UK housing crisis: planning targets scrapped in ‘win for nimbys’ – Fifty-five councils have suspended their development plans as permissions fall

18 comments

  1. For fucks sake, may as well go tie a noose right now. My generation will never have secure housing that won’t take all of our income

  2. I don’t mind being called a nimby if it suits people, but the areas planned for development near me where half baked and as the article refers to, no carrot. A lack of wide thinking was missing.

    Building thousands of houses, no additional shops for the area, already a chronic lack of doctors and dentists in the area that are already underfunded. Sure local people would move in, but the area is in a growth corridor so is going to be attracting businesses moving out of the south east.

    The main access road a mile away, has had 2 serious speed/weather crashes in the last year and no consideration was taken for that or the fact it floods in overload rain conditions.

    The bus route could not be confirmed and would leave car-less people isolated due to the aforementioned points.

    I’m happy to see development, but just sticking houses on a plot of land just to meet targets doesn’t help anybody.

    We heard all about garden towns, and self contained areas and this is the complete opposite.

  3. Something I’ve heard from someone in the planning department of a council is that developers used the targets to force through awful estates of shitty detached houses that they can sell for the highest profit.

    If the council wanted better energy ratings or more considerations for nearby amenities, they didn’t hold any leverage.

    I’m not saying this is great. Just scrapping the targets might help councils stop shitty developments, but it won’t help increase the development of decent homes.

  4. I know this is annoying the heck out of Reddit, but honestly I’m sick of having more and more houses built in my town. We don’t have enough facilities to cater for it. We’re short of doctors, schools, dentists etc. There is no more capacity here. There are no NHS dentists taking patients in our area. Can we start taking care of services and corrupt council spending before we start being apes about not building houses?

  5. An estate round our way has had “Say no to Bellay. No to more houses!” round every lamppost for month.

    Said estate was built in the late 90s.

    So they were fine for them to build **their** estate, but heaven forbid they build a new one

  7. Council planning is archaic & corrupt.

    https://www.transparency.org.uk/planning-council-local-authority-corruption-risk-permission-accomplished

    Croydon & Thurrock bankrupted with property deals.

    Independent government body needs to take control of housing issue, council cannot do it.

    Current situation is building multi storey blocks in areas of deprivation to meet quotas, locals don’t complain because it’s a vast improvement.

    Planning committees run by out of touch nimby supporters.

  8. Government funded and government built estates with proper planning done with the local population. Why do we always have to rely on the free market for fulfilling basic needs? The government have the money, just put together a team to look at brownfield and developable land and get them to design and build it. Not a hard solution

  9. They keep looking for permission near me for flats, however that keeps getting overturned. Instead, it means developers are building one or two large houses in an area devoid of affordable flats. The only way they would get permission is if they were retirement flats only, due to the high average age in the area. NIMBYs are often fine with houses, provided they think it will attract the right sort of people to the area.

  10. Having spent most of my career working for both local authorities and for developers, it’s a problematic issue in so many ways. There are local planning authorities which will default refuse any applications out of pure NIMBYism. There are some that don’t have the knowledge and experience to navigate complex applications and end up getting shafted by sharp commercial business practices. There are others who are clearly doing shady deals with developers who are able to obtain council-owned land very cheaply.

    Then on the developer side there are many who will think nothing of securing planning permission and sitting on that land until they think they can secure the best deal from a volume house builder, or sell it on without a spade being put in the ground once it’s appreciated enough for them. One of the most egregious examples I’ve seen in the last few years was prime redevelopment land next to Cambridge railway station ultimately having almost zero affordable or social housing built on it after the developer claimed the percentage had to be reduced because otherwise they wouldn’t make enough profit, after construction had started. Cambridge City Council fought and lost, costing them hundreds of thousands of pounds, and the formula for their commercial calculation wasn’t even examined because it was considered “sensitive.”

    Unfortunately the whole area is a perfect storm of shit with almost too much to fix.

  11. If it’s anything like the planning near me it’s a good thing it’s scrapped. It’s basically low cost, terrible build sky scrapers in green belts. But you know, no one rage clicks on that so…

  12. Thanks to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver I know what a nimby is and fuck you if you dont want homeless housing or addiction treatment centres in your area if you’ve never had to rely on them then you shouldn’t get a voice in this matter

  13. They aren’t building any houses near me… Just flats. Lots and lots of flats. Unaffordable ones at that.

  14. Choking supply to keep house prices where they are… Pathetic.

    **Your house is overpriced.** Its actual worth is about half.

  16. Couple of things.
    Empty properties. Compulsory purchased and renovated by local council. Then decide how many new homes are needed.
    New homes- build on brownfield sites.
    Councils employ builders and trades people to renovate and build. Then sell or rent.

    Developers building on greenbelt land is not acceptable.
    Local councils want the new 350-400 k houses for the council tax, they see the new money coming in and have no commitment to new facilities or affordable housing.

  17. People can’t use nimbyism as a sword when development plans offer no additions to the infrastructure of the local area. My local council recently objected to a development that would have added massive additional strain to stretched local amenities.

  18. Can we not start our own political party with the sole aim of abolishing nomyism and introducing affordable housing. Perhaps by legalising the construction of 3D printed homes in the UK, introducing fixed laws around what qualifies as buildable land and eliminating the need for local authorities to get a say in what can or can’t be built. Can we not just start a movement? I mean this is Reddit for crying out loud! We’ve got enough voices and hands

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