| Topic: | Re:Reply | |
| Posted by: | Simon Hayes | |
| Date/Time: | 25/06/26 11:06:00 |
| There’s plenty of housing being built in some areas. Pop down to Brentford and see the swanky riverside flats going up there apace. It’s the same in other parts of the country. I was in Poole recently and no shortage of new builds there either. But then these are expensive properties aimed at the investment market or those with money looking to relocate. Perhaps the developers need to reassess their profit margins, 20-30 percent on any project is always going to make affordable housing a low priority for them. Perhaps London has reached its natural population capacity. Infrastructure is creaking and we don’t have enough investment in things like hospitals and transport to support the massive influx of new residents. If you look at places like Brentford where huge new developments are planned at the old GSK site, at the old Homebase site and the existing Tesco site you have to ask how are these tens of thousands of people going to access things like healthcare? West Middlesex hospital won’t cope. It’s madness to promise house building without investment in infrastructure. The s106 monies never found its way to where it was needed, and the new CIL(well, new to Ealing anyway, after 15 years) has already seen developers like Berkeley Homes exempted because they said it would make regeneration in Southall unviable. Who are they kidding? As you point out, there’s a collapse in private sector market for flats, yet still they want to build more. What’s your solution to this housing crisis Gordon? The price of a property is usually dictated by location. London is expensive, without even considering the costs of council tax, transport and everything else. |