has been a lot of buck passing when questions are posed, an inability to comment, inability to do anything. Maybe the Council / TFL / Mayor / Police / MP e.g. talk amongst themselves but rightly or wrongly leaving the impression there is no will or there is a fear to actually ‘do the right thing’
Meanwhile the homelessness of refugees – those granted asylum and having left Home Office accommodations increases rapidly with a reported 4840 refugee households ( singles, couples or families ) being homeless between Jan & Mar this year, much increased from 2023. If one includes the refugee h/holds also at risk of becoming homeless, then that number increases to 6110 h/holds so no end to the increasing homeless on the streets & rough sleeping etc.,
Illegal – or irregular if you prefer, arrivals on boats in the last 2 weeks – 14 days 01/8 to 14/8 = 1671 on 31 boats.
August 16, 2024
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August 15, 2024
0. Top priority: reverse the inflow of illegal migrants. Deport “asylum seekers” with criminal records or who visit their homelands for holidays.
1. Many seaside towns are decaying from neglect and underinvestment. But they are, or could be, good places to live and many of them have good rail connections to our big cities (from the days when British city dwellers took holidays in Britain instead of Spain, Greece etc.). These towns could be expanded including upwards. (One might begin at Clacton, for example š )
2. Many coastal areas have suffered from widespread coastal erosion. I suggest we enlist the help of Dutch engineers to reverse this process. A lot of land could be recovered given the right amount of investment (money and know-how). Tidal energy stations driving electric generators could be installed.
August 15, 2024
If an existing population opposes development it is unwanted. People sort out their neighbourhoods naturally. The best places grew organically and were not forced into sudden mass unwanted change.
Perhaps a few new towns could be created for those who choose that lifestyle. āGarden citiesā may have been a good addition in earlier times.
Our existing population should be trained and assisted to do the jobs we need, reducing the enormous waste incurred on unemployment and living on benefits.
Near-zero immigration would suit the preferences of much of our population. Many years are needed to assimilate the excessive numbers being squeezed ever more tightly into our densely populated island with all the increasing difficulties that poses on everyone.
Our previously green and pleasant land of this sceptred isle is rapidly becoming an end to end concrete jungle of unhappiness and lawlessness.
Labour appear to be destined for even worse by their own design.
August 15, 2024
Local objections canāt be allowed to stop infrastructure projects with national benefits.
August 16, 2024
So no wind farm, solar farms, migrant hostels etc. as there is zero benefit.
August 16, 2024
Pow! A fitting response, Lynn.
August 15, 2024
Sir John
How can a UK Government police gangs on other continents/countries? They have no jurisdiction.
The illegals will stop once they are turned around and prevented from entering UK territory – it is that simple. As it stands the UK Government is facilitating people traffickers, bordering on sponsoring them.
August 15, 2024
Or they will stop when the UK is so unpleasant they no longer wish to come anymore.
August 15, 2024
They canāt. Thatās why no one wants the newly created position of Gang Smasher General and it is still vacant.
August 15, 2024
correct
August 15, 2024
We need to assess housing need based on reliable demographic and factual information about our migration/immigration and projected growth and birth/death rate.
Where and how are those who currently have nowhere to live, or are waiting to be housed, living at the moment?
It has been reported recently there are billions of people of working age who are living on benefits and not even trying to find work.Where are they living?
The UK has an ageing population and 60% are over 65, which over the next 10 to 20 years could release enormous amounts of housing;This doesn’t affect the immediate housing crisis ,if there really is one, but should be taken into account when assessing future need.
The solution is not to build new towns or develop acres of green belt, and certainly not without appropriate infrastructure and support services.
The UK should look at retaining a robust rental market and to encourage rather than discourage landlords from owning property for rent as an investment so long as it provides a cheaper form of housing.Rent controls and protected tenancies should be considered, with fixed term leases of up to 10 or more years.
Stopping or controlling immigration to the UK would go a long way to easing housing pressure.;
Promoting the conversion of empty buildings such as shops and offices into residential use.
Promoting the redevelopment of redundant brown field sites over green belt sites.
The Government should consider buying up existing empty residential property back into state ownership[Council housing];There are 100’s of thousands of houses being currently sold quite cheaply at auction or through private treaty which could be rented out or used for shared ownership.
The options referred to could provide a relatively “quick fix” to housing supplies and potentially cheaper than paying for hotels and the Bibby Stockholm.
Building new towns and developing green belt sites will take the best part of 5 to 10 years from now to materialise taking into account the bureaucratic planning process and red tape we have to go through in the UK.
August 15, 2024
Sir John
The only requirement for more homes is in those communities that the natural indigenous growth is coming from. We have seen the problem here in Wokingham, houses forced on the area to home what could loosely be described as outsiders that still work elsewhere, meaning essentially they continue to contribute to wealth of areas outside of Wokingham.
August 15, 2024
We are full – so ‘net-zero’ for me. And the inflow needs to be of productive people, with an affinity for us. There, not difficult is it?
August 15, 2024
We have had 20-plus years of crass stupidity from both Labour, Coalition, and Conservative Governments. Allowing in 7 million Immigrants, with no planning for Houses, Schools, Hospitals, GPs, power and water or any real knowledge of who they are. How many future terrorist actions will we face from a handful of immigrants who hate us and our way of life?
We need net zero immigration for at least 3 to 5 years to address the situation, then strictly controlled numbers, say 25,000 a year maximum. Illegal immigrants should be flown back to their country of origin, the real one, not the fake one they often claim. The last thing we need is new towns to accommodate them. But one or two new towns would be good news if houses were available only to younger buyers or renters. But the new Labour Government will continue the stupidity and be turfed out in 2029 by Conservative or Reform, whichever adopts a zero immigration policy!
August 15, 2024
The obvious thing to do urgently and severely curtail immigration to a trickle and then consider assisted voluntary repatriation.
That will still leave us with a shortage of homes Cramming people into existing towns and cities is not working well. New towns are the least worse option. It’s going to cost a fortune and cause social havoc, either way.
It’s a pity politicians didn’t do what the People wanted in the first place.
August 16, 2024
Repatriation was government policy for many years and indeed may still be. It was simply not acted upon.
We need to use our āoverseas Aidā to buy people out of their homes and business so they can return āhomeā as local millionaires. They will take the skills of business etc with them and that will be be two birds with one stone. Relief for the U.K. and seeding poor countries with wealthy enterprising people.
August 15, 2024
The current model is not sustainable and GDP per head of population is falling. We need to get our own people back to work rather than rely on foreign workers. We need to end the perverse incentive to only work 16 hours per week. We need to curb the excessive amount of people claiming disability benefits. Since Covid, many people seem to have become lazy and entitled. Working from home has reduced productivity. Even those I know who are self-employed have cut their hours. You also need to ask where are all these immigrants going who we import every year to fill these jobs. Women are now expected to work 6/7 more years than their forebears. Men are expected to work 1/2 more years so why do we need more people? Iād also get rid of the push for 50% of students to go to university. In fact, Iād close down half the universities in this country as they only seem to be a way of manipulating the visa system. Iād return the school leaving age to 16 so long as the person had a job to go to. Iād also crack down on benefit fraud which is rampant in this country.
Is this enough to be going on with to help fix the problems we face?
There are so many simple solutions I can only think successive governments donāt want to fix the problem we face.
August 15, 2024
Where the Labour Party win out over the Conservative Party is they don’t care about nimbys. They don’t care about ‘pretty’ estates, Cotswold-like quaintness, country living, cobbled walkways, or attractive shops. Just look around at the number of homes built whenever they are in charge with the back of the houses and fences next to the road that then gets run down, no shrubs, tiny windows in box houses with no decoration, gully walk-throughs that get vandalised, littered and kicked over, they do like to give these estates playing fields, that are often full of rubbish, broken glass and dog poo every weekend. They get more green open space than many private estates, they go crazy and build 500 homes together in a small area to ghettoise their voters, and the Tories for years go along with it because it suits not to have a fair share of social tenants, in this respect the next five years are going to be interesting if Rayner gets her way.
She is on the warpath with nice areas; the resentment is vast and bubbles up from deep within socialists. I’ve lots of socialists in my family; they are very resentful of their rough areas left behind, rotting.
However, it all starts falling apart because when Labour are in power in your local area, their spending isn’t on niceties like plants and cutting grass, cleaning curbs and drains, and walking trails and potholes; all that spending gets severely reduced so that they can set up clinics for the benefits class, they build them hubs that are so disrespected they have metal spikes all around as though they are prisons – to stop the people in the area busting them up. They’ll spend a fortune on a trendy playground in a rough estate (often in a large piece of ground that isn’t overlooked). The foolish kids set fire to everything from the rubbish bin to the tyre swing to the rope on the climbing frame at night, dig up the rubber with broken glass bottles goodness knows why, and put broken glass on the slides. I had to stop taking my children to our local playground set in the Council estate when they were kids.
August 15, 2024
Want & need & immigration & mirrors
Official figures indicate that there are 4,000 rough sleepers across the UK every night (its been suggested that some are there by choose) and 52,000 illegal & 1,218,000 legal immigration in 2023 and the UK indigenous population is said to be in decline
So thinking outside the box, we donāt need to build any more homes, we need to control immigration ā¦.stop all immigration for three of years, return overstayers and put illegalās in army camps (not homes)
August 16, 2024
And real asylum seekers must be given asylum but never a home or citizenship. Never a vote. They will be grateful for asylum if they are really seeking asylum. When their home country becomes safe, they return.
August 15, 2024
Why not put the new towns up in Scotland and Northern Ireland to give them an economic boost if immigration is so wonderful for prosperity? I seem to recall the SNP love immigration…….
August 15, 2024
Crewe and Stoke are good examples of areas where new builds are thrown up everywhere with connections.
Rail links are poorly connected as the new homes aren’t near to the rail station, buses are few and far between, the roads are too narrow to be the thoroughfare and when cars are parked on them too cause massive bottlenecks a 30-minute drive to a station frequently becomes an hour often causing missed trains. When it’s kicking out time at the big factories like Bentley or the large estates, everything is completely log-jammed, yet more homes are being built on fields in the middle of all the congestion.
Living on these big new estates is isolating, often with no community connection, disconnected displaced families, village-type walks, nor architectural heritage, and no new buildings to admire. If they build a pond, it is more like a death trap with a wooden or grey metal fence put around it and a brick pump station. There are no water flowers, no safety grid, just dirty water and overgrown grass. You look longingly at areas of beauty, the Cotswolds, even Cities like Bath, York, and Chester (in parts), yet nothing is replicated, no lovely looking buildings, clock towers, community shops, just square flat roof blocks. You certainly don’t get people wanting to visit your area; most of these new town places I talk about don’t have a hotel, so there is nowhere to hold funerals, weddings and other celebrations and special events. Why live there, you might think? It was all you could afford when you set out, and this is what Labour set out to do; they then become their council stronghold areas as people get more depressed in them than elsewhere.
August 15, 2024
107 illegal economic /criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France …..needing homes
August 15, 2024
To hear all the empty talk of ‘stopping the people traffickers’, anyone would think supplying rubber dinghies, filling them with people then pushing them off the coast of Northern France was some abstruse and irreplaceable technical skill. The illegal immigrants are not being persuaded by the criminals enabling their passage, but attracted by the attractions of the UK’s insanely generous benefits and lack of ID restrictions for those working in the black economy or criminal enterprises, and by the complicity of the majority of the elected and unelected politicians, lawyers and judges, civil servants and marine forces aiding their arrival, together with the covert help of the French state and the international pressure of UN and other quangos.
Just get used to the fact that this will not change.
And this was no different under the Tories,
August 15, 2024
A place called Thornton Hall in Ireland is being developed at great expense for so called āasylum seekersā needing āinternational protectionā, whatever that is (and protection from whom?). It is being bolted on to an existing community of 200 people. The ānewcomersā, all young Middle Eastern fighting-age males, number 280. In a stroke, the original inhabitants are rendered a minority in their own home.
Chilling, frightening, evil and disgraceful.
I know this particular example is in Ireland, but it seems similar schemes are under consideration/underway in the rest of the British Isles. I would just like to ask – who approved this, who decided it, why did they decide it, and how can we get rid of them?
August 15, 2024
Across the UK, but particularly in the South, insufficient housing has been built to meet need as expressed by household formation. This is a failure over decades. No wonder house prices are so high!. The severe shortage is current but will continue to increase dramatically whilst immigration of all types remains high.
New Towns are a good idea but not a short or medium term solution. Like full sized nuclear power stations, they take decades of planning (as well as town planning) to enable the installation of appropriate infrastructure before a single home is built.
Take Sherford which straddles the Plymouth and South Hams Council boundaries. It was due to start in 2007 with 300 houses to be built by 2009. No building commenced before 2015 and today only a little over 1000 homes have been built out of a planned for 5500.
August 15, 2024
Iād go for NET ZERO, or NET NEGATIVE.
August 15, 2024
New towns or just more houses is the wrong question. The house building in this country is wholly sub-optimal. It got off on the wrong foot by creating miniature country houses with gardens which waste a lot of space and terraces with several floors instead of flats which do not involve walking up and down stairs all day.
Housing density aught to be increased substantially by building high quality blocks of flats and not sub-standard collapsing rubbish onced beloved of the Tories so they could boast about how many ‘houses’ they had built in a year. Living in flats gives people much more time to do useful things instead of mowing lawns which are a waste of time and space. Many large towns and cities in other advanced countries had cracked the problems of urban living better than we have so that these are desirable and sought after places to live.
Little boxes create wholly undesirable problems such as huge queues of cars wanting to get somewhere where the facilities for living and working exist apart from their gobbling up agricultural land permanently which the country cannot afford to lose.
Planning permission should not be available for developments which have less than six stories even if they are commercial premises.
August 15, 2024
The intention of any government should be to increase GDP per capita as it is only this that makes the people here wealthier. Increasing GDP per se, simply makes everyone poorer by sucking in less able and qualified people, increasing our costs immensely and reducing the quiality of life for everyone already here.
The only beneficiaries are the big corporations, but that is at our expense.
I have just returned from a holiday in Switzerland which has a population density of 226 people per Sq Km. The figure for the UK is 279. GDP per capita tells a very different story : $98,800 for Switzerland. Ours is less than half at $46,125 ! The wealth of the Swiss population is obvious wherever you go in the country.
Net inward migration “in the tens of thousands” was Cameron’s idea and most people would choose that option.
That would allow some movement to support the NHS with our aging population, and allow the government to target a few people to come for high end jobs that the economy needs.
August 16, 2024
Also obvious wherever you go in Swiss towns and cities is the high proportion of migrants. There’s also the fact that Switzerland holds the record in Europe, I believe, for citizenship granted to foreigners. Perhaps Swiss prosperity is mainly to do with the success of their banking system in attracting finance, and the fact that they invest their money in local businesses.
August 15, 2024
There isn’t enough spare land currently unused so the government would need to decide priorities for discontinuing current use by introducing incentives and penalties. Special planning rules would required.
Would public funding be taken from taxation or a subscription scheme?
Would the government decide who should live in these new towns. Would immigrants have priority? Would there be a forced mix of socio-economic groups, or priority given to lower groups?
Integrated transport planning is obviously required. Where are the employers located?
Clearly also new schools, colleges, health facilities, shops, leisure facilities would be needed. Churches? Mosques? Divide into religious quarters?
Clearly this is a much larger project than simply allowing more houses to be built and requires massive investment, planning and consultation. And without care the result is likely to be a soulless ghetto that would justify human inhabitants vandalising it and razing it to the ground.
Does the UK have anyone with the necessary vision to avoid such an outcome? Even if it does the government would be bound to crush it in a swamp of utilitarianism. Labour would ensure new towns would be sink estates and xxxxxx ghettos.
August 17, 2024
We should aim to stabilise our population, so we don’t need to keep building over more and more of our once green and pleasant land. Immigration should be very much the exception, not the norm. We should grow our economy by increasing efficiency and productivity.
I don’t mind people coming here to study at our universities, *provided* they go home at the end of their course. And we want our universities to be internationally-renowned institutions, so no problem if they recruit professors and researchers from all over the world – have an academic visa that’s tied to working in a university. But we have too many universities and many of them are just visa farms. The poor-quality ones should be shut down.
If people want to establish a business here and bring a lot of money to invest, that’s okay – there won’t be massive numbers of them and they’ll pay their own way. Likewise high-level performers in the arts and sports who want to base themselves here, no problem.
And if a British citizen marries a foreign national they should be able to bring their spouse to live with them here without jumping through ridiculous hoops – but the spousal visa should only be valid as long as they remain married and living together – and there should be checks – and the foreign national should not be entitled to British citizenship until they’ve lived here with their British spouse for at least ten years.
But people coming here as cheap servants for the ruling class, undercutting British workers’ wages? No thanks. The preferred number of that sort of immigrant is zero.