Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The Direction Home

A home would be nice
In the upcoming UK's Financial Autumn Statement  (Nov 23rd) Chancellor Hammond has a golden opportunity to re- invigorate the UK economy.


One of the key failures over the last 20 years or so has been around the housing stock , there's not enough of it, it's too expensive and sub standard (particularly around heat retention).


It was interesting chatting to an architect friend this last weekend about housing issues:


Poor quality estates should not be replaced by over dense schemes  


What I learnt from him confirmed my fears about  building developers - they expect exorbitant profit (60 margins are typical) they are unwilling to assume responsibility to improve quality and tend to go for lowest cost at whatever level it is set.


Government needs to  ensure that developers have an incentive to use the stockpiled land they are sitting on and to improve the building standards that developers must comply with.

Ealing Council leader Bell & acolytes
(probably not talking about housing)



Councils to should focus on housing and ensuring that 'Cathy Come Home' is a historic document and not a contemporary problem.


Improved housing can form part of a virtuous cycle where families are able to have better quality of life and be happier.

And it's not just families who need this help recent months have seen rapid increases in those single people sleeping rough,



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