Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Yes the Rwanda idea was scarily moronic. Makes you wonder if they had even crappier ideas in the pipe line, I expect they did!
THE FOURTH OF JULY
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sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
Braverman has been talking about "winning voters back from Reform". Given that she's disturbingly cruel, and as dense as a neutron star, I'd say watch this space.
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
Levelling up was a convincing positive way to communicate an aspiration - that there is little evidence of real activity is also true.
In the search for comforting concepts there is already evidence of inconsistency. Labour want to give more power (which I support) to local communities - so high a priority that Sir Kier has already met the metro mayors.
Yesterday Rachel Reeves in an effort to build lots of houses wants to implement centrally imposed mandatory targets and change the planning rules (largely agree although we may be treating the symptom not the cause)
I am sure there will be lots more political double speak to come!
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
What do you suggest to alleviate the housing crisis? The problem is that nobody wants a new estate on their doorstep, me included. The concept that "they're concreting over the whole country", which I keep hearing, is nonsense. You only have to drive down a motorway or ride on a train to see how much unused land there is.
Lots of extra houses need electricity and other services that are already struggling so more sewage into the enviroment and strain on local services. Thames water is £15 billion in debt and others in similar situations as they use a lot of energy which has gone sky high in cost and that is before they find the money for investment. Then of course the added congestion, how much more traffic can our towns and cities handle, it is already bad and getting worse.
The fist stage in this process should be a change in building regs before the planing aspect to ensure new houses are built to high thermal efficiency even if it means fewer houses on a given area so they use less energy and maybe look at a centralised heating system for the estate rather than individual gas boilers.
There is a lot of land but much is farming and agriculture which requires vast areas and we need to ensure we can produce sufficient food rather than depend upon imports.
Jameshow
Established Member
Because the north will always be treated as the poor relation to the SE.
If we had the investment the SE got then the social and medical issues those in the north face would be much reduced.
Bradford for instance doesn't have a functioning ring road nor a decent through A road, linking the m606 to the a650.
Nor a through station.
It's city centre is a dump compared to any southern city.
Same goes for any other north city beginning with B...
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
That there is land to be built upon is beyond doubt - even though the UK overall has a high population density compared to most European neighbours and N America.
Increasing urbanisation mainly impacts those locations already desirable - landscape, jobs, travel links, education, climate, etc. Further building directly affects current residents - ultimately too much building simply degrades the once desirable to just average. NIMBYs understandably rule.
Building where few people want to live is politically less challenging - but little point in wasting money on infrastructure and housing if there are no jobs or facilities.
Post war new towns have had a mixed experience - some close to London are now thriving having gone through difficult periods (socially and economically), and some are still failed communities with deprivation, few decent jobs, and poor infrastructure.
Levelling up - a policy now rebranded - should mean the less fortunate are supported toward the best, not the best degraded to mediocre.
No easy answers - more imaginative forward looking solutions needed which will challenge existing cultural expectations. Houses, 2-4 bedrooms, garden etc are land hungry and are the product of aspirations evolved 50-100 years ago.
Far more flexible use of retail units, offices, etc may be part of the answer.
Building so many new houses is a tall order following the over-cooked brexit deal and the alienation of so many European workers - until Labour can make it easier and more welcoming for those workers to come back, who's going to do the building?
The truth is that the Rwanda project was starting to see results with people smugglers moving their operations to southern Ireland according to the immigration chiefs. Perhaps you should find out more before offering your opinions as facts.
Do you have a link to that info, Scruples?
RobinBHM
Established Member
The Rwanda scheme was created as a diversion, its intention was to create a scheme which would get rejected by lawyers because it was not compatible with international law……and the govt could then say: “we have a solution but lefty lawyers are stopping us”
Rwanda never had any useful capacity and it relied on a flimsy argument that it would be a deterrent.
If the scheme was going to work, Rishi Sunak would not have called the election then
Almost all "second homes" would make very acceptable first homes for people who need somewhere to live - I would suggest that people who own more than one property should be compelled to rent those properties long-term. It would free up many, many thousands of homes. Of course, if they don't want to do that, that could always sell...
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Too radical for this feeble lot!
The Labour approach is basically to dodge the issue and defer action. Their proposals about planning would take years to feed through and it is very unclear how they could make changes without massive public spending.
Judge them by their actions, for instance, have they stopped no fault evictions? If not, why not and when, if ever?
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
It's pure fantasy. The Rwanda scheme wouldn't have deterred anybody as nobody had been sent there! Definitely a very low risk compared to the other hazards of the journey!
In any case it was irrelevant to the problem as the vast majority of immigrants arrive by other means
Also it was obvious to everybody (except the unwoke) that it was just another lunatic scheme designed to attract the unwoke vote
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It was on the BBC News website a few days ago. I daresay it's there somewhere.
Fantasy from the Civil Service, Jacob? Struggling to replace your opinions with facts?
Keith Cocker
Established Member
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68920391
Nothing to do with boats or Rwanda, in spite of rumours. They arrive by normal means and Rwanda not a motivation. Read the last three paragraphs.
"The BBC spoke to a 22-year-old man from India who is living in one of the tents. He said he had been studying in the UK but his visa had expired and he had left because "they made strict rules".
He said he had travelled to Northern Ireland by ferry and then got on a bus to Dublin, saying "I came for good opportunities"
Actually, it goes on:
'Mihnea Cuibus - a researcher for the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford - says there is not enough evidence to say whether the Rwanda policy "plays a role".
He said: "The number of monthly asylum applications in Ireland rose fairly rapidly at the end of 2021 - a couple of months before the Rwanda plan was announced and has fluctuated somewhat since then.
"This indicates that the Rwanda plan wasn't responsible for driving this initial growth... many European countries, including the UK saw growth in the number of asylum applications they received over the same period."'
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
Thames Water spent years paying millions in dividends to shareholders, even whilst in apparent financial trouble. That's all you really need to know about their situation.
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