England's green and pleasant land

[duke63]

The towns and cities and the roads are overcrowded, Monty.

The infrastructure of the country struggles to cope with what is asked of it and unless there is serious investment in that its going to be an increasingly unpleasant place to live, yet the Government does not have the cash to do that.

[Monty]

Yes but we have enough space, it's just poorly planned like most things in this country.

[Rossgo]

But the landscape is what makes us a beautiful country rich in history, I can see it all going to pot and we will end up concreting over our area and everywhere will just be the same all grey!!

[Monty]

Ross look up Brownfield, I'm not suggesting we start building on greenbelt. We've got enough Brownfield to build 1.5m homes and that doesn't include the contaminated brownfield that would cost more to reclaim.

[Deegee]

More encouragement is required to get Brownfield sites and unoccupied buildings sorted into dwellings, similarly if you want to emigrate into the UK why have a similar system to Australia where you have to go to where the Government tells you as part of the conditions of entry? The South East of the UK is full to bursting and still more people are wanting build and live in the area, pressuring local roads, water supplies, schools etc, as Duke says the money is not there to upgrade the infrastructure so why not distribute immigrants around the country, you may well find that entrepreneurs within the immigrants will start local businesses too. Anyway, just an idea.

[Monty]

A lot of the problems with brownfield development comes from the NIMBYs, which I find odd. I'd much rather live next to a developed site than a wasteland. Suppose some people don't like change.

I work with LAs, HAs, consultants and architects that develop residential schemes and you're right Duke 95% of it is happening in the South. Very little has been done up here since 2008.

[Rossgo]

Ross look up Brownfield, I'm not suggesting we start building on greenbelt. We've got enough Brownfield to build 1.5m homes and that doesn't include the contaminated brownfield that would cost more to reclaim.

Yep just took a look, I see where your coming from and to be honest those sorts of areas should be built on (New warehouses, flats house etc) or make into a nice park for the locals to actually feel a bit of pride in their area?

I'm not a keen fan of carrying on building more and more, although people make very successful careers out of doing so! Its the traditional parts of the country we should take care of and the urban areas can and should be cleaned up before starting to build more. Some of the areas are just a disgrace and the people follow suit, maybe if the area was nicer the people would look after it and not leave houses to just rot away

[Monty]

There's a policy of "Brownfield first" that's been around since the 90s, but the government is currently trying to remove it. If they do the developers will jump at the green belt. There's a lot more money in luxury homes compared to social housing.