Soontobe:-

Opposition to building on the greenbelt is often a complex political issue. Whilst all parties at local and national government, may agree on the need for new building, when the location is disclosed it can often meet with opposition.

No party wants to lose votes, local and national, due to opposition to new building prejudices and rumours, such as " moving people with no jobs/homeless to the new town".

Locals can be suspicious of who might occupy the new houses and how they might change their environment.

Historical examples of change can be seen at Telford and Milton Keynes, where small villages were surrounded by massive new building programmes.
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Perhaps you could explain what you are talking about.

Are you talking about self sufficient in relation to jobs?
Well obviously you can take industry and jobs and people away from other areas, and entice them there, but that is not what I am talking about.

I lived in Peterborough for ten years. My husband was an architect. I know about newtowns, soon. We also lived in Cramlington for seven years, and my husband had a job in Killingworth. We have friends who moved around the country designing the infrastructure of newtowns.

When you get a lot of people moving into the same place at the same time they create jobs and a new society in that area. They are about as self-sufficient a society as you can get.

J52, why did it receive opposition? Were there job oppurtunities there already?

dj - but even if an area needs industry, it can just moves jobs from elsewhere. Yes, newtowns produce some of their own jobs, but they are not self sufficient by a long way.

Durhamjen, you have hit the nail on the head! New towns need to provide their own infrastructure. They require a great deal of planning and take many years to achieve. By which time our current young people will probably be grandparents!

A proposed new 'town/ village' near our city, received so much opposition, that it has been shelved. New towns are very much political hot potatoes. Those living peacefully in the areas where they are planned to go, rarely want them.
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What do you mean, you are not sure. Most newtowns produce their own jobs. They are often built in an area that needs industry, from which comes service industry, shops, offices, etc. You would not build a newtown in an area that had no need for jobs.

I agree about newtowns too. There are places in the UK that they can go.

It seems to me that most areas now have pressure on doctors, schools etc, so newtowns with support infrastructure built in, may work. But not sure about jobs and access to jobs though.

At the moment, pompa, a developer has plans in for 150 houses near the estate where I live.
The plans they put in, although the houses are for young aspiring families, expects there to be an additional 38 primary places needed. It will be at the top of a hill in a village which still regularly floods, and off what is a narrow country lane. They expect traffic flows to be okay, even though that is the only road onto the main bypass. There is no work in the village, so it will be all commuters to the next town or Durham city. Buses once an hour, but further away than is expected for walking.
The developer even mentioned the village bus as a means of sustainable transport, which is a large taxi and only goes between 9.00 and 13.00 to pick up pensioners to take them down to the village centre.
As you can imagine we are pleased that the planners recommend rejection, but that means nothing to the councillors.

I agree with you about newtowns. They are a good idea, with the infrastructure built in.
The government's housing plans are to sell off HA houses to sitting tenants and use the money to build new ones to replenish the stock. The problem is that HA's have to sell for less than the stock is worth, which could mean HA building going the same way as council housing.
Newbuild houses are to be sold to first time buyers, which should stop buy-to-let.

Brownfield sites are not favoured because they are not so sure what they are going to find once they start digging. So costs are more indeterminate.
Redevelopment of commercial property also often turns up unexpected and indeterminate extra costs.
Greenfield sites are normally much less problematic in this regard.

Perhaps there should be incentive for developing brownfield sites and redevelopment of commercial property.
This is common practice in London where all property is highly valuable, but it seems not so much the practise in less fashionable places. x

There are many problems with building LOTS of new and affordable houses. If they are built as enlargements of existing villages/towns, the support infrastructure is rarely adequate. Our own village has planning for a large number of homes, but the Doctors. dentist, etc. are already at full capacity. There are also poor transport links to areas of employment, which means more cars, very few new developments have adequate parking for residents cars, neither are local roads upgraded to take the extra traffic.
This gets worse with affordable housing as the density is much greater and as residents children and end up with 3+ cars, it can become a real problem. We had an estate built a few years ago that had limited parking and narrow roads, now emergency vehicles would have trouble getting access due to on street parking.
IMO, well designed new towns, with good transport links, and infrastructure are the only way to go.
Stopping affordable housing being bought to rent would always be a problem, so many people see property as the way to enhance their pensions, and as conventional pensions become less attractive, this will increase. Another thing that happens is that small homes get extended, therefore raising their market value above affordable.
Sorry to be so negative, but this is a problem that needs planning at the highest level.

I have relaised I havent answered quite correctly, about the selling on by self builders, as that only applies when there has been some sort of scheme to limit the cost of houses for sale, in some way.

builders or developers or landowners? Or even those who try to self build? And then might sell on when they realise how much money they can make? It isnt as simple as builders.
I agree with you about the affordable bit, but it is complicated. Tryiong to keep an "asset" at below market price for very long is difficult.

It's not just building the houses, it's making them affordable for those that need them as homes. It's capping the profit that builders can make.

The only way to reduce overinflated house prices is to build a LOT of houses.In my village they are doing this, and ditto for all towns and villages across the land, however the outcry from the residents is unbelievable.Nobody wants more house, but it has to happen!

The flats and small terraced houses that used to provide a first step on the housing ladder for young couples are increasingly snapped up by buy-to-let investors, who can then charge high rents, and only offer short-term tenancies. If more "affordable" homes are built, they will be bought up by these same investors. The result is that for many, perhaps most young people, owning their own home, or renting for long enough to become an established part of a community, is an impossible dream.

I would like to see the government regulate the rental market much more strictly, promoting security of tenure and controlling rents. New starter homes should have a stipulation that they are not to be bought for buy-to-let,at least for a long period of years. However, I'm not holding my breath!

www.change.org/p/annington-barnet-homes-stop-the-demolition-of-the-sweets-way-estate-stop-the-evictions-of-current-residents-and-offer-decanted-residents-the-right-to-return-to-their-former-homes-at-truly-affordable-rents/u/10790625

This is a link to the article.

May 22, 2015 — Last Wednesday we joined Sweets Way Resists to deliver our 200,000 strong housing petition at the Barnet Council AGM. Upon arrival we were shocked to find police vans and stacks... Read more

I have just been sent an email from www.change.org about this petition.
This is how it begins. The actual petitions were taken in but not mentioned at the AGM, thus ignoring the 200,000 signatures. If you want to read more about it, go on www.change.org. If this is democracy these days, it stinks.
Boris gets a mention in the article.

Our first house was a tiny new build 3bed semi costing £3800. We were given £1000 as wedding presents so our first mortgage was £2800. My husband's salary was £1100. I was a student.

My father paid my fees and gave me a minimal allowance. As he wouldn't disclose his in income I got no grant. When I married in my final year he stopped paying me an allowance. We managed on my dh's very small salary.

I paid not tuition fees, my parents supported me with £5 per week living expenses. I lived in a hall of residence for two years then got married and my DH and I paid £5 p/w rent for a 3 bed house (in south London) on a short term lease as it was owned by the Dept Transport who had compulsorily bought it for the M25 spur road that never got built. We took in French Students during the holidays . My DH had qualified (teacher) but worked p/t in the evenings and in the holidays to supplement the £63 monthly salary. I worked all through my student days (there was work available then) as we were saving to buy a house. We were lucky and got a 100% mortgage as key workers in London (had to promise to work for ILEA for 3 years or pay the equivalent of a deposit) Also had to buy an otherwise un-mortgagable property and there was a price cap on the properties we could consider.
Nowadays all those p/t jobs, holiday jobs are MUCH harder to come by, e.g we did Xmas post each year as students ..not available now. DH collected Littlewoods pools ..all on line now!
The drop in the number of jobs , at all levels, plus fewer homes available at a reasonable cost (to rent or buy) creates the current climate of difficulty for those at the stage of setting up home.

If there was the will to do it there could be a national building programme (we have had them before) which would create work and homes. Seems like a win / win.

"we started out in a caravan. it was cosy" etc, wasn't that one of the joys of young love,

My parents both lived at home with their parents until they married. They lived at home through university too. Couldn't have done it otherwise.

My first husband lived at home through his first degree. It was quite common in Scotland in the seventies. May still be for all I know.

Just for the record, means-tested student grants were for living expenses not for the cost of tuition. University tuition was free until Tony Blair, with the help of Scottish MPs, introduced tuition fees in England.