House-builders/developers and their profit margins

[Nearholmer]

The thing that never ceased to amaze me when I worked for TfL was the distances that people were commuting for non-office jobs, police, fire, NHS, construction workers at all levels etc. 

 

When you chat to people, it emerges that the reasons are multifold, not just housing cost although that is very significant. A lot of people don’t want to live or bring their children up in London, not because it’s ‘rough’ or the schools bad, neither of which is the case taken in the round, but because it’s over-busy, stuffed full of traffic, dirty, and lacking in green space.

 

Theres a whole lot wrapped-up in this, about making cities more ‘livable’, which is why making driving a choice people don’t make, controlling emissions, facilitating (which means doing practical things) cycling, heavily traffic-calming areas etc are important ……. It’s stuff like that that makes living at high densities not only tolerable, but actually something you’d choose to do.

 

Trouble is, and as a bit of a worn-out lefty I would say this wouldn’t I, a lot of the things that would make this country better in multiple different ways actually need strong central (in many cases devolved central, if that makes sense) planning, and execution, using public funding, which remains for the time being at least a very unfashionable idea. I shall now go away and grumble quietly to myself.

 

 

[kevinlms]

11 minutes ago, Nick C said:

But by spreading the office jobs out (either by having multiple smaller offices or more remote work), you reduce the housing pressure on the cities, and so have less of a problem that people can't afford to live near to where they work.

 

I don't buy the hospitality thing either - sure you'll have fewer of them in the business districts, but with more people not needing to commute, they'll have more time in the evening and so be more likely to go out then - thus shifting the (lower paid) hospitality jobs closer to where people live, both improving quality of life in the residential districts and reducing the need for those workers to commute too.

All very well, unless you are someone who invested a lot of money in fitting out a cafe in a CBD and through no fault of yours, had your business taken away from you.

 

I never would have done so, but to say that everyone should work from home or a nearby small business office, is just nonsense, because as others have pointed out, many jobs can't be done remotely.

[wombatofludham]

I'm a retired Chartered Town Planner and I can echo earlier comments about the variability of competence in my profession.  However, it is mainly down to senior officers and councillors, and planning being a political football.  For example, when I led a team of chartered town planners in a PTE we tried to get our colleagues in the Metropolitan Districts to consider using S106 funding to improve public transport provision (especially at the policy stage, but not exclusively) and we were ahead of the field in adopting this process.  S106 could only be used where a development would otherwise be refused unless remedial action, agreed as part of the S106 process, was funded.  A lot of the Met authorities were creative in using S106, in fact we even managed to double the funding for new bus shelters one year which to be fair could have been challenged by the relevant developers, but wasn't.  However, I found my dealings with the Shire districts far more challenging.  And this is where the political football gets kicked in.

When I graduated in 1986, the political philosophy towards the planning system was being driven by the Thatcher deregulation agenda.  The emphasis changed from absolute control by local authorities to one of a "presumption in favour of development unless there were serious objections of policy".  So, any control on the appearance of development was stripped way except in National Parks and Conservation areas, and the emphasis was on car based developments with minimal, if any consideration for public transport users or access.  This was such a sea change it seemed to infantilise some in the profession into just accepting, supine,  what they were given, if it complied with policy, and economic development was the prime objective.

Then came Johnny Two Jags who tried to roll back the dash for out of town developments by introducing a "sequential test", for commercial developments, and the need to consider public transport provision in residential development.  Trouble was a lot of councils still thought in terms of presumption in favour of development being the primary consideration.  I personally experienced this when I represented Centro at the examination in public of the new draft Staffs and Stoke on Trent Structure plan, where I successfully argued for and got incorporated policies to get new housing developments in the Chase and Lichfield to fund significant improvements to the Cross City and Chase lines, supported by the Highways Agency (as was) but much to the consternation of the House Builder's federation rep (I actually heard him squeak in pain at one point!) and the district senior planners.  It's clear when the Government Inspector agreed the policies were reasonable that the national Planning Guidance had changed but the mindset of those implementing it hadn't.

Of course, we've since seen a 180 degree change in policy back to promoting and encouraging development and light touch planning.

This is where our planning system isn't fit for purpose.  Far too much is left to commercial decisions and is encouraging the wrong kind of development and the housing shortage.  Planning consent exists, according to my Institute, for over 1 million homes but only a fraction of that are being built.  Why?  Because of land banking.  Shareholder value of the larger companies is enhanced by high prices, and the increased value of land once it has planning consent.  It actually is in the interest of the bigger companies to restrict the number of houses being built, causing artificial price hikes, which drags up the overall housing market levels.  They also find large, "executive" houses more lucrative to build than smaller homes, after all, a single execu-box which occupies the space of two semis, will need less landscaping, kitchens and the like.  The removal of any design influence from the majority of house or commercial development has led to the ghastly faux-Victorian boxes which infest the areas they are being built in - because the big companies think that is what people like, so they produce identikit designs with limited movement for a little bit of "vernacular" treatment, because they can throw them up quickly, order fittings in bulk because the house being built in Lichfield will have the same layout as in Leicester, but in reality, they are popular because that is all that is available.

To be honest, whilst housing policy is skewed to private house building this won't change.  The alternative is to have a National Housing Procurement organisation, who decides where housing will go, buys the land at agricultural cost, meaning the increased value of the land accrues to the public purse whilst the farmer gets the agricultural value for his land, then the organisation invited the big companies to bid for packages of land, which would include some for rent, some for regulated price private or shared ownership, including higher and intermediate density housing, and some completely free market housing on which the building company would have total free reign to set price and standards, and choose their market.  There would be a range of sites, some greenbelt, some more challenging sites, in each bidding package.  In effect, it would be bringing the housing market into a similar kind of regulation other industries have, would also probably reduce local council variability and hopefully would stabilise the prices of new and existing housing.  It won't happen though, it smacks of Soviet style central planning, but realistically it is the only way the system of major housing development can be managed effectively.  Public control of the use of land by an entirely free market development system, in housing at any rate, isn't really working in the interests of the public.

 

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

All very well, unless you are someone who invested a lot of money in fitting out a cafe in a CBD and through no fault of yours, had your business taken away from you.

 

I never would have done so, but to say that everyone should work from home or a nearby small business office, is just nonsense, because as others have pointed out, many jobs can't be done remotely.

But I never said that "everyone" should work from home, merely that more should be able to, which would then allow more flexibility in location and help reduce some of the problems being discussed. 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The UK wouldn’t feel so overcrowded if economic activity, and hence prosperity, was spread more evenly across the countries and regions, and ‘dumpy’ areas would be far less likely to arise if there weren’t areas of deprivation.

This is correcting however, especially driven by rail services with wifi. Fifty years ago I needed to live twenty miles from the centre of the jampot for my career, now people are doing it from 200 miles...

 

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, MJI said:

 

Bus driver could use remote from home and pretend it is truck simulator

And railway signalling and other aspects of operations could be done from a call centre in Bombay. 

Most of the East Coast Main Line is already concentrated in one office in York.

[stewartingram]

5 hours ago, MJI said:

 

Bus driver could use remote from home and pretend it is truck simulator

What's a bus driver? Very few round here, (a) services been withdrawn by Stragecoach (b) replacement operators now run VERY limited services, supported by a temporary council grant. One operator (and they are not alone it seems) cannot get enough drivers due to a national shortage, so 1/2 of one replacement service cannot yet start.

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by stewartingram

[figworthy]

10 hours ago, kevinlms said:

'Nimbyism' at it's best. Or 'I'm right, Jack'!

 

There is "Nimbyism" and then there is "Nimbyism".

 

Back in the noughties, a planning proposal was put in for some land adjacent to Figworthy Manor.  I was a relatively recent arrival at the time, but neighbours who had been there longer and knew the area well weren't happy.  Apart from the usual range of objections (classic nimbyism if you like), there were more practical ones.  The development went ahead, and the practical concerns were shown to be valid, in this case some properties started to get their gardens flooding in periods of heavy rain, something which hadn't happened before (fortunately not mine).  The new properties were built uphill of us, and the land had previously soaked up the rain.  So were the objections classic nimbyism, or were some of them genuine reasons ?

 

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

 

Adrian

[chris p bacon]

5 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

  The alternative is to have a National Housing Procurement organisation, who decides where housing will go, buys the land at agricultural cost, meaning the increased value of the land accrues to the public purse whilst the farmer gets the agricultural value for his land, ....................  It won't happen though, it smacks of Soviet style central planning, 

 

 

You make some interesting points but I've highlighted the above as it has to be the most unfair system you could think of.  

 

The state takes land from a farmer and gives the lowest possible value. He can't farm the land anymore and the state has cut the income from his farm which could make it unviable. 

 

I was friendly with a farmer/landowner that ran a very large farm in Bedfordshire, when we discussed the values of land he had a different value to that of the agricultural rate as the farm was in trust (so one generation couldn't sell it and gamble it away). The land value was measured in what it could produce in crops over decades, so he had areas of the farm which were worth more than others depending on the soil conditions.  

I went to an auction with him once where he purchased some acreage of land at £50,000 an acre, I thought him a bit bonkers but he'd tested the soil and knew the area well as it bordered the farm and was prepared to pay more for it.  

The average 'Agricultural land rate' at the time was around £10,000 an acre, but he had outbid 2 local developers for the land and was happy with the price paid. 

[kevinlms]

15 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Yes, in Australia they are looking to 'steal' doctors from the UK. Your daughter sounds like a prime candidate!

 

Some rural communities are offering big bonuses (free houses etc) to attract permanent doctors.

One such example in todays news, where the the council DIDN'T meet the request for extra funding. So now no locum funding = no doctor at all!

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-15/norseman-residents-react-to-losing-gp-doctor-graham-rowlands/102601466

[Kris]

17 hours ago, melmerby said:

Not in Workington which is a post industrial town with relatively low house costs.

Try Keswick 16 miles away.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/Keswick.html

Just goes to show that there is a massive variation in housing costs across the country. The houses that I was thinking of are in Redruth (also very much a post industrial town), just about the cheapest location to purchase a house in Cornwall. These houses are on a development of 185 houses (later rising to 600) where most of the houses are shared ownership or social rentals. 

I you head 16 miles down the road you hit the stupid prices that is St Ives. 

[Michael Hodgson]

17 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

To be honest, whilst housing policy is skewed to private house building this won't change.  The alternative is to have a National Housing Procurement organisation, who decides where housing will go, buys the land at agricultural cost, meaning the increased value of the land accrues to the public purse whilst the farmer gets the agricultural value for his land, then the organisation invited the big companies to bid for packages of land, which would include some for rent, some for regulated price private or shared ownership, including higher and intermediate density housing, and some completely free market housing on which the building company would have total free reign to set price and standards, and choose their market.  There would be a range of sites, some greenbelt, some more challenging sites, in each bidding package.  In effect, it would be bringing the housing market into a similar kind of regulation other industries have, would also probably reduce local council variability and hopefully would stabilise the prices of new and existing housing.  It won't happen though, it smacks of Soviet style central planning, but realistically it is the only way the system of major housing development can be managed effectively.  Public control of the use of land by an entirely free market development system, in housing at any rate, isn't really working in the interests of the public.

 

Harold Wilson's Labour government on coming into power in 1964 was facing a housing shortage.  They asked the builders why they weren't doing more, and were told they couldn't get the land and the planners wouldn't approve anything.

 

There was also a problem that a field without planning permission was worth agricultural value, whereas the administrative decision of granting it suddenly made the same field very much more valuable, giving the owner a massive overnight gain (which was called "Betterment") which he had done nothing to earn and the Labour view was that benefit should accrue to the state; the difference in value also provided scope for bribery of the relevant decision makers.  So they set up the Land Commission a few years later, a Government Department my father worked for.  His job was to go round town halls in the West of England asking them about their development plans and the Commission collected a very hefty tax called Betterment Levy which was imposed on the gain arising from planning approvals.   This, unsurprisingly was unpopular with wealthy land owners (Sir Gerald Nabarro MP being particularly outspoken) and when the Tories got back in, they carried out their manifesto promise to abolish it.  The Commission also had compulsory purchase powers, although planning approval remained a local decision.

[black and decker boy]

thing to note with a lot of the above posts:

councils/government do not generally fund any of the new infrastructure needed for housing/commercial/retail development. The private developers do.

(there are exceptions such as homes England but that is usually for highly unviable sites needed a lot of upfront investment 

a lot of agricultural land, especially around key towns & cities isn’t owned by farmers. It’s owned by very large & wealthy landowners, businesses or other organisations such as churches & universities. They own it to make a profit from it.

our planning policies, until recently, set targets for each council area to meet for a 5year housing supply. No plan = free for all. Inadequate plan = free for all.

planning policy is still weighted in favour of sustainable development 

flooding & drainage is a major factor in planning process and EA /LLFA have significant weight in the decision. All new developments will have some form of attenuation built in (SUDs basins or oversize buried pipes) and these are designed for climate change. Older estates won’t feature this and wouldn’t have been designed for climate change nor current higher intensity rainfall so will be more likely to suffer surface water flooding (different to watercourse flooding).

all developments over a certain size have to provide new public open space (though it can be remote / offsite rather than on the development (SANG site).

brownfield sites are still given priority but the costs of clean up can be extensive. Government has been very good at releasing old MOD sites for new ‘garden towns’, I’ve been involved in building the primary infrastructure on a number of these.

 

being in construction, I see the same arguments across England that area A is not right for development and area B should get it instead. Ignoring the fact area B is already getting similar volumes and it’s residents think it should be done in area A.

 

the only places relatively protected from development are national parks. AONB and conservation areas but that leads to even higher prices and housing shortages.

 

localism is the current buzzword in Westminster. That is, unfortunately also likely to cause more delays and blockages in the planning system even where published Local Plans & Neighbourhood Plans exist with allocated development zones.

 

there is probably too much money being made behind the scenes by landowners, pension funds (and banks) for the system to truly change.

Edited July 15, 2023 by black and decker boy
Typo

[Reorte]

23 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The UK wouldn’t feel so overcrowded if economic activity, and hence prosperity, was spread more evenly across the countries and regions, and ‘dumpy’ areas would be far less likely to arise if there weren’t areas of deprivation.

I disagree with this. With some exceptions (e.g. the north of Scotland) the UK is overcrowded by any reasonable measure, England especially. It's pretty high, albeit not at the top, of densely populated countries, especially if you remove small city and island states like Monaca and Singapore from the list. As a rough comparison France has approximately the same population and twice the land area, and the difference in population density is very noticeable indeed.

 

I have lived in many places in the UK, it's most certainly not a perception based on having lived in crowded cities and extrapolating that to the country in general. It's the realisation that you're never that far from a crowded city, wherever you are in the country (although some parts are worse for that than others), there are very few places with any sense of remoteness.

[Reorte]

14 hours ago, figworthy said:

 

There is "Nimbyism" and then there is "Nimbyism".

 

Back in the noughties, a planning proposal was put in for some land adjacent to Figworthy Manor.  I was a relatively recent arrival at the time, but neighbours who had been there longer and knew the area well weren't happy.  Apart from the usual range of objections (classic nimbyism if you like), there were more practical ones.  The development went ahead, and the practical concerns were shown to be valid, in this case some properties started to get their gardens flooding in periods of heavy rain, something which hadn't happened before (fortunately not mine).  The new properties were built uphill of us, and the land had previously soaked up the rain.  So were the objections classic nimbyism, or were some of them genuine reasons ?

 

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

And what's wrong with that "classic" version?

 

It's really very, very sad that only bleak utilitarianism is given any value in certain quarters in this country. Merely actually caring about something, trashing non-material quality of life aspects for people, destroying anything that can have value and meaning for someone in the name of practicality or economics - well, sometimes that's necessary, but the dismissal of it is unbelievably depressing - and destructive.

[wombatofludham]

13 minutes ago, Reorte said:

I disagree with this. With some exceptions (e.g. the north of Scotland) the UK is overcrowded by any reasonable measure,

Problem is, if this correct (and I don't think it is) how do we stop:

1) Demand for housing
2) Demand for jobs and transport to get to them
3) Demand for social activities

all of which drive the demand for land?  Before anyone starts trotting out comments about immigration, this isn't a Gammony prod to divert the discussion into that minefield as it isn't the issue some think it is.  There would be a natural population growth anyway and people are living longer.  So, do we move to a Soylent Green solution and allow health services to decline so the life expectancy declines, thereby reducing the growth in elderly populations?  Adopt a Chinese style baby making limit?  Adopt Eugenic policies to cull the population to a manageable, efficient, workforce?

Thing is, the Netherlands have a high population density, but their planning system is highly centralised and plans around this.  Instead of UK style green belts, which just lead to unpleasant inner city areas remote from green spaces, high price rich ghettos on the edge of the green belt and increased transport demands from those who are forced to hop the belt in search of cheaper housing, they have green wedges, where productive open land gets into their urban conglomerations reducing the distance from home to open countryside.  Their cities have more attention to travel generation and locate generators close or on top of rail or tram termini.  When I did my planning degree we went over to the Netherlands and looked at their planning system.  At the time NS was just drawing up plans for major redevelopments around their key stations which would help generate income, both from being a development partner, giving over air rights for example, but also bringing traffic to their stations.  A substantial amount of investment came in via public and private sources, and compared to the plans we saw back in 1984, watching some Dutch cab ride videos the transformation of the Dutch rail system, and the cities they serve, is extraordinary.  They've even buried railway lines in some city centres to free up the land corridor above for new communities.  The thing is, the Dutch have had a long tradition of planning and centralised land use planning due to their constant battle with the sea, and the need to create new land out of marshland.  As a consequence they can take a more interventionist role and everyone agrees, more or less, it is a Good Thing.  They make their densely populated country an attractive place to be, a balance between urban and countryside that mostly works, and which has accommodated significant in migration, albeit not without some social problems and racial tension.  It isn't perfect but their planning and land use management is streets ahead of the UK system, and shows you can have high population densities without it becoming the unequal, unfair dystopia some think this country is.  If the country - mainly England - is perceived as overcrowded and unequal, it is the political system and hostility towards a properly organised, centrally co-ordinated planning system which does not allow one region - London and the South East - to become overheated, although the concept in the 1960s of development being forced to move to deprived areas (which led to the daft situation of Hillman Imp parts being made in Coventry, shipped on Freightliners to Linwood in Scotland, assembled into cars which came back to Coventry in the same containers, where the Coventry factory tried to rectify all the faults before sale) didn't work.  However, it's not the number of people that make the country unpleasant, it's how we manage their environment that is to blame.  The alternative of population control by Government intervention is just too extreme to contemplate.

PS I'm doing my bit to reduce the population by having no kids.  They reduce my spending money for model railways.

[62613]

On 14/07/2023 at 14:55, kevinlms said:

All very well, unless you are someone who invested a lot of money in fitting out a cafe in a CBD and through no fault of yours, had your business taken away from you.

 

I never would have done so, but to say that everyone should work from home or a nearby small business office, is just nonsense, because as others have pointed out, many jobs can't be done remotely.

Surely that's risk you take when you open a business isn't it?

[kevinlms]

5 hours ago, 62613 said:

Surely that's risk you take when you open a business isn't it?

Reasonable risks can be made, but how could anyone factor in that at short notice extensive lock downs could occur. Mind you if the business was for clairvoyants, then perhaps so.

[IWCR]

Developers  make  a  lot,  local  to  me  there  is  a  lot  of  housing  demand  and  some  2000+  on  the  register  waiting  for  social  housing.  Several  large  estates  have  planning  permission  or  are  partly  built  yet  the  developers  progress  these  as  slowly  as  possible,  even  small  infill  developments  of  2  or  3  houses  are  left  not  quite  finished  for  years.   Some  of  this  is  waiting  for  sale  prices  to  rise  to  make  even  more  money  (note:  currently  prices  are  falling  hence  this  one  may  bite  them  back).  The  developers  are  pushing  for  more  and  more  planning  approvals  always  pleading  (and  Appealing  in the  event  of  refusal)  that  the  local  authority  is  not  meeting  the  Government  ordained  housing  targets  (they  would  if  they  got  on  with the  developments  they  already  have  underway).  Planning  applications  always  include  sites  for  a  new  school,  medical  centre  etc knowing  these  will  not  happen  but  it  looks  good  on  the  application,  existing  schools  are  closing  due  to  lack  of  numbers,  existing  Doctors  are  closing  due  to  lack  of  finance.

If  Developers  can  afford  to  drag  out  completion  of  approved  sites  which  they  already  own,  have  money  tied  up  in  these  for  years or  even  decades  waiting  for  price  rises  and  are  working  the  system  to  get  more  Planning  Approval  they  are  clearly  making  big money  to  be  able  to  look  at  the  long  term  bigger  profits  rather  than  immediate  returns.

 

Pete

[APOLLO]

On 15/07/2023 at 11:54, Reorte said:

I have lived in many places in the UK, it's most certainly not a perception based on having lived in crowded cities and extrapolating that to the country in general. It's the realisation that you're never that far from a crowded city, wherever you are in the country (although some parts are worse for that than others), there are very few places with any sense of remoteness.

 

Not so.

 

A few years ago I was driving over Woodhead pass, between Sheffield and Manchester. On a clear day you can see the skyscrapers of Manchester clearly when descending the pass. This, however was not a clear day, it started snowing, heavily. Very scary indeed, it's blimmin wild up there, thoughts of survival, car abandonment etc rushing through my mind. Slipping and sliding with minimal visibility I made it (just) the few miles to the M67 at Mottram, where the sun shone again !!!

 

Wild, wild place is Woodhead, and the road is very busy too. This is the main road between two large UK cities, just under 40 miles apart. (Trouble is they're ooop north !!).

 

Once we had an electrified railway here (Rishi are you listening, no, thought not, Boris has gone along with his fibs) !!

 

 

 

Brit15

[fulton]

On 15/07/2023 at 11:54, Reorte said:

 

 

I have lived in many places in the UK, it's most certainly not a perception based on having lived in crowded cities and extrapolating that to the country in general. It's the realisation that you're never that far from a crowded city, wherever you are in the country (although some parts are worse for that than others), there are very few places with any sense of remoteness.

Reminds me, when we were on holiday in Canada, our coach driver said to relax he goes off hiking, might not see anyone for two to three days, asked what we do, someone shouted out "we go down the garden shed!"

[black and decker boy]

On 18/07/2023 at 11:55, IWCR said:

Developers  make  a  lot,  local  to  me  there  is  a  lot  of  housing  demand  and  some  2000+  on  the  register  waiting  for  social  housing.  Several  large  estates  have  planning  permission  or  are  partly  built  yet  the  developers  progress  these  as  slowly  as  possible,  even  small  infill  developments  of  2  or  3  houses  are  left  not  quite  finished  for  years.   Some  of  this  is  waiting  for  sale  prices  to  rise  to  make  even  more  money  (note:  currently  prices  are  falling  hence  this  one  may  bite  them  back).  The  developers  are  pushing  for  more  and  more  planning  approvals  always  pleading  (and  Appealing  in the  event  of  refusal)  that  the  local  authority  is  not  meeting  the  Government  ordained  housing  targets  (they  would  if  they  got  on  with the  developments  they  already  have  underway).  Planning  applications  always  include  sites  for  a  new  school,  medical  centre  etc knowing  these  will  not  happen  but  it  looks  good  on  the  application,  existing  schools  are  closing  due  to  lack  of  numbers,  existing  Doctors  are  closing  due  to  lack  of  finance.

If  Developers  can  afford  to  drag  out  completion  of  approved  sites  which  they  already  own,  have  money  tied  up  in  these  for  years or  even  decades  waiting  for  price  rises  and  are  working  the  system  to  get  more  Planning  Approval  they  are  clearly  making  big money  to  be  able  to  look  at  the  long  term  bigger  profits  rather  than  immediate  returns.

 

Pete

Sites with planning, whether started or not, count towards the councils 5 year allocation. Slowing the build out doesn’t allow developers to ask for more land.

 

There have recently been changed to the Building Regs so many Housebuilders have taken advantage of the time limited exemptions over the past 12-18 months to put initial infrastructure (drainage mainly) and plot footings in place and then stop.

 

the downturn in new sales has been very dramatic. Clearly Housebuilders cannot keep throwing houses up at a cost of several hundred £ each to then have them sat empty so they slow the build out rates.

 

the construction & housebuilding industry is resource limited, both in terms of people and key materials, last year ordering bricks saw a 6 to 12month wait for deliveries as the manufacturers were at full capacity with no stock.

 

small infill developments of 2 or 3 units are unlikely to be the volume developers and more likely to be small regional builders or even small building contractors going it alone. As such, they are more exposed to cash flow, finance and selling through quickly / selling off plot.

 

Whilst Housebuilders often get tasked with building a new school or doctors surgery within their S106 obligations, it is not up to them to find pupils, teachers or GPS etc, that is down to the education authority / NHS.

[Hal Nail]

On 14/07/2023 at 10:02, black and decker boy said:

people want more housing

Speak for yourself! I'd rather we just banned babies for a bit but I fear I'm swimming against the tide :)

[spikey]

On 14/07/2023 at 14:55, Nearholmer said:

... execution, using public funding ...

 

 

 

Oooooh I'm all for that.  I can think of no end of candidates, starting in Westminster ...

[BachelorBoy]

9 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

Speak for yourself! I'd rather we just banned babies for a bit but I fear I'm swimming against the tide :)

 

Babies are going out fashion in England and Wales. The Total Fertility Rate needs to be 2.1 just for the population to remain stable.