'Where We Live' - a survey of the decline in British housing.

[MAB]

I thought the description “Anywhere Houses” was quite an appropriate description for many new-build housing estates. (see extract and link to Telegraph book review below).

 

'Where We Live' a new book by Jonathan Glancey is a survey of the decline in British housing: lost successes, noble failures, utter disasters.

Above all, his wrath is directed, and deservedly so, towards “Anywhere Houses”. Dispensed from above, these featureless new-build estates turn Somewhere into Anywhere. Their “cul-de-sac roads [are] named after brutally built-over fields, orchards and meadows”. They have no centre in the form of churches, shops, pubs, schools, monuments, social centres or libraries – and thus no character or purpose. They’re bereft of context: landscape, local culture, even building materials. They stand in opposition to traditional towns, which are “endlessly fascinating” places of sanctuary and variety, where “a fish market might just jostle fin-by-gill alongside a beeswax-scented medieval church, itself sited next to [a] fashionable art gallery”.
Where We Live is a commendably heartfelt book. Yes, Glancey writes, things are bad, and they may have been thus for a while – but this isn’t a defeatist lament, because defeatism isn’t a responsible option. Beauty and utility are worth fighting for. We need to challenge the parallel failures of government and industry, banish the narrow fixation on costs and consultancies, and get back to some existential first principles: democracy, autonomy, decency, meaning."

The full book review:-

https://archive.ph/vv7xF

[Gus Potter]

15 minutes ago, MAB said:

I thought

Great post, well done. The article is well worth a read. 

 

Our political system needs an overhaul. Also our attitude to immigration needs to change rapidly and recognise that we are in serious danger of losing our British culture. One big threat is the intolerance of Islam. We live on a small island, we have nowhere else to go. 

[SteamyTea]

I lived in Milton Keynes for a few months.

It was a great place.

I lived in Basildon when I was a kid, never thought that it was a bad place.

I also lived on the outskirts of Canterbury, nice place.

Witney was alright to, though I was a couple of miles out.

Penn was dreadful, but I was a late teen then, so everything was terrible.

Bournemouth was great, but I was a student.

Aylesbury was very run down when I moved there, but had everything I needed at the time.

Abbots Langley was good, for a small place.

Now I live in a dreadfully run down place, but have been here longer than anywhere else.  While my house is pretty shit, the A30 is only 2 minutes away and that means I can get to places quickly.  The sea is only 4 minutes drive away, or half hour walk.

 

I struggle to know what I want when it comes to knowing where to live.  I like the idea of some isolation, but I want convenience and culture of larger towns.

The one thing that is pushing me more to rural is, oddly enough, cars.  As we electrify transport, I will need a decent drive/garage.  These only come at a premium price in towns.

 

 

[ProDave]

I gave up on city life as soon as I could.  Probably not helped by the fact we lived on one of the main roads into Oxford and almost constant traffic noise was my main gripe, at rush hour it would be almost stationary crawling past the house.  And when a bus stopped at the bus stop outside it's throbbing engine made the single glazed windows rattle.  We had a driveway often not accessible because people ignored double yellows and parked across it.  

 

Having a driveway and garage (or space to build a garage) has always been a "must have"  It was only my very first shoe box house that didn't as I simply needed to buy anything I could as prices were rising so fast.  House No 2 onwards achieved that.

 

It would be good to have a bus service from our rural idle, we have one bus a day here so no choice of time and only good for a short shopping trip less than 2 hours before the return bus.  No good whatsoever for someone hoping to use it to get to work.

 

[Indy]

Hasn’t it always been like this though? Struggling to find a place that achieves the perfect balance - while still being affordable.

 

There are places that offer a perfect balance of suburbia while still being close enough to town, walkable from schools, train stations, GPs, hospitals and supermarkets within easy reach (say local bus services that run regularly), have playgrounds and facilities for kids and teens, interesting architecture and well maintained streets. The only problem is that everyone wants to live in those places and therefore prices are significantly higher as a result. 

[saveasteading]

9 minutes ago, ProDave said:

would be good to have a bus service from our rural idle, we have one bus a day here so no choice of time 

It's a big issue in the countryside everywhere.  No new housing should be allowed without public transport.

We get older, may be alone.

 

An option if you have a community, is a minibus to town or to where a bus can be caught.

Obv it costs money but that could come from high charges for planning gain (S106 etc) or from levies on wind and solar locally, with a ring-fenced fund and conditions.

I've seen village signs in the Highlands asking for drivers.

[Indy]

9 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

Great post, well done. The article is well worth a read. 

 

Our political system needs an overhaul. Also our attitude to immigration needs to change rapidly and recognise that we are in serious danger of losing our British culture. One big threat is the intolerance of Islam. We live on a small island, we have nowhere else to go. 

I’d argue the thing that needs the most immediate reform is the Town and Country planning act, that holds development back to a rosy picture of what Britain looked like in the 50s. Any development or attempt to modernise is viewed with hostility by both the planners and local residents who have far too much power. 
 

Of course, a reform to that needs strong political will and therefore political change to start with. So far, none of the parties have any concrete ideas on how to deal with this outside of empty slogans like Build build build etc…

[saveasteading]

2 minutes ago, Indy said:

Build build build etc

I don't agree. 

Social and affordable housing us needed. In towns and cities, not the countryside.

What we get is suburbia in the countryside, without services or transport.... or water. This is driven by developers.

These are bought by emigrating townspeople and country locals still can't afford to stay.

Alright I do agree that change is needed.

[ProDave]

27 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

It's a big issue in the countryside everywhere.  No new housing should be allowed without public transport.

We get older, may be alone.

Yes and as we have just retired, that is a thought starting to concern us, what happens if we are no longer able to drive?

 

BUT living in our rural idyll  a big part of the attraction  is we know that no large scale building will be allowed so it will remain nice.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

In towns and cities, not the countryside

Didn't Manchester have huge developments of 1 and 2 bed city homes that stayed empty for ages.

 

It is impossible to design a town really. Towns grew to take advantage of local resources i.e. rivers, agriculture, mines.

Apart from agriculture, which is low labour these days, most of our industry and commerce is 'mobile'.

We don't have the same need for towns and cities anymore.

 

Edited 8 hours ago by SteamyTea

[Indy]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

I don't agree. 

Social and affordable housing us needed. In towns and cities, not the countryside.

What we get is suburbia in the countryside, without services or transport.... or water. This is driven by developers.

These are bought by emigrating townspeople and country locals still can't afford to stay.

Alright I do agree that change is needed.

Catch22 situation - developers or private companies won’t provide services unless there’s enough population in a place to warrant the investment. The demand won’t be there if developers aren’t allowed to build houses for people to move in. You get stuck in a doom loop where everyone expects this to be magically funded from a non existent pot. 

[Indy]

I also don’t buy in to this need to ‘protect’ our countryside. The country is largely empty once you get of London/SE and I’ve read stats which indicate that 97% of the country is not built upon.

 

What exactly are we protecting and more importantly, at what cost? Younger generations can’t afford to buy or move anywhere as all the existing stock is overpriced, precisely because new stock is so hard to come by or build in the first place. 

[saveasteading]

2 hours ago, Indy said:

new stock is so hard to come by

Not everywhere. House prices are falling  and some construction is paused due to drop in demand in SE.

Still not 'affordable ' .

[saveasteading]

2 hours ago, Indy said:

private companies won’t provide services unless there’s enough population in a place to warrant the investment.

That's what governments are for.

Cities are much more efficient than spread out houses.

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, Indy said:

which indicate that 97% of the country is not built upon.

I think it is about 13% urbanisation, of which 3% is housing.

Most of the UK is green.

 

Even zooming it on the busy bit shows a lot of green.

 

 

And zooming in on my bit shows that there is more rock than houses.

 

 

Cornwall could have 1 million houses built on it and it would not change the physical character of the place.

 

 

[Indy]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

That's what governments are for.

Cities are much more efficient than spread out houses.

Governments provide jack shit as we’ve seen over the last 20 years so it’s not really something to bank upon going into the future. 

[Bancroft]

My personal thought is that, instead of new build 'anywhere' projects of 100+ houses in one spot, we should be sprinkling the new builds across multiple sites and limiting development to 5-6 houses at any one location.

 

This has a number of benefits:

 

It stops Nimby-ism which is probably the biggest blocker to new developments

It reduces pressure on specific sites - most transport/school/doctor/utility systems can cope with 5-6 new houses without too much additional work - they can't with 100+

Small developments are more likely to create neighbourhoods and communities; modern anywhere projects rarely do.

 

Done properly this could create a positive response to new housing in so many ways.

[saveasteading]

I don't know if it was much reported outwith the area.

2 weeks ago, a large area of Kent had the water turned off because the pipe system couldn't cope with demand.

Yes there is a huge shortage of water, as reservoirs have not replenished. The aquifer will likely never be replenished until use is drastically reduced.

But this was the pipework not coping with use on a hot day.

I forecast this becomes the norm.

 

Yet new developments are approved on the same system.

[saveasteading]

4 hours ago, ProDave said:

living in our rural idyll  a big part of the attraction

I was in the W Highlands recently and discussed this with a local.

There are areas where many people have become alone and isolated. Apparently a large proportion / majority from England.

They retire to having affordable housing with amazing locations. In time, things change and the remoteness changes from idyll to loneliness and vulnerability.

20 miles to town was a perk and becomes a sentence.

The weekly Morrisons delivery  may be the only contact.

 

The original homes are usually in at least clusters for community.

New ones are isolated with perfect views.

 

Hence communities ask for volunteer drivers and befrienders. 

I saw several notices on the lines of this.... a nerdy photo:  you can tell it was on my mind.

[MikeSharp01]

5 hours ago, Indy said:

Town and Country planning act, that holds development back to a rosy picture of what Britain looked like in the 50s. Any development or attempt to modernise is viewed w

My analysis is a bit different - planning is a part of it but the bigger part is developers interests and councils not being allowed to build council housing. The former is a problem because they want to keep prices high and maximise profit so they have no interest in mass production as it rises the supply side and so reduces prices. The councils not building for social rent, I get that housing associations are supposed to do this but funding constraints meam means that they are actually just developers, is a problem because it forces private rental and that removes housing stock from purchasers and so pushes up prices - which just closes the loop again. So sorting planning needs much more out of the box thinking alongside it.

[Indy]

19 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

My analysis is a bit different - planning is a part of it but the bigger part is developers interests and councils not being allowed to build council housing. The former is a problem because they want to keep prices high and maximise profit so they have no interest in mass production as it rises the supply side and so reduces prices. The councils not building for social rent, I get that housing associations are supposed to do this but funding constraints meam means that they are actually just developers, is a problem because it forces private rental and that removes housing stock from purchasers and so pushes up prices - which just closes the loop again. So sorting planning needs much more out of the box thinking alongside it.

Agree with all of that. 

 

My issues with the planning process also extend to the fact that almost every part of it is designed to put you off. If you're doing a new build - it has to be in line with the local architecture which is usually dated stock from the 30s, 50s, 80s etc. Massively more energy efficient, have insulation, triple glazing, get loads of surveys done incl noise, arboricultural, ecological, light, bat etc. Pay through the nose to have your electricity and gas to a temporary spot and then pay again to have it moved back again. Have to provide a spreadsheet which lists what taps/fittings you're using in each room and their flow rates. The mind boggles!

 

It's almost as if people sit in a room and think of ways they can exert their control over each part of the build process and stick on a load of regulations - which drives prices up and self builders out. I fail to see the real connection between politicians claiming we need to build more houses, but then the regulations being designed in a way that stops people from doing that exact same thing.  

[SteamyTea]

13 minutes ago, Indy said:

My issues with the planning process also extend to the fact that almost every part of it is designed to put you off. If you're doing a new build

I have been saying for decades that for every rule we have that says we must6 do something, we have another rule that says we cannot do it.

 

 

[MikeSharp01]

1 hour ago, Indy said:

If you're doing a new build - it has to be in line with the local architecture which is usually dated stock from the 30s, 50s, 80s etc. Massively more energy efficient, have insulation, triple glazing, get loads of surveys done incl noise, arboricultural, ecological, light, bat etc. Pay through the nose to have your electricity and gas to a temporary spot and then pay again to have it moved back again. Have to provide a spreadsheet which lists what taps/fittings you're using in each room and their flow rates. The mind boggles!

They could have solved this with education - if everybody thought about the environment, their fuel bills, comfort etc - all those things would happen naturally. In essence you either have the ideological state apparatus or the repressive state apparatus you can avoid either with the other.