Planning debate

Yesterday Parliament debated the proposed planning changes the  governments is consulting about.

I will post my speech later this morning.

I made two main points. In order to eliminate the shortage of homes the government needs to set sustainable levels of immigration.

As the government wishes to level up it needs to encourage the building of more Executive homes in places that want to attract more investment  and jobs. The construction of many larger homes in the South East has led to a lot of well qualified and experienced people buying homes in the area which in turn attracts more businesses and investors who wish to recruit the talent. Levelling up requires more balance of dearer homes and talent around the entire country.

105 Comments

  1. Mark B
    June 22, 2021

    Good morning.

    There will be no let up in the numbers coming here – End of !

    On top of these so called ‘Executive Homes, the government need to plan homes for all these ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS as they and their families will need somewhere to live. Or am I to take it that the government will just cram them into another ‘sink estate’ so that they can ‘Level Up’ along with the natives ?

    /sarc

    1. Everhopeful
      June 22, 2021

      Agree..no let up! It suits them!!
      Bl**dy cheek preaching to us about saving the beastly NHS when they keep piling more and more and more patients into the country.

    2. MiC
      June 22, 2021

      Anyone really here illegally who is found will be expelled. The clue is in “illegally”.

      Re the unaffordability of housing, there are over six hundred thousand empty homes, and a similar number of unbuilt planning permissions, we read. The developers also own an untold amount of brownfield pending applications, but would rather strangle supply, it appears.

      Anyway, we have streets of houses for one pound each in Liverpool, in County Durham, and elsewhere. This would seem to prove that local market outlook, and not general UK population pressure, is the main determinant of property prices. If population were the prime reason for high residential property prices, then why did they fall sharply between 2008 and 2011, while it was still steadily growing, just as previously?

      No, it is mainly land-banking, speculation, lax credit, and low interest rates, which are keeping the bubble generally inflated. There has also been a drastic fall in people marketing their homes during lockdown.

      The largest single factor – amongst many – causing demand is divorce in any case, though population growth is, of course, also significant, I read.

      1. Peter2
        June 22, 2021

        MiC
        “Anyone who is here illegally…will be expelled”
        In theory.
        In practice the numbers expelled compared the the total of people here illegally is tiny.

      2. Micky Taking
        June 22, 2021

        The ÂŁ1 house was covered before. Slum streets, vandalism, roof caved in, plumbing archaic, no doors, no windows, surrounded by crack houses — – – -you going to buy one? Oh go on!

    3. Alan Jutson
      June 22, 2021

      +1

    4. nota#
      June 22, 2021

      @Mark B – Grand Standing on a massive scale to deflect from ineptitude

    5. turboterrier
      June 22, 2021

      Mark B

      Illegal immigrants?
      If this government and parliament had any balls and guts they would have made this problem top priority.
      All the talk all the excuses are just hot air. Until these people realise that to come here is a waste of their money and effort they will keep on coming. This lot will still turn a blind eye wrong their hands and do three fifths of naff all.

      1. turboterrier
        June 22, 2021

        “Wrong hands” should have been wring

      2. Jim Whitehead
        June 22, 2021

        Turboterrier, +1

    6. a-tracy
      June 22, 2021

      The highers up always cram them into ‘sink estates’ so the lovies and wokes that say we should take everyone don’t have to live with them. They don’t send their children to schools that have multiple problems of low language acquisition and skills and the whole level of the school drops and your child (if you can’t stick them on one of the six coaches every morning taking children out of the area) gets held back and if they’re already one of those struggling in the middle of the set – the reason they didn’t get into a better school elsewhere – they’re stuck in a class on the slow track. The schools and doctors are the biggest difficulties in these areas, the demands are higher for no extra pay so the best teachers go elsewhere into schools with higher streams and less demand. The actual teachers are doctors that teach in areas of high deprivation, immigration, traveller communities etc are actually the real heroes in this Country, either that or those that have so many warnings on their files for being rubbish it is their only choice left.

      1. Peter
        June 22, 2021

        a-tracy,

        Those that have already climbed the ladder have now sawn off the bottom rungs.

        We used to have big class sizes but teachers still managed to do their job and there were grammar schools for brighter pupils, as MiC will remember, teaching Latin (and Greek in my case) because that’s what public schools used to offer.

        There was plenty of work too. Much of it was pensionable – what the tabloids laughably renamed as ‘gold-plated’ pensions, as if they were somehow undeserved.

      2. Peter
        June 22, 2021

        Meanwhile four Labour MPs have just blocked the conclusions of a committee they were part of :-
        “The forgotten: how White working-class pupils have been let down, and how to change it”

        How to alienate your traditional voters by pretending an issue does not exist.

        Mind you, one of them is the Labour MP for Putney which must have an rapidly-decreasing white working class even on the Roehampton council estate.

        1. a-tracy
          June 22, 2021

          I followed the link to the report on Guido F at lunch, an interesting read.

        2. MiC
          June 22, 2021

          Yes, many children in that category are very badly let down indeed – by their parents and other associates.

          There are schools in W. Yorks where such pupils have to be taught English As A Foreign Language because their vernacular is inadequate to enable them to understand their teacher.

          1. Micky Taking
            June 22, 2021

            There are millions of children all over the UK where English is not their nor their parents first language. Do keep up Martin. And a few hundred thousand French were in S.East – possibly a lot rushed home….au revoir.

          2. MiC
            June 23, 2021

            Rubbish – nearly all children with English as a second language speak it far better than many Yorkshire ones do as their only one – hence the need for this scheme.

    7. glen cullen
      June 22, 2021

      ‘’the government needs to set sustainable levels of immigration’’
      This government needs a moratorium

  2. Lifelogic
    June 22, 2021

    We should of course have little or no stamp duty so people can move homes without having massive tax bills to deter them from moving to homes that suit them better releasing their old one. Turnover taxes are invariably a bad idea and also make some build projects not worth doing restricting supply. But Socialist (& anti entrepreneurs) Sunak is putting stamp duty up substantially very shortly by up to ÂŁ15k.

    High stamp duty deters buyers from buying smaller properties and slowly trading up as people used to do before we had such absurd stamp duty rates (even up to 15%)

    1. Will in Hampshire
      June 22, 2021

      Agreed, stamp duty strongly incentivizes people to buy once and then to stay put.

    2. Lifelogicc
      June 22, 2021

      Damian Green the “no nation”, fake Tory MP (PPE yet again) was on GBnews just now, discussing the costs of social care.

      He seems to want even higher NI for people over 40 and a raid on everyone’s property equity too. We already have up to 15% stamp duty, council tax and 40% IHT plus 28% CGT on many of them (without indexation) and rentals are even taxed on non existing profits now too. So how many raids of property (or wealth taxes) does this appalling socialist want for government to piss down the drain? Why not cut out the 50%+ of government that does nothing of value or even does positive harm. Start with HS2, net zero, electric car subsidies, wind subsidies, the advertising propaganda budget, the BBC
so much fat to cut.

      1. Jim Whitehead
        June 22, 2021

        LL, +1

      2. Lifelogicc
        June 22, 2021

        Damian Green even thought people would have paid off their student loans by the time they are 40. Hardly mate look at the numbers. Certainly not with 6% + interest rates, most will never be repaid at all in full. Only written of at about age 50+ in general 25 years after first payments post graduation. Most are for fairly worthless degrees too, in fairly worthless subjects and often at fairly worthless universities. Another problem created by government and politicians.

        1. a-tracy
          June 22, 2021

          Lifelogic. Perhaps our new GB News could investigate your claim about the % of students paying off their loan. I suspect it is a lot higher a %, especially for the 1st plan loans.

          Blair introduced student loan fees in 1998. ÂŁ1000 pa so typically ÂŁ3000 in total with no interest. One would hope that every student with a degree was able to pay that off in total in the past 23 years before they turn 44 years of age as the repayment level was about ÂŁ16,000 pa in income.

          Even at ÂŁ3000 pa (ÂŁ9000 total student tuition fee loans) for students starting University in 2006 could be investigated. These loans from 2006 are now 15 years old so halfway through the repayment term, what % have been half way repaid?

    3. Alan Jutson
      June 22, 2021

      +1

  3. Everhopeful
    June 22, 2021

    I thought the whole point of the relaxed attitude towards all immigration was to push up house prices and thus assets? Get the stock market buzzing. Sell off our housing to rich foreigners to be left empty, just as investments? Then concrete over the countryside for those escaping the overcrowded cities.
    I mean, we don’t have kind governments which give a single sh*t about anyone so why would they be touchy feely about newcomers and actually care about homing them.
    The whole refugee thing is just SOOOO racist and cruel. Encourage dinghies by promising houses! Tut!

    1. MiC
      June 22, 2021

      Haven’t you figured it yet?

      Why do you think that Enoch Powell went round the Commonwealth, begging people to come here as nurses and as bus drivers and then in short order turned round and presented these he had encouraged as a threat to those whose families were rooted here?

      Do you think for one moment that he didn’t know what he was doing?

      1. Peter2
        June 22, 2021

        MiC
        I hadn’t heard your tale about Mr Powell going round the Commonwealth begging people to come here.
        I did recall him asking Jamaican qualified nurses to work in our NHS
        Is this what you really meant?

        1. MiC
          June 22, 2021

          It is not a “tale”.

          Jamaica is one of the places in the Commonwealth to which he went as Health Secretary for that purpose.

          1. Peter2
            June 22, 2021

            And so what MiC?
            You intimation was:-
            Mr Powel travelled all over the Commonwealth begging people to come to the UK and then changed his mind and wanted them to leave.
            Both claims by you are plainly completely false.
            More nonsense from you unravels at the first touch.

          2. MiC
            June 23, 2021

            It’s all pretty well documented.

            I leave it to others to interpret the reasoning behind those facts.

  4. Shirley M
    June 22, 2021

    Why not tackle the source of the problem, before you get onto the solution? Too much immigration and especially too much illegal immigration. The last people we want are those who are willing to break UK law before they even get here, knowing they are entering the UK illegally. All immigrants should respect all of UK law. All of it! They only respect UK law when they demands their ‘rights’. Allowing illegal immigration is encouragement to ignore any UK law that doesn’t suit their personal circumstances.

    1. Ian Wragg
      June 22, 2021

      The tory party is pro mass immigration.
      Otherwise they would be trying to control it.
      We need a Farage type figure in charge otherwise we will become the minority.

      1. glen cullen
        June 22, 2021

        Agree

      2. MiC
        June 23, 2021

        Nigel Farage said that he would prefer immigrant workers from the Commonwealth, e.g. from India, to those from the European Union.

        If you look at those stats recently then it seems that his wish has been granted, so I assume that you are content?

    2. Dave Andrews
      June 22, 2021

      Illegal immigration is in the thousands per year – legal immigration in the hundreds of thousands.
      Why does a government that made a commitment to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands approve so many entrants?
      Very little illegal immigration in reality. Why run the gauntlet of stowing away in a container when you can float out to sea and be “rescued” by Border Force and taxied to the UK? Hardly breaking any laws apart from putting out to sea in an unworthy vessel.

      1. Ian Wragg
        June 22, 2021

        Maybe only a few thousand. Over the years that becomes a significant amount.
        Most are uneducated and unemployable as Merkel found out.
        I expect a lot of the dinghy crowd are fleeing a hostile Germany.

    3. Sharon
      June 22, 2021

      Shirley

      +1

      I agree! Break the law by entering and then use the law ‘to demand’ things
 not quite decent law abiding citizens in the making!

    4. Alan Jutson
      June 22, 2021

      +1

    5. Andy
      June 22, 2021

      It isn’t illegal to arrive by dinghy to claim asylum. So your premise is wrong.

      It is also not asylum seekers, often packed in cramped a dozen or more to home thanks to dodgy landlords, who are causing the housing crisis.

      The crisis is caused by elderly nimbys. Granny rattling around in her large detached home all by herself – objecting to every planning application whilst refusing to move to more suitable accommodation.

      1. a-tracy
        June 22, 2021

        Andy, did all the elderly females in your direct family downsize into flats? Are you a bit upset that they haven’t perhaps?

        1. Andy
          June 22, 2021

          Yes – they all did. Though two of them did so too late in their lives.

          1. a-tracy
            June 23, 2021

            Andy, so you can see evidence from your own family that a lot of people did make the decision to downsize into retirement type flats a town near to me is filling up with hundreds of them. All my husband’s Uncles and Aunts did downsize too. One of the reasons for people not moving are these retirement flats are they are more expensive than say a three-bedroomed home people are in, many areas don’t have them available. Bungalows cost ÂŁ30,000 extra so people perhaps without your family wealth don’t have the option.

            When the councils all tried to encourage people on full housing benefit to downsize from big council/HA houses the people on the left all called it a ‘bedroom tax’ and made a political point-scoring out of it. No one should be forced to downsize without a smaller local lower-cost retirement property available, but we should be asking why the HA’s and Councils haven’t invested in them everywhere there are more than 250 HA Council homes to release family homes back to poor families who are struggling living in expensive private rentals because priority over council stock is going to new incomers (if you have evidence to dispute what I’m saying about the number of people in council/ha homes that have been given those homes since the year 2000 then please give me the evidence).

      2. Micky Taking
        June 22, 2021

        Did I misunderstand? Did we force these poor people to come here and live in bad conditions on our benefits system?

        1. a-tracy
          June 23, 2021

          Micky, it is a self-created ‘crisis’ as Andy likes to call it. The whole system of asylum processing needs sorting out.

          I wonder are all the lawyers or qualified? staff processing applications Crown lawyers/staff on the public purse or self-employed and paid a set fee to process each applicant?

          I wonder how much did the British government spend on this in the year 2020? How many were processed? How quickly? How many were returned? Where are we putting people up, how much is their housing, heating, legal aid, interpreters etc. costing? Just for 2020?

    6. Jim Whitehead
      June 22, 2021

      Shirley M, Well put, +1

  5. J Bush
    June 22, 2021

    State approved ever growing population into a finite space. Replacing even more grass space/farmland with more concrete. Result – more carbon. How do the same green fanatics propose to square the circle and achieve zero carbon as well? Kill off the people…

    1. Lifelogicc
      June 22, 2021

      The dire or second rate & largely shut communist NHS (with up to 10 million awaiting procedures) is surely doing much of this killing. JCVI/Gov. could not even vaccinate in a rational order thus killing even more people.

    2. Frances Truscott
      June 22, 2021

      greenies dont touch managing population. We are still rewarding people for feckless breeding as if we were post WW2

    3. Everhopeful
      June 22, 2021

      Errrr
.ummmm.
      Yes?

    4. Andy
      June 22, 2021

      The world needs fewer people in it. But you slashed development aid – which means projects like girls education, which leads to lowering birth rates, get axed and we ultimately end up with more people. More of whom find their way here.

      1. Frances Truscott
        June 22, 2021

        it doesnt in gender apartheid misogynistic cultures thats the problem. I work with a group which supports many charities here and abroad. They dont even try to scholarship girls. They get married off too young.

      2. a-tracy
        June 22, 2021

        Andy, the UK is one of the most generous nations in the World, not just in direct government aid but in Charitable donations, time and skill donation of medics and others, schools. You absolutely NEVER admire what is achieved by our tiny insignificant little rump of a Country.

      3. Cheshire Girl
        June 22, 2021

        Why on earth are we paying for the education of girls in other Countries! The question needs to be asked as to what their own governments are doing for them. But that question is never asked.

        If they arrive on our shores illegally, they should be denied entry.

        1. glen cullen
          June 22, 2021

          Agree

    5. Iain Moore
      June 22, 2021

      I would like to hear Johnson square that circle, it is the great big Pachyderm sitting there they all skirt around. It is an amazing example of self censorship that all our politicians and media comply with, they can’t be that stupid and not see the inconsistency, but it seems we all have to pretend it isn’t a problem and we can somehow magic up Zero CO2 with an ever growing population.

      Of course on the face of it the polices were never meant to add up, the Greenery was always a tool for the left to tell us how we will be allowed to live our lives, the comrades love doing that, and the mass immigration, a replacement to their failed class war strategy, a race grievance industry, which has been a great deal more successful agenda, here they get to tear down our history, national identity, and nation. Taken with the overall objective in mind, for the left, the policies do add up.

  6. Lifelogicc
    June 22, 2021

    OTT greencrap in the building regs is also pushing up building costs, prices and killing off some new builds, extensions or conversions for no good reason.

    Sherelle Jacobs today in the Telegraph:-

    “Levelling up threatens to descend into levelling down Tory heartlands
    Does the Government understand the difference between spreading wealth and taxing it all away?”

    Clearly they do not. Tax, borrow and piss down the drain with bloated government, net zero lunacy with dire, second rate and declining public services, this is clearly the misguided Boris/Sunak’s Governments agenda.

    1. Lifelogicc
      June 22, 2021

      Is it true the government have spent ~ ÂŁ400 million on adverts to deliberately scare vulnerable people with Covid propaganda? This while the NHS is failing millions.

      1. Blake
        June 22, 2021

        What are you complaining about – are we not giving the NHS 350 million per week extra according to that pledge on the side of the red bus back in 2016

    2. nota#
      June 22, 2021

      @Lifelogicc – With this Conservative Government there will be no levelling up, as that is only possible when wealth is created. This Conservative Government hates that, that is why their pre occupation is exporting our capabilities under the banner of going ‘green’ and keeping us under EU Control. It about the ‘sound bite’, ‘Grand Standing’ and ensure todays ‘virtual signal’ is out there.

      You don’t have to do anything as long as you keep telling people you are.

  7. turboterrier
    June 22, 2021

    Having just returned from 5 days in West Sussex the amount of new construction is frightening. Villages and the land between them either filled or in the process of being built on with mixed sized houses. It is and always was that way but now the Achilles heel of lack of infrastructure is plain for all to see.
    Local residents all talk about traffic grid lock , every thousand homes relates to 1600 vehicles, GP and dental services overloaded, schools over subscribed, emergency and social services stretched and the list just goes on an on.
    The time for talking has got to stop and real action needs to be taken on efficient effective infrastructure, immigration, relocation of businesses, sonic fast broadband to assist businesses to set up in less housing developed areas. Get businesses to relocate and the jobs follow which in turn encourages housing not forgetting the social needs and requirements.
    Developers prefer the south east there is a high demand and higher prices they are virtually selling off of plans.
    IMHO the infrastructure has to take the priority because if ignored the government is building up more problems in social and welfare services and the quality of life for the inhabitants in years to come.
    Housing is like energy, social services, transport, emergency services always someone else’s problem everything done on a 5 year cycle. If and when it goes wrong someone else can sort it out.
    All parties are going to have to stick to their mandates and manifesto no more changing track on the whim of a leader or his advisors. Present EXACTLY what is planned and stand or fall on it. If nothing else, you owe it to the people especially the tax payers.. Do you really think all the past two years of EVs and removal of gas heating and its cost would have got the party elected?

  8. Everhopeful
    June 22, 2021

    Isn’t this “levelling up” rot just pure communism which generally involves levelling DOWN for most except the “elite”?
    Just another transfer of wealth.
    A lot of us aren’t enjoying all this very much!

    “Chesham and Amersham” not “Calais”!

  9. agricola
    June 22, 2021

    Setting sustainable levels of immigration though desirable is meaningless in the UK. For reasons best known to government any immigrant se

    tting forth in a rubber boat is picked up by Border Force and brought to the UK. We have the obscenity of the french being complicit in the process by escorting them until BF can perform their humanitadian act.

    Then there are the literal millions who are already here, supported by a parsitic legal profession, should they be apprehended and be determined to remain.

    Finally there are reputed to be in excess of ten thousand in prison. Why, they should be deported.

    The market should demand where houses are required. There must be an enormous market in and around London for affordable housing probably rented for essential workers. Government national and local will have to build them and rent them commensurate with said workers salaries.

    The market will cater for those who wish to live in the Cotswolds and Hampshire because the largely work from home.

    You level up to use a dubious phrase by first creating a means to earn a living wherever deemed desirable. You then allow the building of suitable attractive housing for them to purchase.

    As i believe people only remain in a home for around eight years, you need to have a long hard look at the mortage system to cater for peoples mobility. 100 year mortgages for instance. The gap between cost of housing, deposits, and salaries needs some clever thinking.

    1. agricola
      June 22, 2021

      8 hours and still no moderated. One who must be a relation has six posted to date. Even our favourite noxtious troll manages six, a more distant relation I hope.

  10. David Peddy
    June 22, 2021

    I loathe the use /misuse of the word ‘Executive’ and I am surprised at you Sir JR employing it . Peter Tinniswood lampooned it and there was even a cricket bat called ‘Executive’!!
    I thought net migration had fallen post Brexit with the return of many EU citizens but maybe I am wrong ?
    Otherwise good points made here.
    What people are objecting to is:
    i: the removal of their rights of objection and ability to resist
    ii: building on green belt or green field sites and the destruction of amenities /spaces when there is so
    much brownfield space to build on and so much conversion work possible to provide homes of former
    office and retail sites
    and retail space

  11. DOM
    June 22, 2021

    Lammy and the now all-controlling, all-powerful race lobby that appears have taken control of many institutions have more power to control immigration and the entire issue of race, immigration and identity than the entire Tory party. This appalling state of affairs means one thing, inaction on the party of any Tory PM who is now so sensitive not to the demands of the voter but to the demands of Mr Lammy and his outriders

    Immigration will continue to explode and that immigration is political and deliberate and organised.

    We are seeing the deliberate reconfiguration of the demography of the UK and the Tory party is complicit not because it agrees with it but because it doesn’t have the will to confront it.

    The new Tory party is compassionate, humanitarian and thoughtful of the needs of the vulnerable, apparently. Yes, it’s bullshit but perceptions and emotions are now the only thing that matters. Deceit and lies

    The British taxpayer is having to finance a UK political class’s wet dream of a nation that is ‘diverse, multicultural and tolerant’. All heart warming indeed but the truth is that this agenda is political and politics is about power

    Divide and conquer using human identity is now the new Marxist weapon

  12. Sea_Warrior
    June 22, 2021

    ‘… sustainable levels of immigration’ = Net Zero.

  13. Peter
    June 22, 2021

    Your first point about immigration limits is correct. However, the government will avoid setting a number it can be judged on. It will prefer to make a statement that attempts to mollify critics once again. No action will be taken.

    Your second point is rather strange. Yes, more housing is needed. I am not sure that needs to be what you refer to as ‘executive homes’ though. Good sound accommodation that is fit for purpose is a broader and more sensible objective. In the days when politicians had housing targets I don’t remember Supermac ever referring to the number of executive homes that had been built in the country.

    I also don’t believe that prosperity follows housing availability. There needs to be opportunity in an area first. Even in the Dickensian days of dark, satanic mills the factory owner always managed to live in a nice house. It seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse to think that if you build big houses then an area is set up to do well. If there is a thriving business then all the rest usually comes later.

    1. graham1946
      June 22, 2021

      Whether or not ‘executive homes’ introduce new high quality jobs is extremely moot and on the whole I’d say they don’t. The ones around here mostly contain people who commute to high paid jobs, leaving low paid part time jobs to the plebs.
      However, what they do, is to get authorities to take more of an interest in an area, are more likely to keep the roads in better repair, keep the verges tidy and provide better medical and educational standards, as the high intelligence, high paid won’t put up with the tat poor people have to and voice their opinions in high places. MP’s are far more likely to take notice of wealth than poverty.

      1. a-tracy
        June 22, 2021

        I agree graham, but the local area meetings were stopped by the Tories actually and never came back when Labour took back over the Council for people to have a voice after a change of Borough/County council set up demanded by Labour. They don’t keep the verges tidy on the private estates, the local shops are a mess so everyone has to travel out of town. The local transport is poor other than coaches trundling out of the town each morning taking all the kids from the new houses away from the rubbish local school. The areas of high employment don’t have fast public transport, it takes 3 hours with waits for links to get to the nearest City and 1hr 15 mins to get to an estate of high employment because the bus company insists on going the long way around.

  14. Roy Grainger
    June 22, 2021

    If you give local communities control over whether new housing developments are allowed then there will be no new housing developments. Interestingly this even include people like Andy who profess concern for “the young” but don’t want any affordable homes built in their own leafy part of the South East. It is a tough problem which Boris is totally ill-equipped to manage, once he sees the polling and focus group and by-election results around his planning reforms he’ll drop them and we’ll muddle on as before.

  15. formula57
    June 22, 2021

    Clearly enforcement is required after “….the government needs to set sustainable levels of immigration”. What if the sustainable level is nil?

    The likely fate of the executive homes to be built in the wrong places and that will never be lived in by executives will be to provide subjects for television shows about conversions to two or more dwellings perhaps? The “build them and they will come” approach is surely fanciful as the present lack of such homes is unlikely to be decisive.

    1. graham1946
      June 22, 2021

      Some of the ‘executive homes’ are actually 4 bedroom shells with 5 or 6 bedrooms crammed in and room sizes seem to have gone down in recent years. I believe there used to be a minimum standard for sizes which has no doubt been repealed to assist big builders get more profit. Either that or no-one take any notice anymore.

  16. Bob Duxon
    June 22, 2021

    Building the dream is a tv series. The owners require low running costs in heating their dream house. Here in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire this is the last thing builders think of as they concrete us over.

  17. Frances Truscott
    June 22, 2021

    No one should be having children on other peoples taxes. We dont need “executive homes” in places without jobs transport or infrastructure. The local horror is they are already planning to move the GPs to an area only accessible by car on one of the many new estates.
    We dont have any jobs here and no capacity for more people.

  18. No Longer Anonymous
    June 22, 2021

    We were sold local housing for local people.

    It certainly doesn’t seem to have made the local people who got them happy.

    Crime has shot through the roof in once peaceable areas since these new estates were built… just as the Tories cut the police.

    Large housing estates for local people turns local people into violent criminals, it seems. *Sarcasm*

    ****** The most important question of the day, surely. WHY ARE WE STILL IN LOCKDOWN AND MASKED UP ?

    When is Prime Minister Whitty-Vallance going to let us out ? We are now falling further and further behind.

    That blonde chappy, woss’is name ???

    The most awful Government and PM we’ve ever had. Our vaccine effort squandered.

  19. Bryan Harris
    June 22, 2021

    The government needs to get a grip on immigrants and illegals coming to this country – Why do they still welcome all and sundry with open arms and free boat trips?

    We hear there are not enough of the right kinds of talent in this country. How on Earth could we reach a point where we are so dependent on foreigners to do certain tasks, when we have an enormous number of people already in this country who could be trained up?

    It seems we are short of drivers to deliver good and food items to outlets – short of nurses, short of bar-staff, to mention but a few.
    There is absolutely no point in trying to squeeze more building space out of our small Island when it puts such a strain on the infrastructure – WE have to start making better use of what we have without importing more problems!

    1. a-tracy
      June 22, 2021

      Bryan, UK drivers weren’t trained up because EU drivers bringing in all our EU imports offered back loads a lot cheaper, they don’t have to pay local ved, for the roads, they don’t even buy much fuel here.

      The army logistics used to train up loads of HGV drivers.

  20. Alan Jutson
    June 22, 2021

    Too many people are the problem, Thus causing a housing shortage, rising emissions, traffic jams and a longer waiting lists for hospitals, doctors appointments, and school places.

    Has the Government not realised this yet.

  21. nota#
    June 22, 2021

    Sir John, ‘Shortage of Homes’

    That is pure Developer speak. At this moment in time Developers ‘land banks’ have enough planning approvals granted to fulfil the UK’s needs for more than the next 10 years.

    Has there been a shortage of homes in Wokingham in the last 10 years – I think not. The population has only doubled because of incomers, its not a local population growth situation. Like most similar areas Wokingham has had the life strangled out of it by poor quality and proper infrastructure projects that are out of kilter with the demand placed on them.

    Local planning should not be controlled by a Central and Controlling Government. If the Government of the day feels the need to feather the nests of their developer chums, they should ensure that in line with further developments, it is the developers that become responsible for providing the modern infrastructure for a whole area. At no time should this funding for for these projects come from the taxpayer.

    This gives all the appearance of a ‘Grand Standing’ event in Parliament to ‘virtue signal’ they are in control. Were is the economy, were is the prosperity, they cant keep calling themselves Conservatives when they keep fiddling while the County Burns. As with similar events in recent times this appears to be a ‘dead cat’ on the table. This Conservative Government has refused to honour the referendum and let the Country leave the EU. It has refused to support UK Industry, its left our Banking and Services Industry out of any deal with the EU. It is manipulating the removal of NI from the UK. Its sold the UK fishermen out by ‘giving’ another country their recourses that is not reciprocated – with an oops comment. A massive list of ineptitude.

    So what does the Conservative Government do, say planning is the problem, HS2 will answer all our needs being ‘green’ buy buying in from foreign countries is good. Endless efforts at deflection in hope no one will see through it. Would Corbyn have been so bad or different?

  22. SM
    June 22, 2021

    I cannot understand why the ‘authorities’ do not insist that where a large group of Executive homes are built, that a proportionate number of smaller dwellings must also be constructed, perhaps four 1 or 2 bedroom apartments in small blocks, to provide opportunities for first time buyers or parents/grandparents downsizing.

    It would encourage community feeling, and offer considerable help where families could mutually assist across the generations, perhaps lightening the burden on Social Services and Child Care, while also lessening car journeys.

  23. Nig l
    June 22, 2021

    I see Jenrick is reverting to the usual stale politicians reason. We have a duty to build etc. I think correspondents could write a long list of what this ex Tory government has a duty to do but doesn’t.

    An in other news Goldman Sachs is expanding its services in the City despite shouting very loudly that if we left the EU it would retrench. More Remain tosh.

    1. Lifelogic
      June 22, 2021

      +1

  24. Narrow Shoulders
    June 22, 2021

    Although immigration is a large source of increased demand for housing, especially in cities, house prices could not increase the way they have and will continue to do so without the mostly uncontrolled money creation that both the government and banks have embarked upon.

    Too much demand and too much money supply. We could restrict both using interest rates and stricter entry requirement’s.

    I don’t see either of these things happening as our economy is built upon the foundations of property prices.

  25. Andy
    June 22, 2021

    It is a myth that the Tories were trounced in Chesham & Amersham because of planning. The Lib Dem’s support sensible planning – the problem in C&A is that the current plans aren’t sensible.

    It is a given that elderly nimbys object to pretty much all development – but everyone who has tried to get on the property ladder since 1980 recognises the urgent need for more homes.

    Here we need affordable homes for young people, retirement homes for elderly – along with more school spaces and a new doctors surgery. That isn’t what’s planned. It may be that executive homes are needed elsewhere – but they are not needed here.

    The whole country was badly let down in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s when loads of grotty estates were built which have aged badly. Today’s developments need to be attractive, they need to include lots of trees, green spaces, play parks and pretty homes that people are going to want to live in not just this year but in 50 years from now.

    They must be built with solar panels, heat pumps, electric car charging points and rainwater harvesting systems. Infrastructure like new schools, stations, doctors and so on need to be added at the same time. None of this is rocket science. Why do the Tories struggle with it so much? I suspect it is because their voters are largely ‘alright Jack’ and don’t really care much about everyone else. The selfish minority strikes again.

    1. a-tracy
      June 22, 2021

      Andy, what specifically ‘isn’t sensible in the current plans’ for your C&A area?

      Perhaps someone from C&A can tell us if the plans include affordable new homes for young people? What %? Retirement homes for the elderly? What %? It would also be interesting to know what available local school places there are and what % are being projected.

  26. Andy
    June 22, 2021

    Tomorrow marks 5 years since you mostly voted for Brexit.

    How would you all say it’s going?

    (I am crying with laughter as I write that. Genuinely – thank you all for the comedy. Sausage anyone?)

    1. nota#
      June 22, 2021

      @Andy – Main stream left wind jargon once more. The UK voted to leave to the EU – not a Brexit that is something else. This Conservative Government has completely ignored the wishes of the people and have refused to leave the EU.

      1. nota#
        June 22, 2021

        @nota# – And yes the Remainers are still fighting and this Conservative Government is working with them to ensure we never leave.

        They have learnt a lot from the LibDems say what you think the people want to hear, do nothing as its just politics’.

      2. MiC
        June 22, 2021

        As Andy says, it is comedy.

        Sorry that you don’t seem to like many of today’s humorists though.

        Perhaps a tribute to one of yesterday’s might cheer you?

        What a wonderful day it is – yes folks, what a wonderful day it is, for looking at all the Leave voters, queuing for hours in the non-EU Citizens lanes at Continental airports, and saying “How about that for stand-up comedy?”

        1. Peter2
          June 22, 2021

          Are they really queuing for hours MiC?
          Any data or proof?
          Everywhere?
          Every airport?
          Every hour of every day and night?

          1. MiC
            June 22, 2021

            Thanks Pete – that’s far funnier than anything that I could ever write.

        2. Micky Taking
          June 22, 2021

          Why would I care? Anyway my circle of contacts say most airports apart from holiday resorts are ghost towns.

        3. Peter2
          June 22, 2021

          Good effort at not answering any of the questions I asked MiC
          So no proof. No data No links to 24/7 queues
          Run away run away.
          You lefties are so funny.

    2. D.Luded
      June 22, 2021

      Tomorrow also marks the second anniversary of some famous words:
      “The cunning plan to secure the Chancellorship for you is, so far, going perfectly” 23/06/2019 5:13am

  27. Andy
    June 22, 2021

    Mr Redwood you tweet today about “Brexit food shortages imposed by the EU.”

    When food runs short prices go up. It ain’t gonna be me and my family going hungry. But good luck to your Brexit backing readers.

    Reply Read my tweet. It said nothing about food shortage

    1. Andy
      June 22, 2021

      Apologies – it was a parody account I read. Just sounded real.

      1. Peter
        June 22, 2021

        A bit like your posts then, Andy.

  28. Christine
    June 22, 2021

    The building of expensive houses in the north of England has been happening for years. Ten years ago I used to live in a village in the North West of England with circa 600 houses. Now I live in a town after 2,400 houses have been built with more new estates going up each month. We used to be able to walk and cycle along country roads surrounded by sheep and cows but this has all gone. People in the north have a higher disposable income than people in the south so can afford expensive houses. House building on a massive scale is happening everywhere. This government has been in power for decades and talks the talk about reducing immigration but they never deliver and I doubt they ever will.

  29. nota#
    June 22, 2021

    from the MsM

    A new Royal Yacht will “pay for itself many, many times over” because it will bring in investment from the rest of the world, Matt Hancock has insisted.

    On what basis does he believe that ? Its a different world today someone swanning around in a ship doesn’t create business – face to face contact may. Its just a Grand Standing ego trip, that ties up taxpayer money and valuable armed forces personnel.

    1. Blake
      June 22, 2021

      Sending royal yachts around the world might have impressed the natives in the 18th century but alas not today – it would be a stupid waste of money

  30. nota#
    June 22, 2021

    From the MsM, Robert Jenrick is quoted as saying “we’re tackling land banking”.

    Its a simple situation to solve. – Developed properties are required to pay local taxes. That is to pay for local amenities and infrastructure, a planning approval only derives its value because of the facilities that local tax provides. Logic if you want to profit from a taxpayer funded resource you need to pay proportionate and equal tax to all others.

    So let them have their barren bit of land sitting their accumulating wealth and profit( don’t be mislead land with planning accrues value in line with existing built properties), but also ensure they contribute tax the same as others in the area.

    The UK is going broke because no one cares about an equitable and fair tax system.

  31. DOM
    June 22, 2021

    Please criminalise Critical Race Theory and all its attendant poison such as ‘White privilege’ before it causes widespread resentment

    We are pissed off with these criminal, rancid, vile, divisive and racist ideas and ideologies

    Your party has an 82 seat majority. Do something useful for once and destroy Marxist teachings across our education system

    It is time for your party to choose which side you’re on. Is it Marxism or is it the moral world

    1. Everhopeful
      June 22, 2021

      I think their preference is apparent.
      Not to mention the fact that they have been sucking up to the Marxists for years.
      I do wonder about the MPs who dramatically denounce lockdowns, wokery etc.
      Are they for real?

  32. nota#
    June 22, 2021

    It might at first sight appear counter intuitive. But, the worst thing that could happen is ‘help to buy’. The UK for some time quite correctly moved on from so-called means testing, the downside with that is now any subsidies or help does in the main finish up being given primarily given to those that already have the resources. That then causes price explosion making things harder for those that seek their first stepping stone. More often than not well intentioned help does the opposite of the intention and feeds the problem.

    These type of actions have consequences – most unintended. The ‘land bank’ is to some extent the developers waiting for a hand out from the taxpayer directly or indirectly so they can maximise their profit.

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