Forum Topic

Mayor gives a grant of £99,000,000 as part of London-wide funding of a billion pounds

Khan and Sahota see to be getting all the credit when the money is from tax payers via central government. While welcoming the building of more affordable housing I would promote a more radical way to reduce house prices. Forbid the purchase of housing by aliens or foreign registered companies.

Graham Weeks ● 2742d18 Comments

The Victorians had very large families often decimated by the illnesses for which there was no cure - illnesses which have been eradicated or are easily curable today.  In general families have reduced in numbers but the stresses of life on the breadline probably creates more split families needing different accommodation.  What do you think?

Philippa Bond ● 2693d

I hear you Keith, and I understand why nobody in power wants to address the problem, but sooner or later they'll have to start seeing that massive elephant in the room ;-)

Tania Bapuji ● 2695d

Yes, would be good if a lot - or maybe all MPs - had to spend some time on zero hour contracts.  They could also send their MPs wages to charity for the amount of time they do their job swap.

Philippa Bond ● 2696d

Yes government is full of PPE Oxbridge idiots at every level listening to their mates from the consultancies and lobbyists who went to the same schools. The "bonfire of red tape" as promised ended up with Grenfell. also as a nation we want something for nothing!! that is our fault. But my carpenter who was only offered minimum wage on site also had a job onetime as an assessor at a college that was meant to be providing training for apprentices. the students clocked in and sat around as there were no materials or equipment or actual tuition. So the Tax payer is ripped off by companies providing inadequate services. After Carrillion we get Interserve now and in reality as tax payers we have to start paying the going rate to get jobs done properly. Maybe politicians should be on zero hours contracts at £10 per hour to realise what life is really like. imagine the mps being upset at not having a vote today!!

Peter Chadburn ● 2696d

There used to be moans that you don't need any qualifications to be a builder. Yet certificate can become so tick-box and are so often over-rated and not representative of the skills that someone can show when working. It has been about doing things on the cheap - taking risks and cutting corners on safety.  It's only ends up alright when nothing goes wrong.There has been a governmental push to cut red tape.  Yet when things have gone wrong the reports aren't acted on maybe in the hope that eventually people will forget as time moves on or maybe or maybe because there aren't enough technical people in government.

Philippa Bond ● 2696d

You are, of course, right, Mr Chadburn.

Rosco White ● 2697d

well this is what you get with the modern mania for contracting out and sub contracting to the nth degree. in the building trades many true skilled craftspeople have been undercut and priced out of work. so on many developments they rely on cheap labour with hopefully enough skilled people to do the snagging. when a skilled carpenter (with expensive tools) gets offered minimum wage to work on luxury apartments 8 years ago you knew that a quality problem would result. he had worked on luxury apartments where russian workers tried to steal equipment and where when doing snagging work he had come across doors hung upside down. This has meant that many skilled people no longer work doing building site work. recent reports about quality of new homes with large builders show that we are reaping the whirlwind of cheap labour. building firms are employing incompetent workers who have little understanding of the basics. many skilled staff are demotivated and think that they dont get paid to be professional. i dont blame them but the greed of developers.

Peter Chadburn ● 2699d

There doesn't seem to be the technical expertise around that there used to be.  There is such a lot of privatising of works - choosing reduction of costs to the detriment of quality and value - and safety.

Philippa Bond ● 2699d

Now days the problem isn't quantity, it's quality when building social housing, and the corruption within Ealing Council's housing department when it comes to policing their own stock.Allenby Road, Southall. A short time after the new build went up the main power cable supplying the building exploded, leaving a five foot long three foot deep hole just outside their front door. That was quickly followed by a plumbing failure that flooded the tenants in a big way.https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.530963,-0.3666245,3a,75y,293.95h,91.93t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1shpAjKsRv1pE7h1Y73nRz8Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=enI have seen Council family members and friends given "irregular" red carpet treatment that swept more deserving cases to one side. I have seen Ealing Council's housing department illegaly withhold services as a punishment because they don't like the tenants. I have seen gross maladministration within the council to executive director level of the complaints procedure, and done as part of a cover up when someone tries to blow the infamous whistle. The whole council housing setup is corrupt, and criminality is widespread.On Madeley Road W5 at the junction with the North Circular a new build went up recently, It was built by Genesis, now known as Notting Hill Genesis. It is a mixture of private and affordable rent dwellings. A year down the road and some of the tenants are crapping themselves. Some have been given warning that they might have to be moved out because the design team got their sums wrong and the building needs some serious reworking before it falls down, killing people.https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5170105,-0.2917436,3a,90y,343.56h,90.45t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swF2Ah0JijByW6fe_-zuahw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

Dennis Bailey ● 2702d

A lot of the social housing that used to be built was of a much higher standard than that which is now being built by developers because no profit needed to be made.  There were better space standards in use.  Nowadays we need to make sure that there is adequate insulation and ventilation so that a minimal amount of energy is needed to keep properties warm when it is cold and cool when it is hot.  With very small flats with a single aspect it can be difficult to get adequate natural through ventilation.

Philippa Bond ● 2702d

Not enough houses at present or too many people? You decide.

Keith Iddon ● 2735d

More affordable rents.

Graham Weeks ● 2736d

Why is it good news more social housing is built???

Peter Yale ● 2736d

It would only seem fair that if aliens are allowed to buy here we should be allowed to invest in property in Alpha Centauri.Meanwhile on planet Earth what we might need to get concerned about is that Ealing are the local authority which seem to have embraced this scheme with the greatest enthusiasm. Obviously it is very good news that more social housing is to be built here than anywhere else but , even with the apparently very generous grant per unit doesn't that leave the council with a potential funding shortfall longer term the cost of maintaining the homes will be greater than the rent obtained from them?

Andy Jones ● 2736d

How do you fit a parking permit to a flying saucer?  Will the standard on street space dimensions be appropriate?  Has probe recycling even been considered?  So many important questions go unanswered.

Paul Scullion ● 2739d

Fully agree. We don't want Martians and little green men from space coming here and taking our houses.

Ian Fergus ● 2739d

ill conceived aliens.Yes aliens, foreigners, outsiders, assylum seekers, etc etc.Lets deal with every one who is here, then we can cope with the excess

Peter Yale ● 2741d

I presume by aliens you mean foreigners and not little green men from Mars. One of the reasons this measure has had to be introduced is the collapse of projects being started by the private sector. There are a few reasons that this has happened such as Brexit uncertainty and stamp duty changes but a related factor is the collapse of overseas demand for UK residential property. The property market was already dysfunctional because of the ridiculous over tightening of mortgage regulation which meant that very few people, particularly first time buyers, were able to get on the property ladder. This issue was partly solved by overseas buying but most of this didn't come from shady Russian billionaires or Saudi princes but from middle class Asians from places like Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. With no significant state pension system or welfare support they have much higher savings rates than we do and UK property offered an attractive yield often sweetened by any units being bought being available for children studying in the UK.  This is really just part of the international flow of capital and it should be remembered that we through our pension system are buying significant shares in companies listed in these countries. Demand from this source disappeared when the weakness of sterling meant that the perception of currency risk was too high. What this meant was that developers' were reluctant to start new projects because the ones they currently were trying to sell weren't moving. Hence the reason that the government has been forced to provide a billion pounds in London alone to get things moving again. The only way to effectively stop prices continually rising is to create more supply than demand and the disappearance of Asian buyers from the market has resulted in a crunch in supply. So, if your ill-considered policy of stopping 'aliens' buying property was ever introduced it would mean fewer homes would be built and prices would rise. This is to discount totally the UK's dependence of free movement of capital for City based industries which provide such a large proportion of government revenue. Capital controls of this nature would have a massively negative impact on this sector.

Gordon Southwell ● 2741d