Homeless crisis?

[PPP]

Anywhere else noticing this getting worse on a monthly basis? Colchester is the closest big town to home and i work in the city, both have an ever increasing real problem, seems like nothing is being done despite politico hand wringing...

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Peterborough City Council have been working hard to sort the growing problem here.

[pinfireman]

What can you expect when your population expands at many times its normal rate? Since 1997, UK population has gone from 58 million, to almost 68 million. A 10 million increase in 20 years.....fastest rate of growth since records began....and 60% of that came from outside our shores.  And they all need a roof over their heads! And it,s the bottom end of the rental market that has been hit hardest. With the huge demand, landlords put up their rents, and those living on the edge, casual workers, unemployed etc. find themselves  with nowhere to go. A sad state of affairs.

[PPP]

Very sad Indeed, a new guy by my office today had a suitcase with baggage tag on, people must be really desperate to move somewhere with no where to live..

[Lord Geordie]

My local council is building houses like there is no tomorrow! Every parcel of land they can find is earmarked for development. 

[ehb102]

*shrug* It's the free market. So long as people are buying into the fiction that the market will adjust to provide for all then it will go on. Hello, slums and workhouses. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

1 hour ago, pinfireman said:

What can you expect when your population expands at many times its normal rate? Since 1997, UK population has gone from 58 million, to almost 68 million. A 10 million increase in 20 years.....fastest rate of growth since records began....and 60% of that came from outside our shores.  And they all need a roof over their heads! And it,s the bottom end of the rental market that has been hit hardest. With the huge demand, landlords put up their rents, and those living on the edge, casual workers, unemployed etc. find themselves  with nowhere to go. A sad state of affairs.

hello, well said pinfire?

[oowee]

1 hour ago, pinfireman said:

What can you expect when your population expands at many times its normal rate? Since 1997, UK population has gone from 58 million, to almost 68 million. A 10 million increase in 20 years.....fastest rate of growth since records began....and 60% of that came from outside our shores.  And they all need a roof over their heads! And it,s the bottom end of the rental market that has been hit hardest. With the huge demand, landlords put up their rents, and those living on the edge, casual workers, unemployed etc. find themselves  with nowhere to go. A sad state of affairs.

This is likely to happen as population growth is related to population size. The larger the pop the faster the growth. 

This will always be the case that demand at the lower end of the market is strongest. There are far more properties at the lower end.

Its called the market. 

The biggest single cause of the increase in demand for housing is overwhelmingly new household formation. 

 

[scutt]

10 hours ago, Lord Geordie said:

My local council is building houses like there is no tomorrow! Every parcel of land they can find is earmarked for development. 

It's the same all over s/e Northumberland keep saying to the misses they must be going to  move a lot of folk into the area to fill the houses.Have noticed not many factories   been built .

[JohnfromUK]

There is an application (by a major name developer) near me for 500 houses now, increasing to 1200 in the future. 

Known problems are; 

• Drainage is already needing assistance from tankers as sewage treatment plant is over capacity
• Part of the area is flood plain and flooded badly in 2007
• There is already major road congestion at peak times - which becomes total gridlock if there is a holdup on the (adjacent) M5
• Local schools are either at or near maximum capacity
• 500 new houses in an 800 house parish is a huge step change

None of these issues are addressed in the proposals ......... and there will be big problems if they get the go ahead.

[oldypigeonpopper]

18 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

There is an application (by a major name developer) near me for 500 houses now, increasing to 1200 in the future. 

Known problems are; 

• Drainage is already needing assistance from tankers as sewage treatment plant is over capacity
• Part of the area is flood plain and flooded badly in 2007
• There is already major road congestion at peak times - which becomes total gridlock if there is a holdup on the (adjacent) M5
• Local schools are either at or near maximum capacity
• 500 new houses in an 800 house parish is a huge step change

None of these issues are addressed in the proposals ......... and there will be big problems if they get the go ahead.

hello, they dont care john, extra council tax, it is already happening in other areas of the UK more so on first line re drainage and tankers.

[Newbie to this]

11 hours ago, oowee said:

The biggest single cause of the increase in demand for housing is over population caused largely by mass immigration.

 

There you go I fixed it for you.

The quicker our government accepts that fact and acts on it the better, if they keep burying their heads in the sand, the problem will only get worse.

[countryman]

I have been a landlord for a number of years and I am now calling it a day like a lot of others. A lot of tenants have no respect for your property, spend the rent on them selfs and most foreign tenants will multi occupy your property with out your permission. The government continue to allow the flood gates open in to the country and just do not have the homes to house them. Genuine people struggle to buy or even get a rented Home, and it's getting worse.

[Rewulf]

11 hours ago, oowee said:

This is likely to happen as population growth is related to population size. The larger the pop the faster the growth. 

This will always be the case that demand at the lower end of the market is strongest. There are far more properties at the lower end.

Its called the market. 

The biggest single cause of the increase in demand for housing is overwhelmingly new household formation. 

 

I dont think anyone is disputing we have population growth, and it matters not whether it comes from immigration, uncontrolled or otherwise.

A simple fact is we dont have the flats or houses to home them all, and many builders dont want to build the affordable homes required, OR build them WHERE they are required.
Even then, a lot of new homes are brought up by buy to let landlords, and rented out to private tenants or benefits claimants, nothing intrinsically wrong with it , but it doesnt really help our economy or social cohesion.

We keep putting sticky plasters over gaping wounds, as a stop gap, eventually we are going to bleed out.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Rewulf
typo

[243deer]

One of my colleagues bought a house on a new build site near Cambridge. He reckons 25% of the houses have been bought as investment and are not occupied. I guess that the investors do not want the hassle of re-decorating if they let and that house prices are going up considerably faster than interest rates. One day there will be a reckoning.

Was speaking to friend who is a doctor about the 'homeless' in Cambridge just the other week. I had not realised that there are any number of hostels for the homeless in Cambridge however they do not, quite rightly in my view,  allow drugs or alcohol hence the apparently high 'homeless' population.

[JohnfromUK]

50 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

The quicker our government accepts that fact and acts on it the better, if they keep burying their heads in the sand, the problem will only get worse.

It won't happen.  The present (mildly right of centre) government make noises, but do nothing.  The only other credible government would be way left of centre and have welcomed immigration.  Whilst they are a bit more realistic than that now, they will certainly be less likely to do anything than the present lot.

 

32 minutes ago, countryman said:

I have been a landlord for a number of years and I am now calling it a day like a lot of others.

I called it a day a few years ago.  Ultimately - was not making a decent return when you took into account the 'mishaps' - and too much hassle and worry.

 

21 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

many builders dont want to build the affordable homes required,

There isn't (as) much money in building 'affordable' homes

[Rewulf]

8 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

It won't happen.  The present (mildly right of centre) government make noises, but do nothing.  The only other credible government would be way left of centre and have welcomed immigration.  Whilst they are a bit more realistic than that now, they will certainly be less likely to do anything than the present lot.

 

I called it a day a few years ago.  Ultimately - was not making a decent return when you took into account the 'mishaps' - and too much hassle and worry.

 

There isn't (as) much money in building 'affordable' homes

Labour will pretend to be any animal it can to get back into power, it knows immigration is its future voter base.

They will build whatever they want, that makes the most profit, and be damned with the housing crisis.
The government could easily take over a struggling builder, or create its own, and build the houses that are NEEDED.
It would score political brownie points, create jobs and apprenticeships, and force the other builders to follow suit.

Besides the pensions time bomb and rising crime, the housing shortage is one of the biggest issues facing us in the future.

[pinfireman]

12 hours ago, oowee said:

This is likely to happen as population growth is related to population size. The larger the pop the faster the growth. 

This will always be the case that demand at the lower end of the market is strongest. There are far more properties at the lower end.

Its called the market. 

The biggest single cause of the increase in demand for housing is overwhelmingly new household formation. 

 

That,s mostly waffle! My wife is the PA to the Chief Exec of a large housebuilders. She gets to see info that you do not And it,s "not the market" which is a glib way of avoiding the truth! Extra  people turning up here, wether as EU workers, or economic migrants, or illegal asylum seekers    are putting huge pressure on the system! As for your last line, the demand for single occupancy homes is rocketing, another cause of pressure on the system!  Before retirement, I worked for the largest Estate Agency group for 6 years, and I know who are buying the cheaper properties, and who are renting them! 

[JohnfromUK]

49 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

The government could easily take over a struggling builder, or create its own, and build the houses that are NEEDED.

Remember that one of the more recent big 'government' building programmes was the crop of 'concrete jungle' tower blocks built in the 1960s - many of which were found unfit for purpose and have since been demolished. 

[Westward]

Population growth at the level we've had for the past 20 years is obviously unsustainable and it's worth bearing in mind that figures from a couple of years ago showed that over 50% of immigrants do not come from the EU, therefore they must be coming in on some kind of quota system. Given the pressures on housing and all the public services as well as a general hardening of public opinion over mass immigration, why doesn't the government review the quota system? Is it because they've negotiated deals for trade, arms or other services with Asian or African countries and in return agreed to let X thousands of their people migrate to Britain every year?

I've seen it claimed in print that people such as my wife and I are part of the problem. We live in a decent size family house which, according to the pinkos, isn't fair because our children have all grown up and left home and are now buying their own homes, therefore we should downsize because it's much bigger than we now need. The claim is that if everyone in our situation did this it would lessen the pressure on the market and soften prices etc. etc. I'm still waiting for someone to explain how 10s of thousands of older people looking to downsize would do anything other than ramp up demand and therefore prices of the type of homes we already don't have enough of!

On the same theme, I know of many situations where affordable homes have been bought from new as investment properties. And whilst I'm generally against government interference in anything on the principle that without exception they almost always make things worse, I do think there's a need for legislation to compel housebuilders to include a caveat in the deeds of affordable or starter homes that they must be occupied by the owners and not used as rental properties for a minimum of 25 years.

 

[Rewulf]

17 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

Remember that one of the more recent big 'government' building programmes was the crop of 'concrete jungle' tower blocks built in the 1960s - many of which were found unfit for purpose and have since been demolished. 

I think we might have moved on a bit from then.

[Vince Green]

1 hour ago, Rewulf said:

I think we might have moved on a bit from then.

I don't think so, everywhere you go around London these days they are building blocks of flats, some are huge developments with many hundreds of flats but you never ever see houses being built. In fact developers are buying up houses to demolish and replace them with flats. The London skyline these days is a mass of cranes

[Rewulf]

3 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

I don't think so, everywhere you go around London these days they are building blocks of flats, some are huge developments with many hundreds of flats but you never ever see houses being built. In fact developers are buying up houses to demolish and replace them with flats. The London skyline these days is a mass of cranes

It was more the fit for purpose thing, land in London is obviously expensive, and flats are probably better than no homes at all.
But building regs are rather stringent these days, so hopefully theyll last a bit longer than the 60 s concrete monstrosities .

[oowee]

3 hours ago, pinfireman said:

That,s mostly waffle! My wife is the PA to the Chief Exec of a large housebuilders. She gets to see info that you do not And it,s "not the market" which is a glib way of avoiding the truth! Extra  people turning up here, wether as EU workers, or economic migrants, or illegal asylum seekers    are putting huge pressure on the system! As for your last line, the demand for single occupancy homes is rocketing, another cause of pressure on the system!  Before retirement, I worked for the largest Estate Agency group for 6 years, and I know who are buying the cheaper properties, and who are renting them! 

I hope so. 

Thats what i said. The biggest single cause of the increase in demand for housing is overwhelmingly new household formation. 

The aim of Government for affordable, rented and subsidised is to make the properties tenure blind distributed throughout an estate to encourage social cohesion.

1 hour ago, Rewulf said:

It was more the fit for purpose thing, land in London is obviously expensive, and flats are probably better than no homes at all.
But building regs are rather stringent these days, so hopefully theyll last a bit longer than the 60 s concrete monstrosities .

Exactly right. Nothing wrong with a flat / apartment housing density is the way to go with limited land supply. With only 2 % of the Uk built on I would like to see scrapping of green belt which causes more virgin land t be lost to housing. At the same time more stringent policy for build targets with Government compulsory powers to step in when Local Authorities fail to deliver. 

[pinfireman]

31 minutes ago, oowee said:

I hope so. 

Thats what i said. The biggest single cause of the increase in demand for housing is overwhelmingly new household formation. 

The aim of Government for affordable, rented and subsidised is to make the properties tenure blind distributed throughout an estate to encourage social cohesion.

Exactly right. Nothing wrong with a flat / apartment housing density is the way to go with limited land supply. With only 2 % of the Uk built on I would like to see scrapping of green belt which causes more virgin land t be lost to housing. At the same time more stringent policy for build targets with Government compulsory powers to step in when Local Authorities fail to deliver. 

Under no circumsyances should more green belt be set aside for housing!  98% of the UK is not Green Belt, nor is it viable farmland! Most green belt being eyed by government and developers is FARMLAND! Where we grow food! and given we can now only produce 58% of the food needed in this country, (figures today on the BBC News), the last thing we should do is take more out of production!  You cannot make farmland, once  it,s gone, it,s gone! And developers don,t want to build on difficult ex- industrial sites, or up in the Welsh or Scottish mountains, they want easy flatland. The answers are not easy, but one would be to put a complete halt on immigration. With  thousands leaving this country each year, we might slow down or halt the population increase. People turning up here, mostly uninvited DO NOT have the right to a roof over their heads! A roof provided by the taxpayer.