Anti-road pricing petition: million signatures dismissed

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by msdkeith

Bear in mind that as well as building insufficient new roads, the Labour administration over the past 10 years has totally failed to build anything approaching the required number of new houses.

These would be where and for whom?

We do have a large number of properties that are unoccupied or occupied for short periods of time. We are now in the stupid situation where it is possible for some to buy a house, never occupy it, not rent it out, but keep it as an empty investment.

We keep hearing about a lack of affordable housing - yet it is the purchase of housing as an investment that has led us to this state.

As for your comments about the amount of tarmac coverage, we already have enough solid ground coverage to be significant significant flooding problem, more so if recent rain patterns continue. Which will get worse if you build more roads. And houses. Even such ideas as SUDS[1] will be a short term fix as they become silted up.

Adrian

[1]Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems. Many large mesh crates designed to hold large volumes of water and slowly release it. Often under carparks. Lousy to enter and maintain.

[DanE]

Originally Posted by msdkeith

How exactly does Dan expect us to get around without sufficient roads, bearing in mind that new housing developments automatically bring new roads.

Well, I wouldn't build more roads.

What we need (and this is only my opinion, and obviously I'm a complete heretic for even thinking this) is a shift in the way society behaves.

Here's an idea. Live near where you work. Look at a car as a luxury item, not a need. Stop building large out of town shopping centres, focus on high quality local shops that can be reached on foot. Move long distance freight onto railways and canal/river networks. There's a start.

dan

[Scubee]

The problem is that there is nowhere to build the roads. I agree that the way society operates and our attitudes should be different.

The reason we are getting towards a gridlock situation is because of the number of cars on the roads. Most of them have only one person in them. You only have to look around at the cars during the 'drive to work' times to see that.

Then there are the scrummys. My son's school is about 2 miles from home, with no bus, so it is either walk ( 35-40 mins ew, in which case I am 'late' for work) or drive. I know of loads of mums who drive their little preshuses to school every day in the gas guzzlers. Most of them live a lot closer than I do, and don't work. It probably takes as long to load a buggy into the car and strap them in and drive, park 300 yards from school (too many cars to get any closer), as it would take them to walk. A lot of it is pure laziness.

The cost of housing in this country is absolutely crazy, and is driven by greed. Those who can afford it have two homes. One to live in and one to either stay in for a couple of weeks every now any then, or to let out and gain more income. Demand for housing has outstripped supply, with the consequence that those jobholders on which society relies an not afford to buy, so they end up renting, either from those who have made a mint by being able to buy two or more houses, or from the council. Council houses are even shorter in supply thanks to maggie the dragons 'right to buy' policy. This, IMV, did nothing to the housing market in this country except push prices out of reach of those who need houses.

here's another heretical solution... have a tax so high on the purchase of second homes that people won't bother.

[DanE]

Here's something that would be funny if it were in a book and not real.

Watford during the rush hour. People who don't live in Watford queuing to get in, people who do live in Watford queuing to get out!

Does anyone else find the recent spate of banks and building society's offering mortgages of 5 times a salary slightly sad? I thought that if anything was going to stop the rise of house prices it was going to be that people wouldn't be able to borrow enough, therefore capping prices. Sadly, the prices can now continue to rise because the money is available

dan

[msdkeith]

If you can't grasp the concept of a government housing policy perhaps you should find another thread to pull on.

Governments spend money with building firms (maybe Bovis even) to build social housing. This contrasts with firms like Barratts (or Bovis even) building houses on their own account to sell privately.

Most people understand the difference and most people appreciate that the current administration has not been building a fraction of the housing required.

[msdkeith]

Some people might not want to live near their work place, might be an industrial complex, oil refinery, sewage farm or the House of Commons.

As to shopping on foot, given the potential size of some weekly shops, that is pure fantasy, try carrying a trolley load of stuff home from Sainsbury or Tesco.

I agree that efforts should be made to transfer as much as possible by rail or indeed canal but that's where the current government have been so useless, all they do is pick motorists' pockets at every opportunity, no attempt to promote rail, let alone canal transport.

Despite the fond wishes of many, the reality is that for many of us a car is indeed a necessity. I have an ultrasound scan coming up in a couple of weeks at a hospital less than 20 miles away and I HAVE to drive because there is no bus link.

The bus link to the next large town consists of 3 buses a day, none on Sundays, several of the local villages are linked by a twice daily service. Live without a car, don't make me laugh.

Government has the opportunity and the resources to provide public transport. I detest Ken Livingstone but I readily concede that he's put a lot of buses on London streets. The fact he hasn't actually considered how to match the supply with the demand, resulting in hundreds of buses running virtually empty outside rush hour is unfortunate but at least it demonstrates what can be done.

People drive their kids to school because councils have withdrawn school buses. These should be reinstated.

It's easy to knock cars and pretend they shouldn't exist but without a coherent scheme to provide alternatives it's just whistling in the wind.

Incidentally, how many of the idealists on this thread use their car to go diving? And how many of you car-share when you do? I have shared my vehicle on a few occasions but generally I go to the sites on my own because the alternative is wholly impractical.

[Scubee]

Originally Posted by msdkeith

If you can't grasp the concept of a government housing policy perhaps you should find another thread to pull on.

Governments spend money with building firms (maybe Bovis even) to build social housing. This contrasts with firms like Barratts (or Bovis even) building houses on their own account to sell privately.

Most people understand the difference and most people appreciate that the current administration has not been building a fraction of the housing required.

Yes, but if the homes that were sold under the right to buy scheme hadn't been, they wouldn't need to be building 'social housing'.

The planning rules and nimby's prevent the huge numbers of houses we apparently need. The country will turn into one big housing estate without the regulations.

one example near me is that permission was granted to build homes, and the concerns raised over redirection of the natural water flow were ignired. Th result is that homes which stayed dry for 40 years since they were built now flood every time it rains a significant amount because the nearby floodplain was diverted. the new houses stay nice and dry though!

[msdkeith]

Actually, building in flood plains has been a fairly recent development (the words 'flood' and 'plain' apparently not conveying the right message to certain planners)

However, the significant causes of flooding currently include incompetent river management (admittedly a complex science) and inadequate drain maintainence by the Highways Agency, councils and farmers. In years past farmers particularly devoted a lot of time to keeping ditches cleared but with the slump in agricultural workers much routine work has been abandoned. Flooding along the Thames has resulted from poorly planned 'flood relief' schemes.

The bottom line remains the Government which could provide funds for basic maintainence of drainage systems and it was that cretin Prescott who pushed through a lot of new builds in inappropriate places. Also Brown has to take responsibility for the fact that VAT is levied on remedial building work while demolition and rebuild carries no VAT penalty. There have been whole terraces of Victorian houses destroyed under the so-called Pathfinder scheme to be replaced with shoddy modern boxes. Modernising the existing stock would have been environmentally sound and essentially right.

There was a report on TV claiming that flooding in the North London area was a result of householders along the North Circular paving their front gardens to use as off-road parking. The fact that the bulk of the North Circular passes through industrial and trading parks tends to knock a big hole in that argument but it just goes to show how motorists are blamed as a matter of course and seldom bother to take up the cause in their own defence.

Cars contribute to global warming....absolutely, no question....and so do power stations, farms, factories, shops, schools and even the cows chewing the cud and contemplatively farting. About the only effective 'carbon neutral' power source is nuclear power, wind power is not sufficiently consistent and the country doesn't have adequate hydroelectric sourcing, while tidal and geothermal technologies are more hypothetical than plausible for the foreseeable future.

Why global warming has to be seen as such a threat rather than a potential opportunity is depressing, the Victorians didn't build an empire by worrying about what couldn't be done. Anyone would think that global temperature fluctuations never happened before. In known history, Greenland was once colonised by the Vikings and the Romans grew vines up near Hadrian's Wall.

The southern expansion of the Sahara has sod all to do with global warming or drought and a lot to do with nomad tribes' goat herds eating the vegetation that binds the soil. The Dutch would have a dramatically smaller country if they believed that the sea couldn't be tamed and controlled, it's a pity that our leaders cant't exhibit a similar level of ingenuity when it comes to providing roads in this country.

If ground is so damn precious, why not build additional lanes on stilts above the existing roads (or in tunnels, what's the difference). No, far easier to demonise cars and pretend that they can't be accommodated....though meantime all levels of government suck money out of motorists and that trend is now extending to supermarkets, garages and even Macdonalds.

[Tricky]

Originally Posted by msdkeith

As to shopping on foot, given the potential size of some weekly shops, that is pure fantasy, try carrying a trolley load of stuff home from Sainsbury or Tesco.

There is a very simple solution to this one - home delivery. Tesco deliver my shopping for about £4, I don't have to waste my precious free time wandering around the store, nor do I have to drive anywhere (reducing the number of cars unecessarily on the road). It also means I don't waste money on impulse purchases.

[kuki9591]

Originally Posted by DanE

Here's an idea. Live near where you work

I'm happy to work in Redditch, dammed if i'm going to live there. Anyway the days of jobs for life are long gone, are we to be expected to move house everytime we get a new job?

Mike