On 2014-04-06 12:14:34 +0000, Martin said:

On Sun, 6 Apr 2014 11:12:27 +0100, Sacha wrote:

On 2014-04-05 21:40:35 +0000, Bob Hobden said:

"kay" wrote
In my area, a high proportion of the development is planned to be on the
green belt, development on brownfield land has all but ceased (it's
cheaper to build on fields), and nationally there is a large pool of
totally unoccupied property.

Despite the national shortage of smaller cheaper properties, most
development is of "executive homes" - don't cost much more to build but
greater proportional profits.

If all we protect are National Parks, what proportion of the population
live near enough to one to benefit regularly from enjoyment of the
natural environment?

If we keep building outwards from cities on to agricultural land, what
prospect do we ever have of being less reliant on imported food?

I'm not giving any answers - there wouldn't be so much argument if there
were easy answers.


Considering the number of people with two or more homes, you can only
live in one at a time, if they made it very expensive to have two homes
then maybe a lot would come onto the market. If you travel around, say,
Hampshire you will come across villages that are all but deserted
during the week but on Friday evening all the London crowd arrive for
just two days. It's the also the main reason the pubs and shops close
down, no locals.

Try Salcombe in winter. ;-(

and small villages in Cote D'Amor Brittany, where the shops shut for
the winter,
when the tourist season finishes.

It's very sad to see young local people unable to buy homes and houses
shut up for 6 months in the year. Otoh, it's a free market economy etc.
but we've had one old lady customer who put her house on the market and
it was a condition of sale that it was to be a permanent home.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

In message , Martin
writes
On Sun, 6 Apr 2014 15:34:58 +0100, Sacha wrote:

On 2014-04-06 12:14:34 +0000, Martin said:

On Sun, 6 Apr 2014 11:12:27 +0100, Sacha wrote:

On 2014-04-05 21:40:35 +0000, Bob Hobden said:

"kay" wrote
In my area, a high proportion of the development is planned to be on the
green belt, development on brownfield land has all but ceased (it's
cheaper to build on fields), and nationally there is a large pool of
totally unoccupied property.

Despite the national shortage of smaller cheaper properties, most
development is of "executive homes" - don't cost much more to build but
greater proportional profits.

If all we protect are National Parks, what proportion of the population
live near enough to one to benefit regularly from enjoyment of the
natural environment?

If we keep building outwards from cities on to agricultural land, what
prospect do we ever have of being less reliant on imported food?

I'm not giving any answers - there wouldn't be so much argument if there
were easy answers.


Considering the number of people with two or more homes, you can only
live in one at a time, if they made it very expensive to have two homes
then maybe a lot would come onto the market. If you travel around, say,
Hampshire you will come across villages that are all but deserted
during the week but on Friday evening all the London crowd arrive for
just two days. It's the also the main reason the pubs and shops close
down, no locals.

Try Salcombe in winter. ;-(

and small villages in Cote D'Amor Brittany, where the shops shut for
the winter,
when the tourist season finishes.

It's very sad to see young local people unable to buy homes and houses
shut up for 6 months in the year. Otoh, it's a free market economy etc.
but we've had one old lady customer who put her house on the market and
it was a condition of sale that it was to be a permanent home.

It was reported last week that couples earning average incomes can't afford to
buy a house.
Seems to me that there is a huge demand these days for people to live on
their own, including many who are actually in a reasonably permanent
relationship. The demographics have changed since the 60s when young
people got married and started families in their early twenties. Maybe
it's time to revisit high rise buildings. Those in the 60s were poor
designs, poor quality badly built, badly managed and occupied by the
wrong people - families used to living in close knit communities. But
today's young people don't start families until much later, don't want
gardens just somewhere secure to park the car, would prefer to be in
town centres able to walk to and from the pub. I read awhile ago that
the most popular flats in Liverpool where the refurbished high rise.
Maybe with modern building standards privately managed with CCTV etc.
(behave yourself or you're out) high rise might be worth another look.
--
bert