Flood Prone U.K.

[whitelackington]

Our government hope to encourage three million new homes to be built in the near future.
Surely with ever increased risks of flooding three million more homes will create more flooding :-\


No flooding in Upper Flood Swallet
Saturday

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that three million new homes would be built in England by 2020 - up 250,000 from the government's previous plan.

The Department for Communities and Local Government said a package of proposals to support more new housing would be outlined in its Green Paper next week.

 

[graham]

They won't be flood prone if we put 'em all on top of Mendip. 

 

[whitelackington]

True but is that we want  :-\

 

[graham]

Well, you clearly don't want 'em built on the flood plains, so they've gotta be on the hills.  :idea:

 

[whitelackington]

Well, you clearly don't want 'em built on the flood plains, so they've gotta be on the hills.  :idea:

In Holland they are building floating houses. :-\

 

[graham]

Who wants to live in Holland? They've only got one tiny bit of cave passage. 

(This is a cave conservation chat room, you know.  :read: ).

 

[whitelackington]

Who wants to live in Holland? They've only got one tiny bit of cave passage. 

(This is a cave conservation chat room, you know.  :read: ).

I belive caves can sometimes flood

 

[ian.p]

what would you prefere they do? we need to find more homes for people somwhere, the best allternative in my opinion is to make secound homes unafordable by puting a rediculsly heigh tax on them but this will never happen (i doubt many polliticians dont have secound homes)
certainly more thaught needs to be given to the design of these new buildings so that they dont create more flooding we need to rethink how are urban areas shed water: can a permiable alternative be found to tarmac, given that we have also ben facing draughts do we realy want to get rid of water when it falls on our towns or should we be storing it and if we are going to be dumping the water straight out of our citys should we be sending it straight into the nearist river or dispersing it over a wider area posibly throgh farm irrigation systems??  

 

[Elaine]

Whitelackington thinks we should cut down the population rather than build new houses to put them all in - don't you Whitelackington?

 

[AndyF]

what would you prefere they do?

Implement policy to limit population growth. The figures a few years ago were a net increasing population of 600 PER DAY (due mainly to EU immigration) Thus you need 150 new homes PER DAY to meet this demand.

Stop this from happening and you stop the DEMAND for new homes, so you dont have to build those 3 million new homes.

Simple really....

we need to find more homes for people somwhere,

clearly we dont - see comment above.

the best allternative in my opinion is to make secound homes unafordable by puting a rediculsly heigh tax on them but this will never happen (i doubt many polliticians dont have secound homes)

....so that would be the end of the rental sector, since there is no technical/legal difference between a second home and a buy-to-let property rented out by a landlord. Do you want to put 200,00 rental home businesses out of business when they are performing a legal and required service? Of course what would happen is rental prices would simply go through the roof to cover landlords "tax", transferring a the tax to the poorest group of society. This is unclear thinking..

 

[ian.p]

since there is no technical/legal difference between a second home and a buy-to-let property rented out by a landlord

not at the moment there isnt but laws can be changed and i suspect that its far more likley that they will be changed rather than implementing a china style one child policy allthogh i do agree that it would make sense to restrict the number of economic migrants from europe on the grounds that we dont have enogh space.

 

[ttxela]

can a permiable alternative be found to tarmac,

Yep, we used to use it on school playgrounds, can't remember the name. I don't think it was suitable for vehicle traffic though.

 

[graham]

....it would make sense to restrict the number of economic migrants from europe ...

Provided we accept that no Brit can ever take a job abroad, either.

 

[whitelackington]

what would you prefere they do?

Implement policy to limit population growth. The figures a few years ago were a net increasing population of 600 PER DAY (due mainly to EU immigration) Thus you need 150 new homes PER DAY to meet this demand.

Stop this from happening and you stop the DEMAND for new homes, so you don't have to build those 3 million new homes.

Simple really....


clearly we don't - see comment above.

the best alternative in my opinion is to make second homes unfordable by putting a ridiculously high tax on them but this will never happen (i doubt many politicians don't have second homes)

....so that would be the end of the rental sector, since there is no technical/legal difference between a second home and a buy-to-let property rented out by a landlord. Do you want to put 200,00 rental home businesses out of business when they are performing a legal and required service? Of course what would happen is rental prices would simply go through the roof to cover landlords "tax", transferring a the tax to the poorest group of society. This is unclear thinking..

What sense, I fully agree Andy.

Just heard on the wireless,
that hundreds of thousands of people will be without tap water for weeks,
our infrastructure is collapsing.
Bringing in more migrants, just what we do not need.
Less is better :-\

 

[graham]

Is it not the case that there are fruit growers all over the country who desperately need more economic migrants to come and pick their fruit?

 

[whitelackington]

Is it not the case that there are fruit growers all over the country who desperately need more economic migrants to come and pick their fruit?

Most of the fruit will be rotting in the tunnels

 

[AndyF]

Is it not the case that there are fruit growers all over the country who desperately need more economic migrants to come and pick their fruit?

Why is it that they specifically need "economic migrants" and dont need indigenous people.....?

Suppose it's so they can pay them peanuts....

Now suppose they paid proper wages...
So fruit prices went up...
But wages were higher now...
So people could pay the higher fruit prices....

Balance is thus maintained, and the economy is sustainable, without turning the country into the Mexico of Europe....

...and you havent got to house all the economic migrants, so pressure on infrastructure, schools, NHS etc is reduced....

 

[graham]

The level of wages is part of the problem, for sure, as it is the low salaries and the shit conditions that mean that teh Eastern Europeans won't come and do that work, but don't forget that employment levels generally in the UK are high; there is insufficient indigenous seasonal labour available.

 

[Hughie]

dispersing it over a wider area posibly throgh farm irrigation systems?? 

Errmm..... don't you think we might have enough of our own rainfall/water to dispose of, without having to deal with yours as well? Yesterday I shifted around 16000 gallons (that's 72640 ltrs to you youngsters) - and that's just what landed on concrete yards!

Perhaps if urban/town gardens/lawns weren't paved over (for the third or fourth car) it would allow for more natural drainage rather than rapid run-off.

Just calculated that we have pumped, in the last seven days, around 800,000ish gallons (3,623,000ish ltrs) of water from the land we use for dairy cow grazing - and it's still wet.

 

[graham]

dispersing it over a wider area posibly throgh farm irrigation systems?? 

Errmm..... don't you think we might have enough of our own rainfall/water to dispose of, without having to deal with yours as well? Yesterday I shifted around 16000 gallons (that's 72640 ltrs to you youngsters) - and that's just what landed on concrete yards!

Perhaps if urban/town gardens/lawns weren't paved over (for the third or fourth car) it would allow for more natural drainage rather than rapid run-off.

Just calculated that we have pumped, in the last seven days, around 800,000ish gallons (3,623,000ish ltrs) of water from the land we use for dairy cow grazing - and it's still wet.

can you pump it down Waterwheel? Then we can send Whitelackington down UFS to look for the flood pulse.