Be Excellent To Each Other

Ummmm . . . my two penneth, haven't read everyone's comments so apologies if I'm just waffling (which is most likely)

Eco Towns are something that I am interested in, construction of circa 5000 new homes is also something I am interested in, being a surveyor and that like.

Typically on a project of this nature a consortium of developers will form a joint venture (in partnership with the local council who will more than likely offer up the land at a discounted rate to encourage development) and develop a phased plan for the construction of the private and social housing over a number of years. It may be that something in the region of 20% of the total number of homes will be social housing (I haven't looked at the website, but I will at some point and then probably be proved wrong in everything I am mumbling). The developer led consortium can then build their 4000 homes, schools, community facilities and infrastructure and sell the houses on the open market, the 1000 or so units of social housing will get transferred to a housing authority who will manage the tennancies for their lifetime.

The Government decided some time ago that their expertise wasn't necessarily in the mass production of housing - the housing developers are best placed to do that given the massive economies of scale involved in the construction of 25+ units at any one time. Moving away from construction, the council/Government can concentrate on managing the housing instead.

Provision of social housing is a part of any development over a certain threshold (I think it's anything over about 15 units, then you will need to consider providing social housing or you wont get planning permission). I think it's noteworthy in this instance because of the shear numbers involved. There's a development in Gloucester called Kingsway that I was involved in and the numbers there are pretty similar. By the way the school we built there is a brilliant building (BREEAM Excellent fact fans) and I love it.

The Eco factor however isn't that special. New homes in Wales will soon be subject to meeting new building regulations and the highest standard of the Code for Sustainable Homes which imposes targets for carbon emissions over the lifecycle of the house(s), combined with a drive for green travel plans that already form part of planning legislation. The opportunities of banging up 40+ sub standard units on a bit of field are few and far between.

As for New Towns, I fucking love 'em. Too many roundabouts in Cwmbran but as easy as it is to mock it for being a Valley's town it is great place. I'll let you know more once I've finished Rebuilding A Valley by the Cwmbran Development Corporation which is a book about how the Welsh Office developed Cwmbran the plans they made and why.

There is a massive shortage of good quality social housing, I'm not sure that I truly believe putting families in knackered old terraces is a good idea. The houses are more often than not falling apart (most of those are victorian terraces already 20 years past their design life and would be a massive maintenance burden whereas a new home should be good for 25 years before anything needs to be done), the communities that they're in are more often than not deprived areas already. Mixing social and private housing at least has the opportunity to create social diversity.

(I've only really written this to look busy for half an hour and I'm sure I'll be set straight by contingents of the Hive Mind)

All of

Damn, been too busy this afternoon.

/Pops in, checks last couple of messages.

All seems in order here, carry on, keep up the good work.

Also, we should make sure that all the building roofs are constructed from the skins of polar bears and everyone who moves in gets given a Chevy V8.

and coal fired heating, natch

Every house fitted as standard with hot and cold running orphan's tears.

Wild caught hippies are trained to keep the boiler well stoked at all times.

And given blankets made of seal hide and asbestos. Stolen from gypsies

When I was looking to move about 2 years ago, there were some "low cost" housing being built that we looked into, the problem was that the cost of buying the house was only for 40% of the house, the rest was made up with rent. I guess it's a way in to the housing market, but it's far from ideal.

Malc

The other successful bids, which will still have to go through the planning process, were named as Rackheath, Norfolk, Whitehill Bordon, East Hampshire and the China Clay Community scheme, near St Austell, Cornwall.

My girlfriend designed this one.

I hope that when it is built, the satellite view on Google Maps that part of it looks like a giant cock and balls.

Is that not Burnley

True.

Blackburn looks like a giant shit tip. And the satellite view is no better.

Your not wrong..

I keep telling her she should design her intials into everythingshe designs, but she won't do it. bloody boring professionals!

FTFY

Would that be part of the CHP system? If so, not a problem, they were already building a CHP (I think) so this will enlarge it slightly.

The Germans and the French spent a hell of a lot of money (Germany actually a few more % points than we did) on financial stimulus methods in the last year. Plus their 'automatical stabilisers' of a more generous welfare state are incredibly Keynesian.

The most annoying thing about the Bicester town (I have a feeling that the 'affordable housing' will end up being housing associated-owned rather than council-owned) is that we were thrown to the wolves in order to prevent it going at Weston. Meanwhile, the town still has few facilities and an uncertain future when the MOD moves to Andover...

Well that is part of the issue here. The Whitehill Borden MOD facility is closing also, and part of the idea with these developments is to attempt to make sure the town doesn't just die when a large proportion of its populace upsticks. Job and career creation are part of the long term aspects which have been weighed up in the decisions for these towns.

This whole New Eco Town plan seems like a disaster waiting to happen to me, for two reasons:

Firstly, all housing should be "affordable". The reason it's not is due to policy failures by government, greed on behalf of bankers and the false belief that property, especially in the South, is not in highly dangerous economic bubble that will leave a huge number of people in financial crisis when the Government's attempts to stave off the inevitable pin-prick eventually fail.

Secondly, it doesn't solve the real problem: that of the North/South divide. What needs to happen is a massive (and real rather than Government allocating Civil Service jobs) investment of jobs "up North". The concentration of wealth and prosperity in the South East needs to be better distributed. I don't think taxation is the answer here, unless it is to give tax breaks to companies willing to make the move - for a lot of companies moving would make a lot of sense as they really don't need to be based in the South and, anyway, the UK is such a small country it's entirely possible to drive practically anywhere within it, perhaps with an overnight stop.

To be fair, the main reason it isn't is because any attempt to impose pricing controls on privately owned property would be a horrific disaster, so the fact that there are more people wanting houses than there are in houses means upwards price pressure. The rest is largely irrelevant.

Hang on, aren't you on holiday? Is it raining there or something?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfo ... 243633.stm

<places a fiver on it being Bicester>

Nah, I'm just a massive nerd.

I was listening to Vince Cable - must have been some time ago now - and his argument was that because the rise in house prices wasn't (and aren't now?) included in inflation measurements the measurements were skewed and therefore Government policy was ineffective.

I'm sure supply and demand plays some part in the rise, but I don't think it can account for the huge rises we've seen. For example, I bought my house in early 1998 for £120,000; the last time I had it valued it was "worth" close to £300,000. It just doesn't seem to me to be a sustainable rate of increase, especially since banks have stopped handing out 10x mortgages with no deposit.

Reducing the availability of mortgages acts as an artificial constraint to mortgage prices, true - but the corrollary (that freely available mortgages force up house prices) is not true. All it means is that the pool of buyers that already want the house (the supply and demand point) are more likely to be able to get it.

Greedy bankers and bad policy certainly are to blame for the amount of people finding out that they can't afford to pay their mortgage, but that's likely to force house prices down more than anything else.

Is Borneo really that dull that a conversation about mortgages is a preferable activity? I'd have a word with your travel agent, chap.

POP Quiz:

What was that case where the man saved up all year to go on holiday, his only holiday of teh year and went to go to Switzerland or Austria to a hotel where there would be a party every night with fit babes and then, it turned out that there weren't and the yodelling was the local mechanic who turned up in his overalls?

I'd have thought that an abundance of "cheap" money would ramp up prices simply because if the market is aware that all this cheap money is available it would tend to inflate prices to grab a larger chunk of it.

I thought that's what happened.

S'alright, we've banned him now.

Ha! Hi Craster! Say hi to Mrs Craster for me.

Cunts. She's asleep and I'm bored. And you people think you're my mother. Cunts.

This is from someone with their fancy expensive eBook reader. READ A FUCKING BOOK!

[url]http://www.bicesteradvertiser.net/news/4632995.Planned_eco_town_just_a_mile_away_from_Ardley_incinerator/] Incinerator to be 1 mile from EcoTown.[/url]

I love the idea that if the incinerator was 50 miles away, there wouldn't be a problem. It's just because it's 'near' the eco-town that there's an issue. A good indication that they're trying to sell this houses to people who want to look like they're being eco-friendly but don't actually care about the real impact.

"What's wrong with building hospitals in the same town as munitions factories?"

"It makes a nonsense of government thinking!"

The whole point of putting it close is to capture the heat from burning the waste. And so they don't have to transport the waste as far.

"the villagers" sound like a bunch of idiots. As you'd expect.

Well, to be fair to them, an incinerator is a potential health risk to the people living there, it is entirely likely these two things were developed independently, and there should be an enquiry as to whether full thought has been given to the matter. On the other hand, these nimby tosspots can fuck off.

Free votes for life for the MP who says exactly this in the Commons.

I'm against both the incinerator AND the eco-town.

I'm against the the developers, the target demographic and the complainants.

I think we've got everything covered between us.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfo ... 314150.stm



Good oh.

Will it burn rotting meat and rabbits?

So now they're going to resubmit for the Didcot site. How does that help the environment, exactly?

Didcot's 40 minutes down the A34.

And has a coal fired power station.

And is a shithole, already.

You know that incinerators blow stuff up into the sky, right? I'm pretty sure Bicester and Didcot share a sky.

Never underestimate NIMBYCUNT power.