Available land for starter homes.

No there isn't. Building developers like to have a five year land bank, which I think is reasonable. Councils can compulsorily purchase land and buildings, but only in certain restricted circumstances. The problem is there has to be a market for builders to sell into. I say market advisedly because it is not the same as need.

Our local Council has got into a lot of problems for not meeting its housing targets. Building on a very large development area (1000 plus houses) slowed down drastically during the recession because people were uncertain of the future so were wary of either buying their first house or trading up and with mortgage companies being much stricter about lending criteria, the market almost dried up. the need for housing, of course, did not.

Going back to the original question posed by gangy5, I could be wrong but thought there was already a law in place to stop developers buying land and then holding onto it for a long time?

Having lived for a while in high rise flats I can tell you that flats are not fine for any kind of resident.Plus the lifts will never work well all the time.Where I was , there was an old lady in her 80's who was almost blind and lived on her own with almost no visitors. there were young mothers struggling with a baby and a toddler and shopping.nobody was allowed a pet, not even a cat for company. No balconies, probably a safety issue, but flats where there are only about four floors often have them, where residents can put washing to dry or have pots with plants in.Here in the UK, where it rains a good deal of the time, these places can be as miserable as sin.I am not talking about luxury developments here BTW, but rental. The ideal, for a happier society, are building warm, Eco friendly terraced housing for a sense of community,
And low rise apartments, being careful what kind of residents go into them.
I think that even couple without children would be happier in the housing I mention, but as existing housing stock has to be used, then it should be only for these people, and for anyone else, only to occupy the first couple of floors.

I agree entirely, Flickety. I'm not sure who they are designed for. I'm astonished at the number of studio 'executive' flats they keep throwing up. Who lives in them? I suspect they are mainly bought by people looking to do something creative with their capital. But I repeat: flats of the right kind are perfectly fine for any kind of resident as long as the lift works all the time and the flats and their surroundings are well-maintained.

London is the place I see most and I have certainly seen some going up and also blocks the councils no longer want sold to the private sector. Every time my train draws into Paddington and I see Trellick Tower I am amazed that anyone could want to live in such an ugly building. Even more amazed that it is listed.

However the presence of more of these buildings, suitable for the single and unencumbered does not meet the real housing need, which is homed for families with children and the very old and frail.

Flickety I don't know where you live, but they are still building blocks of flats of seven and more storeys in every city I visit.

If younger people without families go in them, it means that they are freeing up housing elsewhere.

There can be nothing better, especially for the older person and couple with children, than terraced houses.The young can play safely in gardens, older people can stay in touch with what is happening around them and can also have a pet.

High rise is over 7 storeys and not many blocks of flats that tall being built anywhere. As several have stated these are fine for younger people without families but for the elderly they can be very isolating and the rental sector is now very large and what is needed most is housing for families, let at reasonable rents with security of tenure.

An interesting article about what is happening in London. I wonder how much land is held by Tesco in London.

www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2015/04/28/the-fight-to-stop-london-becoming-a-city-for-the-rich

There were undoubtedly many badly designed and badly built tower blocks, just as there were thousands of badly designed and badly built houses both before and after the Second World War. But the well-designed blocks were popular with many families and were often rendered unattractive because they weren't maintained. In Sheffield, an award-winning enormous complex of flats ended up empty because of t.his. The complex is now listed, has been refurbished and is apparently very popular. Tower blocks are still being built in all our cities, but they are aimed at young, well-paid professionals or even retired people with hefty pensions. And students! And they have shops, spas, gyms, community space and live-in caretakers.

We have discussed it on GN (can't remember which thread) and imo it is a very good idea.
I think Tesco were intending to build houses themselves on some of their land, but let's hope this is now released as soon as possible for other developers.

Many people do like living in high rise flats, although I don't think they are suitable for people with children. It has always puzzled me why so many skyscrapers are built in countries where there is plenty of land available and perhaps it is because it seems quite prestigious to live in one of these flats. As long as they are as janea describes above and not thrown up without thought for the people who are going to live in them.

Flickety I don't disagree with what you are saying about flats that were built in the 60's - but the people who lived in them were certainly disadvantaged in that they were allocated to them following slum clearance without any consideration of preserving the communities in which they had lived previously.
All I'm saying is that high rise living doesn't have to be like that in the 21st century - with good design, good facilities and security, it can be just as pleasant as living in a house, with the exception of a garden, but that isn't a priority for everyone.

Lilygran there was much wrong with the flats as such. Many of these flats were system built using systems developed in countries where the weather was warm all year round and windows and doors left open for ventilation. They were not designed for British weather conditions and with next to no insulation - even by 1960s standards, heating them in winter together with the water vapour coming from baths, kitchens and washing machines caused constant condensation problems leading to mould growing on walls in the flats leading to respiratory problems for the residents.

In addition, in order to build these flats as cheaply as possible electric heating systems were installed. Not night storage radiators but underfloor or ceiling heating systems without controls. Many families ran in to debt because of the high electricity bills they ended up with trying to keep their homes warm and many switched the electric heating off and bought paraffin heaters, which only exacerbated the condensation problems.

The construction standards of many of these blocks was very poor and many have been demolished in recent years, not because it was not possible to renovate them to modern standards but because when surveyors and engineers investigated them in detail the standard of construction and misuse of materials was so extreme they were structurally unsafe and had to be demolished.

I wonder how long developers are allowed to hang on to land before a council can buy it through compulsory purchase?

The social housing high rise flats began to suffer when financial restrictions meant resident caretakers/concierges were no longer employed and the excellent community spaces were neglected. Then maintenance was also neglected so lifts stopped working efficiently and the outside spaces became a dumping ground covered in graffiti and litter. Imagine living on the tenth floor, even without a small child, with erratic lifts and stairwells smelling of urine and worse. There is nothing wrong with flats as such!

I noticed your comment soontobe on the thread about Tesco Losses that the land which they currently have in reserve would most likely have decreased in value since it was purchased and that Tesco's would be unhappy to sell this at a loss. As they are now no longer in need of it and are suffering big losses, one would think they should be prepared to offload it.
Currently, the housing need is greater than the need for anymore large supermarkets.

Things change. Young single professionals are a lucrative market.

The majority of people placed in high rise flats are still the socially disadvantaged. I might suggest, more socially disadvantages than those in the 60s, who were generally families with at least one bread winner earning an acceptable wage and with fewer of the social problems that beset such families nowadays.

Young professionals may well be happy to live in high rise flats but Young professionals with families? I doubt it.

In this country the inhabitants of high rise flats will, for the foreseeable future, predominantly be the disadvantaged.

Different countries and different cultures will always have differing housing needs and different attitudes to different types of property.

We must agree to disagree on this one I think.

Cause and effect is not the same as an association, Rosesared.

I would think that many three year old do play outside in small fenced in back gardens, my own DGS being one of them.

As FlicketyB has said, there is proof that high rise flats in the UK causes adverse social effects. You may not agree with this Jane, but it is what a lot of people think, with the result that thankfully we are not building them any more.Terraced housing with small gardens has become the norm for first time buyers and for social housing too, or flats that only go up about four floors.It may, or may not, work well in other countries.

Flickety we never let 3 year olds play in the playground downstairs by themselves while we remained on the 20th floor but I'm not sure that many 3 year olds in Britain play outside in the garden by themselves for long anyway. In the flat, we had the balcony (suitably caged in with wire netting) where they could play momentarily unsupervised, as you put it.
We would take the children to the playground every afternoon when it was a bit cooler which was nice for the mothers to get together and have a chat too.

I agree with you that it is different in other countries, but I don't think that high rise living necessarily has adverse social consequences.
I think it's the other way round here - that people who were put in high rise accommodation in the sixties were socially disadvantaged before they went there.

But it is becoming more acceptable to live in a high rise flat - I know several young professional people who have chosen this sort of accommodation, both privately developed and ex-local authority. I know that selling off local authority housing is contentious, but it's a separate issue.

Not sure how the Shard is doing nowadays.