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

[sgt_woulds]

Lots of issues with the way we deliver houses.  Perhaps we need to create public housing corporations to manage access to building land, rather than let the large housebuilders buy it up and dictate the market. 

 

Regional corporations could also ensure that we aren't building 'anywhere towns', and keep to the local vernacular, which would keep the NIBYs happy and make for nicer environs.  They could also ease the burdon from BCO if managed holistically.

 

Of course, we'd need a sensible country like Holland to manage it all for us.  We just don't have the skill base or personalities in our population to make things better for our selves.

 

Toby-Lloyd-2.pdf

 

 

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, sgt_woulds said:

Of course, we'd need a sensible country like Holland to manage it all for us. 

Or a Scott.

 

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old cloaths which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old cloaths which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, cloaths, or lodging, as he has occasion.

Adam Smith

[JohnMo]

On 19/06/2026 at 08:55, ProDave said:

would be good to have a bus service from our rural idle

Don't you have dial a bus? Thought most places in rural Scotland had it, plus if your over 60 it's free. A mate used to drive one of the mini buses and people would take a ride from here to there and back again, spend 5 mins doing something while the driver waited then took them back home

[JohnMo]

On 19/06/2026 at 13:54, Bancroft said:

Nimby-ism

Just ban it, just as Singapore did and put in place a law for the "greater good". 

[JohnMo]

On 19/06/2026 at 14:06, saveasteading said:

Yes there is a huge shortage of water

When I did a degree in 2001, one of the topics then was global warming, strange weather patterns and prolonged draught periods. Then the sea levels rises and floods the aquifers with sea water - then the next major wars start, over possession of water rights - Joy

[sgt_woulds]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Or a Scott.

 

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old cloaths which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old cloaths which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, cloaths, or lodging, as he has occasion.

Adam Smith

 

From the perspective of a sassenach, the Scottish government seems to do a better job of providing for their citizens in a manner that makes the majority content.  We look slightly enviously at some of the more joined up thinking that seems to prevail north of the wall.  Most of the issues there seem to stem from deciscions further South...

 

I'm not a fan of Adam Smith - even for his time (when there was a greater sense of civic and brotherly duty in all classes of men), he overstated how well self-interest promotes the common good.  His neo-liberal free market ideas have a lot to answer for in recent governments policies, and they have hastened the predictable decline of societal cohesion and the rise in social economic inequality.  With modern political and societal morality norms, he wouldn't earn enough shillings to pay for a single sandal he could stand on.

 

The amount of aggregate employment depends on the amount of aggregate demand. The amount of aggregate demand is composed of the sum of the amounts which the community spends on consumption and on investment. The propensity to consume determines how much of a given level of income will be devoted to consumption, and consequently determines the amount of employment which can be sustained for a given level of investment. Thus, for any given state of technique, resources and costs, the level of employment depends on the level of effective demand.

John Maynard Keynes

 

 

Or in the contemporary language:  
Low demand (or competition) = unemployment / low pay / lack of incentive to do better for the customer
Private sector won’t spend enough
Therefore, government must regulate demand or mandate outcomes

 

Pure market economies always fail to deliver socially desirable outcomes. Therefore, government intervention is necessary to ensure fair access and prevent abuse of market power.

 

But it does depend upon a sense of civic duty in those who govern, and the idea that making the poorest lives better can raise all the boats so to speak.  

 

 

 

 

[sgt_woulds]

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Just ban it, just as Singapore did and put in place a law for the "greater good". 

 

Without NIMBYism, we would all be living in modernist monstrocities and concrete landscapes:  no St Pancras Station, no protected view corridors that ensure that ensure that St Pauls is not smothered by high rises, no greenbelt, no ancient woodland.   

 

The environs we grow up in are as important as the culture, and a big part of what it means to be British.  I don't think we'd sing a song about the the wonderful 'White Container Ports of Dover...'

 

 

[saveasteading]

There's an interesting article in "Building" magazine.

Its about Cambridge as an example, but basically saying we build houses before schools and roads, with water and sewage tailing well behind. Nobody wants to put up the cash in the logical order, and the authorities don't insist.

 

(Near me a house builder had cleverly cheated the LA out of improving roads first, and now, oh dear, they can't afford to do it.)

 

And another article  that new house sales had dropped 30+%. So they are building slowly.

And another that multistorey isn't worth doing as a main contractor.

And another that the client is often to blame for high costs, with the Architect wanting fancy buildings and not allowing contractor input to quality or value.

 

And I've only read half of it.

[SteamyTea]

17 minutes ago, sgt_woulds said:

But it does depend upon a sense of civic duty in those who govern,

Which seems to be lacking in the Western democracies at the moment.

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, saveasteading said:

And another that the client is often to blame for high costs, with the Architect wanting fancy buildings and not allowing contractor input to quality or value

They could learn a lot from the automotive industry.

I can't remember consumer writing to any manufacturer demanding better performance and equipment as standard, but still it has happened. 

I thought my 205 GTi was brilliant, till I got a 309 GTi. And that soon got relegated to second position when I got a Mercedes 300TE.

The Merc was twice the prices though.

The point I am making is that some industries are much better at market research than others.

The building industry spends too long on PR, AKA corporate bullshit.

[saveasteading]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

They could learn a lot from the automotive industry.

But it isn't a joined up industry.

As a contractor we were in competition with consultant led projects. The market, in time, found us... we hear you can give us the same performance for half the cost?. 

In reality it was about 2/3. 

 

I don't think that can be compared to the car industry.

 

Actually it could a little if clients all went straight to expert contractors rather than

concept-feasibility- planning-architect-SE-QS... then to 4 contractors instructed to quote 'as drawn' and the cheapest one selected.

[SteamyTea]

14 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

I don't think that can be compared to the car industry

No it can't at the moment. Some similarities are in place i.e. supply chain. 

Probably what needs to change is the design and management side.

unlike engineers, who, have the saying about 'ask 100 and get 100 right answers (which is total bollocks, probably get 3 or 4 solutions)', an individual house designer may give half a dozen solutions to a simple brief, and have 20 reasons why non of them are good.

 

In engineering there are good traceability systems, never heard anyone mention them in building, though I am sure they exist.

[JohnMo]

36 minutes ago, sgt_woulds said:

Without NIMBYism, we would all be living 

With decent bypasses around towns that don't cost millions extra, take decades to get through planning to keep a few happy. Aberdeen bypass was delayed for decades to keep a few idiots happy. Not forcing way too much traffic through town and city centres instead of around them.  A96 bypasses delay for decades again because a few complain (mostly farmers trying to squeeze the last £ from the deal). We would have had onshore wind and solar in England developed over the last decade. For the greater good doesn't for the lowest common denominator.    It also means knocking down slums and generally crap building people are made to live in and replacing with new.

[Indy]

1 hour ago, sgt_woulds said:

 

Without NIMBYism, we would all be living in modernist monstrocities and concrete landscapes:  no St Pancras Station, no protected view corridors that ensure that ensure that St Pauls is not smothered by high rises, no greenbelt, no ancient woodland.   

 

The environs we grow up in are as important as the culture, and a big part of what it means to be British.  I don't think we'd sing a song about the the wonderful 'White Container Ports of Dover...'

 

 

Hard disagree. NIMBYism over the years has killed off the growth and any opportunity to provide private solutions to a problem that governments don't want to tackle. This is why there are only a few large developers who control the bulk of new builds - they're the only ones with the funding, patience and armies of consultants that can battle through the NIMBYist culture to get anything done. Most rational people trying to make a better home for themselves and their families can't endure years of delays and regulations and move on with their lives. 

 

Calling new buildings modernist monstrosities and concrete landscapes goes back to the point I made earlier in the thread - this desire to keep us in the 1950s. It's high time we get over it and move with the times. 

[SteamyTea]

It was the comedian Jimmy Carr, who is very capable of having a serious conversation, that said 'in the last 20 years, China has covered their countryside in railways, we have covered ours in planning applications and environmental reports'

 

Okay, they have also covered other countries in railways and roads without environmental reports.

I think we have lost sight of the big picture somewhat.

[ToughButterCup]

On 19/06/2026 at 00:03, Gus Potter said:

... we are in serious danger of losing our British culture.... 

 

Culture cannot be lost. Ever. It simply is.  

 

The key issue is who is examining it and why. The motive underlying the examination is important.

 

British Culture is not static. It is not fixed. It is - and always has been - an ever changing mixture of things. In culinary terms, its a Full Rolling Boil. And it always will be a mixture. The good people of Honiton took lace makers from Flanders into their community ( bobbin lace) in about 1500 ( Hence "He's spinning a yarn" today) . Or have your knuckles rapped  as a child when the school teacher saw a child dropping a lace making bobbin. The rapping was done with a bit of wood.

 

500 years later the closest we get to their influence is a bit of fine lace and a couple of pithy sayings. 

 

And how many of us have not been really glad to see a Polish plumber ? Or a Philippino nurse ? Or a Ghanan Care Assistant?  

 

The UK has been immeasurably enriched by immigrants: over time they've contributed to our culture - not all of them, but the vast majority have come here and been a net contribution to the GDP and the Tax regime here.

 

We can't lose it (British Culture)  because - it - changes minute by minute, day by day.

 

Culture is the very essence of Change being Normal.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

 

And how many of us have not been really glad to see a Polish plumber ? Or a Philippino nurse ? Or a Ghanan Care Assistant?  

 

The UK has been immeasurably enriched by immigrants

Could do with a lot more down here, it is a cultural wilderness.

While the Cornish culture is recognised, it is really the geography and industry that is cherished.

Most of the cultural industry is over 200 years old, leaving the geography deeply scarred.

 

There is a new, small estate of houses that has been built in the outskirts of Penzance. The bitching that went on about it was unreal, especially the road access.

Not as if there is much traffic down here compared to places up country.

 

Mark Steel summed the place up nicely.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00s3gq5

 

 

 

[JohnMo]

11 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

UK has been immeasurably enriched by immigrants

Petty the services haven't kept up, (schools, hospitals, doctors, dentist police) with population growth

[Indy]

Not exactly what this thread is discussing but another point that came up when I had a long conversation my architect while going through an extended 4 year planning process - people tend to hate the homogenous and identikit houses and there's a lot of looking down upon so called housing estates.

 

These estates, the uniformity and symmetry is exactly what is prized when you look at architecture from the past. Whether its the Georgian rows in Bath, Islington, the rows of Victorian housing or the 1930s semi-detached houses. So it's a little confusing when new developments are looked down upon for doing the same - the developers do it because it sells. 

 

Plot sizes is a separate topic though!

[ToughButterCup]

9 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Petty the services haven't kept up, (schools, hospitals, doctors, dentist police) with population growth

 

Ummm, how many of us have been looked after in hospitals  by British citizens, how many of our parents are looked after by immigrant Care Workers? 

 

Without them  ... ?

[Indy]

12 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Petty the services haven't kept up, (schools, hospitals, doctors, dentist police) with population growth

 

I'm not really qualified to comment on this - but isn't there a statistic that the birth rate is dropping and therefore there's a glut of school places (which is why schools are closing down)? 

[JohnMo]

28 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

Ummm, how many of us have been looked after in hospitals  by British citizens, how many of our parents are looked after by immigrant Care Workers? 

 

Without them  ... ?

Really wasn't the point, it how many beds are available per capita, same for police, schools etc. not where the person comes from, giving the care. But it bonkers our UK trained school teachers, doctors and nurses aren't getting jobs.

[JohnMo]

31 minutes ago, Indy said:

 

I'm not really qualified to comment on this - but isn't there a statistic that the birth rate is dropping and therefore there's a glut of school places (which is why schools are closing down)? 

But with an average of 27 pupils per class in UK, that's nearly 25% higher than other European countries, with closer to 20, so you can play with statics any way you want. 

[SteamyTea]

30 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

But with an average of 27 pupils per class in UK, that's nearly 25% higher than other European countries, with closer to 20, so you can play with statics any way you want

Or send kids to private schools. Never more than 12 in my class.

Was great.

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

China has covered their countryside

Wiping out or evicting the natives whose land they required. That's a very extreme opposite of nimbyism.

It happened here with the Highland Clearances, but we've evolved a bit since then.