Countryside Under Threat?

[gus horsley]

Our countryside appears to be under threat again. The government is trying to rush through massive changes to the planning system, which would make it much easier to build on green field sites.

Experts are lining up to condemn the government plans. The National Trust warns of ?unchecked and damaging development?.  Friends of the Earth predicts ?a building free-for-all that will blight our countryside with bad building?.

Here's some further details, along with a petition if you feel inclined to put your name to it.  I did but I didn't offer any donations to the cause (because I'm too tight-fisted):

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/save-our-countryside

 

[ChrisJC]

Frankly that's a load of bollocks. It's all emotive claptrap from vested interests.

Ask yourself some questions:
1. Why are house prices so high?
2. Why can the younger generation not afford to buy houses?
3. Why are modern housing estates so dense?
4. Why can't I park my car by my house (because guidelines give 1.5 spaces per house!!)
5. Why am I sat in traffic AGAIN?
6. Why is my electricity so darn expensive?
7. Why is my pension going to be crap?

etc etc.

It all comes down to a lack of supply on land. Government policy is for population increase to pay for future pensions. All the above are knock on effects of increasing the population but strangling the supply of accomodation. Of course, the Government could promote a policy of population shrinkage, and to hell with pensions, paying for the NHS etc etc. Naturally these idiots would be hopping up and down having protests and petitions about that instead.



Chris.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Gus - the thing I don't like is that the planning process is destined to become something it was never designed to be. Planning is not and never has been a tool designed for encouraging economic growth, ask any planning officer or anyone with a background in what was once called "Town and Country Planning". Planning Control should be exactly what it says it is - a means to plan and control changes to our environment whether in town or country. Encouraging economic growth is the job of those controlling economic policy, fiscal strategy etc. Planning needs checks and balances to make sure the interests of everyone are taken into account, and especially people in the future who will not be best pleased if we have trashed this country, whether rural or urban, for short-term gain without considering the mess that ensues.
If there are desires to develop something that results in a boost to the local economy then the checks and balances are there at the moment to take those factors into acccount ALONGSIDE other factors such as conservation, local development strategy, local infrastructure capacity, and so on.

The reason the traffic is so bad in the area I live in is not because there is too much planning control preventing the development of the infrastructure required to cope, but maybe because economic pressures have resulted in too much development being permitted in an area where there simply isn't any more room for more people to live and work. i.e. not enough sensible long term planning. Proper planning control would get the infrastructure in place ahead of permitting such development, but short termism allows developers to make a fast buck building loads of battery cages for people without any concern that there has been no investment in new drains, new power supply, new water supply, new road capacity, new healthcare provision. The result is that the residents in the area, both established and newcomers, all suffer from worse and worse traffic problems, local services have to be spread more thinly and are consequently pretty mediocre.

Here's a good example. A friend of mine had to wait over an hour in an ambulance with kidney stones, simply waiting for room in the hospital serving our area. When he got inside, he was put on a trolley in a corridor with loads of other patients before eventually getting a bed. Why? Simply because the hospital was never designed to cope with the massive increase in population that has happened in the past 20 years. Proper long term planning is about far far more than economic growth.

It's an interesting topic, Gus, and deserves more considered discussion than being dismissed as "Bollocks!"

 

[Fulk]

Simply because the hospital was never designed to cope with the massive increase in population that has happened in the past 20 years.

Has there really been a 'massive increase in population' in Britain over the last twenty years? I was under the impression that the population was creeping up slowly.

Maybe it's more down to expectations ? people hear about new cures, new treatments, (very expensive) new drugs and new  technologies ? MRI, CT, etc. ? and expect more from a health service that was never designed with this in mind.

 

[Peter Burgess]

There has in my area - I am partly responsible as well, not as a planner, or developer, just a contributor to the numbers.

Many of the small urban green areas that once existed in what was a properly planned new town are now built on.

A&E services have less to do with new treatments which are more relevant to the treatment of chronic conditions.

 

[Cave_Troll]

hospitals are also a "local" problem in that the population of the UK can rise slowly, but the population of a town that the A&E unit serves can rapidly rise.
Of course it does not help that there
a) loads of drunk people demanding treatment
b) loads of people who want to use A&E as a GP
c) town B's A&E was closed down 3 years ago.

 

[badger]

While maybe there has not been a massive increase in population, (I dont know you would have to check the stats) what has been true and is true is an inbalance of where the population is within the uk. The southeast where I am and also Peter is very heavily populated and an inferstructure at breaking point, I could harp on about transport, hospitals etc with boring facts, however it still remains that all these will not be able to cope with the intended house building planned. It is also very true that here locally if you are a young person not only are there very few jobs, there is also a severe lack of affordable housing, most developments being of 3, 4, or 5 bed house's.
So I think it quite understanable when local people get very upset with planning and also when they then see it rightly or wrongly that it would appear the planning rules are set to be more favourable to the house builders.
And quite possibly it would be difficult for people to understand local problems until they have lived in the said area. Or maybe peole might understand if they have waited 5 to 6 hours in A&E, or their child has to go 10 miles to the nearest available school, or have double journey times due to the volume of daily traffic.
Or we could also take the option as long as it is not in our backyard view.
Who knows what will happen, the government will do what they think is best regardless to whether we agree or disagree.

 

[kay]

The planning changes won't help your traffic problems 
They remove the presumption in favour of developing on brownfield sites before greenfield sites - so new housing will be further away from town centres and centres of employment, which will make traffic worse not better.

There are other solutions to look at. At present, developers are "land banking" - land with planning permission is more valuable than land without (maybe 10-20 times as valuable) - in my small area alone, there is planning permission for 4000 houses with no sign of any building starting. One devlopment about 10 years ago had the restriction that after a certain proportion of the house were sold, the developer would provide a pedestrian crossing; we are still waiting for that threshold to be reached.

There are empty properties across the country, reported to be equivalent to 1.5  years of the target home building.

But instead these planning rules go for a presumption in favour of development. They do nothing to balance the current inequality whereby the developer can appeal against a refusal, but the local community cannot appeal against planning permission being given - even though they are the ones who have to cope with the increase in traffic, the overloading of the sewers and drainage, the overcrowded public transport, etc.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Town B is where I live, Cave_Troll. My A&E is in the next county, with only an urban single carriageway main road between us and it. Like I said, no long-term planning, just short term "unplanned" house-building. No, not houses, just so-called "affordable" battery pens. Still b*****y expensive!

 

[kay]

Of course it does not help that there are ....

b) loads of people who want to use A&E as a GP

If it's out-of-hours, it's quite difficult to use your GP!

Which is fair enough - we can all hark back to our childhood (well, at least we can if we're old enough) when the GP did house visits and was available all through the night, but why should a GP have really rubbish work conditions and be on call 24 hours a day?

The combination of local "minor injuries" unit and a regional A&E seems a good compromise - though it can have unintended consequences - an elderly relative of mine cut his head, and needed the wound gluing. I got him to "minor injuries" within half an hour - but no - he was over 60 "can't do that here - needs to go to A&E so a doctor can see him" - and of course an elderly man with a cut on his forehead is small beer compared with heart attacks and so on, so it was 6.5 hours before he got seen to.

 

[Fulk]

According to one website I looked at, the population of the UK has gone up from 56.4 m in 1981 to 61.0 m in 2011 ? an increase of ~8%

 

[gus horsley]

Frankly that's a load of bollocks. It's all emotive claptrap from vested interests.
Chris.

Bollocks you might think but even the bastion of government support, the Daily Wail, has concerns:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2041732/Planning-framework-Plans-300k-homes-green-field-sites-developers-exploit-reforms.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

And this is on top of (ignored) warnings from DEFRA about the rising cost of imported foodstuffs and a lack of a coherent farming policy.

 

[Rhys]

5. Why am I sat in traffic AGAIN?

You need to ask yourself; "Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?"

In this modern world you may need to change your own behaviours and not expect government to be able to sort it all out for you.

I'm all for population reduction here and abroad. If there were less people, we'd all be in a better position.

 

[ChrisJC]

According to one website I looked at, the population of the UK has gone up from 56.4 m in 1981 to 61.0 m in 2011 ? an increase of ~8%

So about 4.5million people. Lets assume 3 people live in a house on average. So 1.5million new houses are needed. Manchester has a population of about 0.5million, so that'a a new Manchester needed every 10 years.

Where is it going to go?

NOT IN MY BACK YARD!!!

So of course we squeeze and cram the maximum number of dwellings into the minimum possible space. Didn't this happen during the 1800's and leave us with slums that we courageously cleared when we built new towns like Welwyn Garden City etc. Can't possibly do that again, it would mean building on green space. Terrible. Ruins the planet that does. Lets all live on top of each other.

Why are the roads crap?, is it the ridiculous cost of building new ones. I don't mind sitting in traffic because I'm b*ggered if I want any more tarmac putting down. Over 1 billion pounds to build 22 miles of dual carriageway in Cambridgeshire. How much?!?! Not been built yet, unsurprisingly. Imagine if we hadn't built the motorway network yet, and were just about to do so, we couldn't afford to do it. Is it the ridiculous planning and land-cost hurdles that make it so expensive? Perhaps it's time to simplify matters.

Chris.

 

[ChrisJC]

5. Why am I sat in traffic AGAIN?

You need to ask yourself; "Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?"

I am part of the problem. I can't afford to live near where I work, so I commute instead. Why is that? Land prices around Cambridge, fuelled by planning restrictions.

Chris.

 

[whitelackington]

Quote Mr. Burgess
"Here's a good example. A friend of mine had to wait over an hour in an ambulance with kidney stones, simply waiting for room in the hospital serving our area. When he got inside, he was put on a trolley in a corridor with loads of other patients before eventually getting a bed. Why? Simply because the hospital was never designed to cope with the massive increase in population that has happened in the past 20 years. Proper long term planning is about far far more than economic growth."


Our local hospital in Ascot has been there since the end of WW1,
there are three options on the table, two are for complete closure, one is for partial closure.
There has been no local clamour for the hospital to close.
Since the hospital has been built Bracknell New Town has been built, I think the overall population of Bracknell is more than a million, yet they are expecting us to use a hospital 19 miles a away, in another county, crossing Slough, which is a nightmare.
Who thinks this bollocks up?

 

[Fulk]

Rhys:

I'm all for population reduction here and abroad.

What did you have in mind? Another world war, perhaps cyanide in drinking water?

 

[droid]

I am part of the problem. I can't afford to live near where I work, so I commute instead. Why is that? Land prices around Cambridge, fuelled by planning restrictions.

Chris.

And you think the new houses will be built next to your work?

 

[Peter Burgess]

I wasn't suggesting that new developments are bad, but that they must be seen in the wider scope of long term planning. Make sure the area can cope with more people before providing the rabbit hutches for them to live in. That what proper planning would allow for but instead we hear of moves to make Planning Procedures a tool to aid the economy which is not what they are for. To make an area able to cope requires investment in service provision which is hardly going to happen under the present lot, maybe for very good reasons, maybe not.

 

[Rhys]

Rhys:

I'm all for population reduction here and abroad.

What did you have in mind? Another world war, perhaps cyanide in drinking water?

Contraception.