HS2 under review

[Mike Storey]

3 hours ago, lmsforever said:

March Modern Railways   Alan Williams column at the bottom read and learn !

 

Learn what? All he ever goes on about these days, since he moved up north from Surrey, is Trans Pennine, and almost always about connections from Scarborough. He is no longer on any committee of note, or a consultant to any legislative or planning body with any influence. It is an Opinion Column, not The Gospel, and he is an entertaining read, but has been wrong more often than not (having read MR regularly for 45 years, since I was a schoolboy and Alan Williams had hair).

 

[phil-b259]

21 hours ago, locoholic said:

To all of you leaping to the defence of HS2, may I point out that Sir Mark Worthington had to be appointed as an independent commissioner last year to deal with the large volume of complaints against HS2, precisely because HS2 wasn't behaving itself.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sir-mark-worthington-appointed-as-independent-hs2-construction-commissioner

 

Given the size of the project  (nothing like it has been attempted since the building of our major motorways (M1, M6, M5, M4, etc) - and given  the heavily politicised light in which it is seen by many, it doesn't surprise me that HS2 may well have been found wanting in certain areas.

 

However NONE of that undermines the fundamental reasons why it is being built in the first place!

 

Obviously if procedures need amending at HS2 with regard to communication / compensation then they should be addressed -  but folk need to remember that news organisations much prefer 'bad' news to 'good news' stories as it gives them the chance to indulge in the blame game / lust for revenge emotional angle

 

 

[billbedford]

7 hours ago, letterspider said:

I am French tourist with bags and I want to visit the Midlands (I suppose this scenario is now going to be very unlikely because of Brexit but in any case)

Why is HS1 and HS2 not being connected? How am I going to enjoy frictionless movement between St Pancras and Euston?

Surely a link between HS1 and HS2 would also provide the sort of redundancy that was mentioned higher up in this thread, relating to Old Oak Common?

I have read the decision not to have a link - and I go away with the impression that the decision seems to be largely for political reasons

Am I missing something here..?

 

 

By the time HS2 is operational, there will be an almost direct link from Stratford International to Old Oak Common via Crossrail. Maybe by that time, Crossrail will have sorted themselves out enough to not expect you the change trains at Paddington. 

[letterspider]

I know people who are willing to spend 20 hours in  a coach to get  to their holiday destination. So the issue here is cost over speed. 

Because of high infrastructure cost perhaps we have perception of HSR as a premium service.  Perhaps that changes when the Torys privatise the motorways .

As for line capacity. Why not double long trains that arrive via HS1/HS2 and split at Euston.  

Edited March 2, 2019 by letterspider

[lmsforever]

Whole section on HS2 and  how its being presented to us plus the last chairman tells the Times that the line will never be built on time or on budget .Mind you that's par for the course now in the UK so that's just a normal thing,and also saying the line will finnish at Old Oak,  he says the current chairman must be wondering what is going on .Also said is a warts and all report is needed to explain clearly to everyone how the cost of construction is so high it might clear the air once and for all.I for one would like this as I feel if I had detailed explanations it might change my views.Alan Williams has always hit the nub of problems and has great knowledge of railways.This summer is going to be an interesting one for all our railways lets hope that projects are finished on time and new rolling stock eventually appears were its supposed to .  

[phil-b259]

21 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

To  paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies, "they would say that wouldn't they", as it is a national preoccupation with the perceived value of property and actual!

 

Which is an attitude I heartily despise.

 

Unless you are a property developer, your home or business premises is a place to live and work - quoting how much it is worth is meaningless unless you plan to sell up imminently and only functions as a boast about how wealthy / upper class you might potentially be.

 

Its depressing the way the majority of citizens and media outlets bang on about high house prices as being a symbol of ecomic virility - when in actuall fact high ouse prices are a sad indicator of a failure of economic policies to either spread economic activity more evenly acoss the country or a failure to look out for the yonger generation - who we rely on to supply the tax revenues to look after us in our old age.

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, letterspider said:

I know people who are willing to spend 20 hours in  a coach to get  to their holiday destination. So the issue here is cost over speed. 

Because of high infrastructure cost perhaps we have perception of HSR as a premium service.  Perhaps that changes when the Torys privatise the motorways .

As for line capacity. Why not double long trains that arrive via HS1/HS2 and split at Euston.  

I'm rather puzzled about how Euston enters into it?  The original outline idea. (probably best not to call it a 'proposal') had the link joining HS 2 at Old Oak Common which would at least have kept the complicated part - the actual junction - clear of the subterranean jungle of London.  the link below will lead you to a map of the route -

 

http://www.thehs2.com/phase1/locations/hs1link/index.php

 

The more recent HS4Air route is very different swinging south of London from a junction much further south and having intermediate stations at Gatwick and Heathrow then joining HS 2 somewhere not far north of Old Oak but it is real out-of the-box blue skies thinking and probably stands little chance of happening although it offers some great opportunities for 'rail for aircraft' substitution from the airports towards the continent.

 

But neither of these ideas solve the practical situation on HS2 - they don't avoid consuming paths needed (according to the forecasts) for UK domestic traffic and I can honestly see little reason to doubt those forecasts in the longer term unless the UK economy falls off the top of a cliff in a really big way.  

 

Coupling continental services to British domestic services creates major problems for the reasons I previously mentioned and in any case the stations would become much longer, with even more land take, if that were to be done.  Just imagine travelling north to, say, Leeds on an HS2 domestic train from London which is coupled to an international train at, say, Old Oak Common  and then having to present your passport and visit Customs in order to get through the barrier at Leeds (or indeed at any other station where that train calls or terminates).  Or travelling towards London and maybe having to pass through security and passport checks before being allowed onto the platform to join the train.  Running international trains separately from domestic trains would allow them to be dealt with separately so passengers travelling domestically wouldn't have to go through all of that and if someone is prepared to pay for it the checks could in any case be done on the train for passengers travelling to/from north of London.  But on-train checks would be very expensive to organise so I doubt if any operator would be keen on having to pick up that cost.

[rockershovel]

10 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Which is an attitude I heartily despise.

 

Unless you are a property developer, your home or business premises is a place to live and work - quoting how much it is worth is meaningless unless you plan to sell up imminently and only functions as a boast about how wealthy / upper class you might potentially be.

 

Its depressing the way the majority of citizens and media outlets bang on about high house prices as being a symbol of ecomic virility - when in actuall fact high ouse prices are a sad indicator of a failure of economic policies to either spread economic activity more evenly acoss the country or a failure to look out for the yonger generation - who we rely on to supply the tax revenues to look after us in our old age.

 

High house prices are a whole ‘nother thing - basically the long-term outcome of abandoning the housing and savings policies of the 1919-1979 era in favour of debt-driven asset speculation driven by uncontrolled foreign ownership. 

 

 

 

 

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

 

High house prices are a whole ‘nother thing - basically the long-term outcome of abandoning the housing and savings policies of the 1919-1979 era in favour of debt-driven asset speculation driven by uncontrolled foreign ownership. 

There was an excellent BBC article some years ago - probably by Evan Davis - about why rising house prices were a good thing for so many groups: estate agents (fees), solicitors (fees), HMRC (stamp duty), banks (interest on bigger loans) and the one group that barely talks about them (retiring, pensioners planning to downsize).  

 

It concluded that rising prices were good for everyone other than the people who actually wanted to buy a house to live in.  Prices rising at N% per annum cost most of us some six figure sum through our lives.  I've never understood why most of the media find this such a hard concept to grasp.

[rockershovel]

57 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

There was an excellent BBC article some years ago - probably by Evan Davis - about why rising house prices were a good thing for so many groups: estate agents (fees), solicitors (fees), HMRC (stamp duty), banks (interest on bigger loans) and the one group that barely talks about them (retiring, pensioners planning to downsize).  

 

It concluded that rising prices were good for everyone other than the people who actually wanted to buy a house to live in.  Prices rising at N% per annum cost most of us some six figure sum through our lives.  I've never understood why most of the media find this such a hard concept to grasp.

 

Quite so. That’s an edited version of a much longer post.... broadly speaking, government policy from 1919 to 1979 was based on improving and increasing the national housing stock, providing housing for the workforce, largely financed by Building Societies which had a direct interest in controlling prices. Railway companies also profited from this (“Metroland”) and generally, everyone benefitted from a general creation of wealth and redistribution of assets. The banks took no real interest, at that time, having other fish to fry. 

 

By the 1960s, inflation was accelerating rapidly, cash saving was increasingly pointless and industrial investment was declining in value. The Conservatives hit on the idea of emphasising the increasing cash prices of homes (really, only assets increasing in nominal value in line with inflation) as a feel-good factor. The banks were looking for new markets and in a complex chain of events, the old Trustee Savings Banks and Mutual Building Societies were swallowed up and drained of value by the banks. The banks also had a direct interest in increasing prices and creating debt against that “book value”, leading to the 1980s boom and subsequent bust.

 

But the Conservatives also introduced another game changer - the concept that uncontrolled foreign ownership was benign. This had never been illegal - we are one of the very few countries permitting uncontrolled land and property ownership by foreign nationals - but was very much NOT government policy, previously. They also largely abandoned the construction of “social” (state owned) housing and sold off much of the existing stock. 

 

So far, still do good. Labour then introduced a policy of immigration at figures never seen before, which continues to this day. It’s extremely difficult to understand the figures, not least because of the way they are presented, but it’s clear that the population has increased by at least 15% in less than two decades. This means huge extra pressure, because you MUST have somewhere to live in this climate. 

 

How many members if this forum are resident in the Far East? A number, I think? Anyone living out there will have seen the constant advertising for property speculation syndicates in the UK, very popular in societies with high liquidity and few investment opportunities. It’s no particular secret that very large sums in liquid funds of dubious provenance flow into London from all over the world. The Telegraph recently printed an article about “investment in U.K. by largest sovereign wealth fund in the world” which upon examination, proved to be about property speculation by the Norwegians. Now, the Norwegians are probably the most law-abiding nation anywhere, with a highly developed sense of social cohesion, but property speculation by third parties isn’t “investment” in the sense it was clearly intended to be read as. 

 

So we have a whole mechanism, specifically dedicated to maximising asset prices and the rents derived therefrom, completely independent from any relationship between domestic earning power and housing costs, let alone any concept of obligation to the nation or population. The groups in the quoted list are all real enough (although downsizing pensioners are, I suspect, the very least influential of those mentioned), but represent a serious imbalance in favour of quite small groups within the sector. 

 

 

 

[duncan]

To see how bad this is for the economy, just look at Germany.  They have much lower private home ownership (more people rent) & fewer foreign buyins and consequently a much wealthier economy spread over a wider section of society - my German relatives have trouble believing the lunacy that goes on in UK.

[letterspider]

 The idea of a private contractor being responsible for national border control seems  unacceptable and crazy to me but I agree that sharing your train with a non local passenger might be strange, if you were outside Shengen. Hasn't stopped Europeans commuting between countries by train. 

Anyway  I would think passengers would prefer to be processed in the comfort of their seat.  You could also only permit e passports which would only make children and luggage the only problems.  It is going to be a lot less expensive than processing aeroplanes.

 

 

[locoholic]

Having watched the full BBC West Midlands report on HS2's dealings with landowners it would seem pretty clear that HS2 has been abusing the Schedule 16 process by using it to gain control of the land required for the route, not just for temporary access roads and compounds. The excuse used was that the design details of the route have not yet been finalised (as has been claimed by the residents of Calvert, too), which begs the question why they need access to so much land at such an early stage. You don't need to occupy hundreds of acres of land just to drill bore holes and test pits.. An HS2 spokeswoman admitted that they need to improve their dealings with landowners.

[locoholic]

On 2 March 2019 at 12:54, letterspider said:

I am French tourist with bags and I want to visit the Midlands (I suppose this scenario is now going to be very unlikely because of Brexit but in any case)

Why is HS1 and HS2 not being connected? How am I going to enjoy frictionless movement between St Pancras and Euston?

Surely a link between HS1 and HS2 would also provide the sort of redundancy that was mentioned higher up in this thread, relating to Old Oak Common?

I have read the decision not to have a link - and I go away with the impression that the decision seems to be largely for political reasons

Am I missing something here..?

 

 

Not sure why you expect HS1 and HS2 to be linked. Have you ever arrived in Paris on Eurostar for an onward TGV journey? Crossing Paris with luggage is far harder than getting from St Pancras to Euston.

[letterspider]

3 minutes ago, locoholic said:

 

Not sure why you expect HS1 and HS2 to be linked. Have you ever arrived in Paris on Eurostar for an onward TGV journey? Crossing Paris with luggage is far harder than getting from St Pancras to Euston.

 

Exactly the point sends that sorry problem in Paris it's exactly what we don't wanr to replicate    However we can now to to Amsterdam direct from London., so why not Paris, London, Manchester?

[caradoc]

1 hour ago, duncan said:

To see how bad this is for the economy, just look at Germany.  They have much lower private home ownership (more people rent) & fewer foreign buyins and consequently a much wealthier economy spread over a wider section of society - my German relatives have trouble believing the lunacy that goes on in UK.

 

I must admit to being mystified by the view that renting a home is somehow better than buying one. I am in the fortunate position of having paid off my mortgage, so when I and my wife die the value of our home (assuming it has not been eaten up by care home costs !) will pass to our children. Whereas if I had rented instead of buying, I would still be paying rent now (out of my pension), and would be until my death, and there would be nothing to pass on.

 

I do agree however that the ecstasy some show when the value of houses skyrockets is misplaced; After all, if they sell they still have to buy somewhere else to live ! And the more their house costs, the fewer people will be able to afford it. The only homeowners that benefit are those moving to an area where house prices are much lower.

 

 

[Siberian Snooper]

42 minutes ago, letterspider said:

 

Exactly the point sends that sorry problem in Paris it's exactly what we don't wanr to replicate    However we can now to to Amsterdam direct from London., so why not Paris, London, Manchester?

 

You can go direct to Amsterdam, but you can't come back, you have an enforced stop in Brussels, to go through customs and immigration.

 

 

[Godfrey Glyn]

Totally off topic but I would agree with duncan that it is a crazy situation and I cannot see any government getting us out of the bind we are in. Its fine for those of us who have paid off our mortgage and watch the value of our investment rise but absolute hell for our children who cannot afford to get on the ladder. Even the schemes created by the government to aid 'first time buyers' have had the effect of creating even bigger profits for the building firms rather than making the actual first time house prices more acceptable. 

We have developed an economic model which means we invest in land and houses rather than manufacturing and resist the development of new housing locally because any such development reduces the value of our investment in our own house.

The system then encourages very rich people to buy up property in London which pushes up prices even more which trickles out to the whole of the south-east. On top of that I read recently that a high value property in London would cost the owner around £7K for the community charge, whereas a similar value property in New York would cost around £250,000 a year.

I am not sure how we are, as a country to prosper if we continue with this economic model, and if we do not prosper we will never get round to investing in a railway system that is really needed to regenerate the north of England - the cross Pennine one!

[Mike Storey]

1 hour ago, locoholic said:

Having watched the full BBC West Midlands report on HS2's dealings with landowners it would seem pretty clear that HS2 has been abusing the Schedule 16 process by using it to gain control of the land required for the route, not just for temporary access roads and compounds. The excuse used was that the design details of the route have not yet been finalised (as has been claimed by the residents of Calvert, too), which begs the question why they need access to so much land at such an early stage. You don't need to occupy hundreds of acres of land just to drill bore holes and test pits.. An HS2 spokeswoman admitted that they need to improve their dealings with landowners.

 

I am unable to watch this, even on iPlayer, as they have stopped viewing from outside the UK.

 

Could you please explain what exactly the "abuse" is? It cannot be as you describe, because those powers exist and were always planned to be used in that way - see below.

 

Under the 2017 Act, the powers that the Secretary of State has include temporary possession orders within the Safeguarded Zones, and he has the powers to decide which of those temporarily possessed lands revert to compulsory purchase, where identified following completion of detailed design. See pages 23 and 24 of the attached.

 

The Safeguarded Zones were published for consultation several years ago, and each local council affected, assisted in that with the relevant property owners and occupiers, for the Zones to be finalised in 2016. You can see the details of those by area in the same attachment, the first several pages. It has been clear for many years, that the potential land take during construction would be far in excess of that eventually needed for the route. But the powers and plans have been through consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. 

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/561799/Section_P_Compensation.pdf

 

So can you please identify what is it that HS2 (or in reality, the Secretary of State for Transport) are abusing exactly, as it "clearly" isn't the law, nor have I seen any evidence of non-adherence from their intentions publicly published some several years ago and finalised three years ago? Why is a TV programme debating the issue some three years after final consultation of those powers and plans took place?

 

Is this really just about some people not being paid fast enough, or not getting the amounts that they thought their land/house/business was worth etc?

 

 

[Mike Storey]

3 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

Quite so. That’s an edited version of a much longer post.... broadly speaking, government policy from 1919 to 1979 was based on improving and increasing the national housing stock, providing housing for the workforce, largely financed by Building Societies which had a direct interest in controlling prices. Railway companies also profited from this (“Metroland”) and generally, everyone benefitted from a general creation of wealth and redistribution of assets. The banks took no real interest, at that time, having other fish to fry. 

 

By the 1960s, inflation was accelerating rapidly, cash saving was increasingly pointless and industrial investment was declining in value. The Conservatives hit on the idea of emphasising the increasing cash prices of homes (really, only assets increasing in nominal value in line with inflation) as a feel-good factor. The banks were looking for new markets and in a complex chain of events, the old Trustee Savings Banks and Mutual Building Societies were swallowed up and drained of value by the banks. The banks also had a direct interest in increasing prices and creating debt against that “book value”, leading to the 1980s boom and subsequent bust.

 

But the Conservatives also introduced another game changer - the concept that uncontrolled foreign ownership was benign. This had never been illegal - we are one of the very few countries permitting uncontrolled land and property ownership by foreign nationals - but was very much NOT government policy, previously. They also largely abandoned the construction of “social” (state owned) housing and sold off much of the existing stock. 

 

So far, still do good. Labour then introduced a policy of immigration at figures never seen before, which continues to this day. It’s extremely difficult to understand the figures, not least because of the way they are presented, but it’s clear that the population has increased by at least 15% in less than two decades. This means huge extra pressure, because you MUST have somewhere to live in this climate. 

 

How many members if this forum are resident in the Far East? A number, I think? Anyone living out there will have seen the constant advertising for property speculation syndicates in the UK, very popular in societies with high liquidity and few investment opportunities. It’s no particular secret that very large sums in liquid funds of dubious provenance flow into London from all over the world. The Telegraph recently printed an article about “investment in U.K. by largest sovereign wealth fund in the world” which upon examination, proved to be about property speculation by the Norwegians. Now, the Norwegians are probably the most law-abiding nation anywhere, with a highly developed sense of social cohesion, but property speculation by third parties isn’t “investment” in the sense it was clearly intended to be read as. 

 

So we have a whole mechanism, specifically dedicated to maximising asset prices and the rents derived therefrom, completely independent from any relationship between domestic earning power and housing costs, let alone any concept of obligation to the nation or population. The groups in the quoted list are all real enough (although downsizing pensioners are, I suspect, the very least influential of those mentioned), but represent a serious imbalance in favour of quite small groups within the sector. 

 

 

 

 

I share the concern discussed, but not necessarily the original causes.

 

The Population growth rate in the UK throughout the 1960's was nearly as high as it has been over the 15 years or so, but with far lower net immigration. Houses were being built at record rates (3.6 million that decade) almost keeping pace.

 

But the start of the rapid acceleration in house prices took place in the 1970's (quadrupled) when population growth was almost flat, and house building continued at a much higher rate than now (around 2.5 million new houses built). Home ownership percentage rose from around 30% at the start of the 1960's, to c.50% by the end of the 70's. Widespread industrial and economic uncertainty is usually blamed for this sudden change - safe bricks and mortar mentality.

 

So, whilst I totally agree with the rest of your analysis, the link between house price rises and housing stock is not as clear cut as is commonly believed.

 

That has certainly been the case in France (outside of Paris anyway). Housing stock has been plentiful in most areas, although of highly variable quality, and housing costs were traditionally low, due to low land prices, but prices rose anyway, initially blamed on UK expats paying over the odds, But, even though large numbers of Brits have continued to buy houses, despite Brexit, so too have Parisiens (due to tax relief changes on renovations mainly), but also Dutch, Belgians and some Germans (and Russians and Chinese in the South East). Housing construction rates have remained fairly static. But, despite all that, house prices, on average, are falling. But like the UK, because prices are falling, the market is beginning to stagnate, much like in the UK.

 

Where they have risen, to bring us back on topic, has been where transport links have significantly improved, no more so than in Bordeaux, since before the LGV line opened, a few years ago. Much as happened in Peterborough, and throughout much of the southern half of the ECML over the past three decades.

[locoholic]

1 hour ago, Mike Storey said:

 

I am unable to watch this, even on iPlayer, as they have stopped viewing from outside the UK.

 

Could you please explain what exactly the "abuse" is? It cannot be as you describe, because those powers exist and were always planned to be used in that way - see below.

 

Under the 2017 Act, the powers that the Secretary of State has include temporary possession orders within the Safeguarded Zones, and he has the powers to decide which of those temporarily possessed lands revert to compulsory purchase, where identified following completion of detailed design. See pages 23 and 24 of the attached.

 

The Safeguarded Zones were published for consultation several years ago, and each local council affected, assisted in that with the relevant property owners and occupiers, for the Zones to be finalised in 2016. You can see the details of those by area in the same attachment, the first several pages. It has been clear for many years, that the potential land take during construction would be far in excess of that eventually needed for the route. But the powers and plans have been through consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. 

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/561799/Section_P_Compensation.pdf

 

So can you please identify what is it that HS2 (or in reality, the Secretary of State for Transport) are abusing exactly, as it "clearly" isn't the law, nor have I seen any evidence of non-adherence from their intentions publicly published some several years ago and finalised three years ago? Why is a TV programme debating the issue some three years after final consultation of those powers and plans took place?

 

Is this really just about some people not being paid fast enough, or not getting the amounts that they thought their land/house/business was worth etc?

 

 

If you don't think it's an abuse to use legal powers designed to facilitate temporary access to deny landowners access to thousands of acres of their land without any payment of compensation, way ahead of the finalising of the project design, then you need to have a word with yourself. The land taken is greatly in excess of that required in order to gain the geotechnical data needed to finalise the designs of earthworks, tunnels and bridges, which is what Schedule 16 is meant to be used for. Similarly, if you think that "just not being paid fast enough" is also not an abuse then you are lucky it's not your property that's affected.

[billbedford]

3 hours ago, locoholic said:

Having watched the full BBC West Midlands report on HS2's dealings with landowners 

 

 

Where is this report?

[locoholic]

14 minutes ago, billbedford said:

 

Where is this report?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00032jq/sunday-politics-midlands-03032019

[Mike Storey]

2 hours ago, locoholic said:

If you don't think it's an abuse to use legal powers designed to facilitate temporary access to deny landowners access to thousands of acres of their land without any payment of compensation, way ahead of the finalising of the project design, then you need to have a word with yourself. The land taken is greatly in excess of that required in order to gain the geotechnical data needed to finalise the designs of earthworks, tunnels and bridges, which is what Schedule 16 is meant to be used for. Similarly, if you think that "just not being paid fast enough" is also not an abuse then you are lucky it's not your property that's affected.

 

Where exactly does it say Section 16 is supposed to be used only for that purpose???

 

It isn't true (did you bother reading the documents I have recently attached?). The Safeguarded Zones are just that, and can be used for any purposes pursuant to the eventual construction and (to a lesser extent) maintenance of the railway route and ancillary works. Whether the large extent of those Zones is entirely necessary must have been covered during consultation and parliamentary process. It is redundant to go over all that again.

 

 So it is all about non-payment or late payment. I would entirely agree that is unfair. Please don't attack me personally for asking what the key issue was. But do we know why that is happening, from that programme? Was "we must do better" or similar, HS2's or DfT's only comment? Was the Independent Commissioner for Construction, whose only responsibility is to keep an eye on, and resolve this stuff,  interviewed?

 

 

[rockershovel]

Re Mike Storey, above, pressure on housing and services tends to lag behind population growth from “natural causes” (for want of a better term) for the simple reason that as people grow up, they require homes and other facilities. This is pretty much how demographic predictions work, and the planning based upon them, work. 

 

Population  growth by mass immigration is demographically different to population growth by “natural causes” because it admits population who require homes and facilities immediately, not in 18 or 23 years’ time. 

 

Dont overlook also that percentage growth rates from a higher base point, are numerically larger than growth rates from a lower one, or that they occur IN ADDITION TO growth already in the system. No, the present growth is very different from the growth of the 60s and 70s. 

 

“Safe bricks and mortar syndrome”  was also a quite simple phenomenon to understand. People easily understood that in a high inflation economy, where saving is pointless and the current value of borrowing repayments are rapidly eroded relative to income, the most logical thing to do is accrue fixed assets, which rise in nominal value as inflation continues. It’s also quite easy to understand the concept that every penny you DON’T pay in rent, is a penny to your advantage - because you haven’t given it to someone else.