Sizes

[Pocster]

Why on the news today a student ‘pod’ is 25m sq and they complain . Yet if I build a 1 bed flat min regs are 50m sq .

Why is ‘student accommodation’ exempt from property size rules ?. It’s a self contained unit I.e bathroom , kitchen , bedroom . But if I submit anything less than 50 sq m - end of the world .

Why is that ? ( grump ) 

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, pocster said:

Yet if I build a 1 bed flat min regs are 50m sq

That is 2 m² larger than my 2 bedroom house.

[Ferdinand]

The last time I looked the minimum national standard for 1 bed flats was actually 37sqm.

 

Perhaps the LA has had a brainstorm?

 

(Open to correction)

[Onoff]

Posted this before:

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tiny-homes-become-the-next-big-thing-smnj8ns9t

[Ferdinand]

FWIW I thought that student pods were an ensuite bedroom, and usually had communal kitchen + social area separate.

 

(In addition to being a way of sometimes fiddling money from the gullible investor.)

 

F

Edited October 25, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Pocster]

11 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

The last time I looked the minimum national standard for 1 bed flats was actually 37sqm.

 

Perhaps the LA has had a brainstorm?

 

(Open to correction)

This is what I thought . But I think councils can choose to ignore like Bristol do and don’t !! . Planning for a 1 bed flat 50 - this ‘student pod’ less than that . Planning is anything but consistent...

[Pocster]

11 hours ago, Onoff said:

Posted this before:

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tiny-homes-become-the-next-big-thing-smnj8ns9t

Just a modern version of slums . But still what can you do with an increasing population??

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, pocster said:

But still what can you do with an increasing population

Simple, in the UK we could easily release 2% of our total land area to housing.

That would double what we currently have.

With careful design, just half a percent could house 20 million people.

The problem is political will and nothing more.

Edited October 25, 2019 by SteamyTea

[Pocster]

18 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Simple, in the UK we could easily release 2% of our total land area to housing.

That would double what we currently have.

With careful design, just half a percent could house 20 million people.

The problem is political will and nothing more.

Agree with you 100% . Of course no one wants anything built near them . I think the solution is to simply build a brand new city somewhere , commutable to London . Instead of trying to cram more into areas with ever decreasing space . Ok some green belt or brown belt will take a hit - but some land has got to be used somewhere.

Edited October 25, 2019 by pocster

[Ed Davies]

17 minutes ago, pocster said:

I think the solution is to simply build a brand new city somewhere , commutable to London .

 

I think the solution is to simply build a brand new city somewhere specifically not commutable to London.

[SteamyTea]

20 minutes ago, pocster said:

I think the solution is to simply build a brand new city

Or allow more rural development to distribute things better.

One problem with cities is that you get urban island heat buildup, not a good thing for the residence.

Same goes for all the waste and energy generation.

These all have to be dealt with.

Edited October 25, 2019 by SteamyTea

[Pocster]

30 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Or allow more rural development to distribute things better.

One problem with cities is that you get urban island heat buildup, not a good thing for the residence.

Same goes for all the waste and energy generation.

These all have to be dealt with.

Ok . Best solution !

We’ve wrecked this planet so let’s find another and wreck that !

[joe90]

My wife and I disagree on this subject, we have pockets of land near us that are not farmed so not producing anything in the countryside that are perfect for a cottage or two, if built the villages may keep their shop, village hall, pub etc and the local council get more tax revenue. My wife (who works in social services) is concerned there are not enough services for the current population let alone more, but IMO you will never get more services till you get more population in an area.

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, pocster said:

Ok . Best solution

I am a lot more optimistic about it all.

There will be huge changes, and a lot of suffering (ranges from a few higher taxes, though less choice on lifestyle, to premature death), but we can, if we choose, and we will have no choice, to easily live on this one planet.

Food production is now enough to feed 9 billion people, just got to sort out equitable distribution of it.

We know how to, where to, and how much renewable generation we need, so that is just a case of doing it, not quick, but faster than most would have believed just 5 years ago.

Personal transport is sorting itself out.

I really don't think things are as bad as some people claim.

 

If we 'give' each person 1000 m² for housing and the associated infrastructure, then that would be 70,000 km², the UK, as it stands at the moment, has 248,532 km², so that is 28% of the land area.

Just to put that into perspective, it is 17% more than we have already developed.

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, joe90 said:

not farmed so not producing anything in the countryside

That is because the land down here is pretty dire, grade 3 and below.

What I do find odd, is that we grow flowers on a lot of it.

Give people some gardens and they may grow their own.

[joe90]

1 minute ago, SteamyTea said:

That is because the land down here is pretty dire, grade 3 and below.

 

As Steamy Tea knows (because he has been to mine) I have a acre of bog garden in winter and an acre of cracked clay in summer ?

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, joe90 said:

I have a acre of bog garden in winter and an acre of cracked clay in summer

That could be used for a wind turbine, or a solar farm.

Or even as a carbon sink, if you like growing trees.

Edited October 25, 2019 by SteamyTea

[Gone West]

20 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Food production is now enough to feed 9 billion people, just got to sort out equitable distribution of it.

And not waste so much of it.

[Gone West]

The government owns several large sites, as a result of department rationalisation, which could be used for new towns. For example Fort Halstead near Sevenoaks was owned by a development company and rented by the MoD until closure. There was substantial opposition to the plans from the surrounding villages even though traffic links were good with the M25 less than a mile away. Don't know what the current situation is though.

[Jeremy Harris]

2 hours ago, PeterStarck said:

The government owns several large sites, as a result of department rationalisation, which could be used for new towns. For example Fort Halstead near Sevenoaks was owned by a development company and rented by the MoD until closure. There was substantial opposition to the plans from the surrounding villages even though traffic links were good with the M25 less than a mile away. Don't know what the current situation is though.

 

And the government has been pretty inept at handling the sale/development of these sites, too.  Bicester is a good example, where they seem to have turned what should have been something pretty straightforward, the development of a large brownfield site into a really good self-build development, into a nightmare of bureaucracy.  All told I think it took well over 5 years to get Gravenhill sorted, and that's a fairly easy to develop site.  The Fort presents just a few problems, not the least being land contamination, that makes it a tougher challenge, I suspect, although with house prices in that area being fairly high, it should still have been a viable prospect.

 

I can't understand the local issues there, as before we moved the DSTL staff from there to Porton there was probably more traffic in and out of the place than there would be if it was housing.  For my sins (I suspect you already know this, @PeterStarck!) my last job was Head of iLab at DSTL, so responsible for the closure of a few establishments around the country...

[SteamyTea]

Geting back to the size of housing, almost.

Rather than cram people into smaller and smaller places, why don't we cram workers into a smaller footprint.

Why don't we build high rise, combined, hospitals, shopping centres, offices, schools, resturants, cinemas, car parking, all the daily stuff.

Could surround them with nice fields, woods, lakes, seaside views etc.

Then put the houses in a ring around them.  Would make for easy transport, not chris crossing town to see a mate in hospital, after picking the kids up, before a night out.  It is all in one place.

Maybe some heavy industry would have to be pushed out to one side, but that is no worse than today.

And just think, if a resturant/food court was on the top floor, how good the view would be.

Then, on the roof of that, could be a sports field.  Great fun when someone hits a six.  Javelin would be interesting, as would archery.

[Gone West]

37 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

The Fort presents just a few problems, not the least being land contamination, that makes it a tougher challenge, I suspect, although with house prices in that area being fairly high, it should still have been a viable prospect.

One of the plans I saw was for the 'Old Fort', where the contamination levels were greatest, to become a museum for the work carried out at the establishment in the past. The rest of the site could easily support development but it's difficult, when you don't know what is going on behind the scenes and with these sites  changing ownership to find out what's going on.

[Gone West]

38 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Rather than cram people into smaller and smaller places, why don't we cram workers into a smaller footprint.

Why don't we build high rise, combined, hospitals, shopping centres, offices, schools, resturants, cinemas, car parking, all the daily stuff.

We could do that, but the point is that it doesn't yet have to be built on more greenfield sites. The government owns huge areas of land, brownfield sites, around the country which could be used for housing. The problem lies with the government giving sites away to private companies rather than handling the development themselves due to political dogma. Sometimes it works as in the sale of old army barracks in Canterbury, to developers and houses get built but often the really large sites are just mothballed.

[ProDave]

Re transport to work.

 

Back in the day when I had a "proper job" I deliberately bought a house close to work so in nice weather I could cycle.

 

That plan fell apart when the organisation I worked for was in the process of being shut down.  The only available job I could find in time was 20 miles away.  I briefly toyed with the idea of moving, but that job didn't last long, and the next one was 20 miles away again but in the opposite direction.  Neither were a viable commute on public transport.

 

If you are not so fussy what job you need then it might be viable to live close to work and stay that way, but it was not my experience.

[Jeremy Harris]

1 hour ago, PeterStarck said:

 The government owns huge areas of land, brownfield sites, around the country which could be used for housing. The problem lies with the government giving sites away to private companies rather than handling the development themselves due to political dogma. Sometimes it works as in the sale of old army barracks in Canterbury, to developers and houses get built but often the really large sites are just mothballed.

 

 

The real problem is that the government is inept at dealing with commercial stuff like this, and seemingly always has been.  Many years ago I went out with a young lady that worked in the land and property management bit of MOD, at Chessington.  They were our supposed  "experts" on land management, sales etc, but frankly my impression was that they were pretty hopeless, and regularly got well and truly shafted by the big commercial players in that market.  The same seemed to be the case when we privatised and rationalised defence research.  In that case we managed to employ a character who turned out to be extremely adept at lining his own (and his wife's) pockets at our expense.  He did nothing wrong (except morally, IMHO), he was just astute enough to see how he could exploit the lack of expertise within government.  As a former colleague, Les Salmon, said to me more than 20 years ago, he was a man "unencumbered by self-doubt".  Pretty much the opposite of most of the senior civil servants I ever worked with.