What a victory today

Isn't this wonderful news?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-29845841
Jenny namaste

 

I hate this government attitude that we need to take more land to build houses on. Their argument being simply that we need more houses. Well government, there's half a town's worth (literally) of boarded up council houses just 5 miles from where I live, and they've been boarded up for years, earmarked for demolition, but nothing is happening with it. There must be plenty of places like it. And then there's former industrial land. Much of northern Sheffield is just decaying buildings. Not quite derelict but nobody's investing to look after them. Tear them down and build a nice new community there. And I know many, many cities have similar such areas. The thing is, quite apart from not tearing up green space, these defunct areas already have all the infrastructure. All the water mains and sewage and road network etc, and they're ugly, they are just begging to be brought back into use with a nice new development. But no. The way to do it is to ignore all these opportunities, and tear up the countryside and/or people's allotments instead.

 

Clue, I've heard of these estates in the North and often thought the same.

But we dont have anything like that down here, its town cramming and ripping up the countryside.

It seems everyone wants to come and live here, they say we have a housing shortage, but its only in certain areas.
The more houses they build down here the more people that move to this part of the country, local people are still unable to buy, so the housing crisis continues.

 

The way I read it, it seems it is only a temporary stay of execution? that is not the case.

 

I was born in the South East, wouldn't want to live there now.

 

Oi! There are still some nice places in the SE

 

I've been down south plenty of times on business, sometimes leisure, for a while I even lived down there. I know there are the kinds of places I describe. I've seen them. The only reason developments keep spilling over into the countryside is because like any other part of the country, for some reason people just can't seem to bear to tear down the half derelict poo holes to start again, so they just leave them there, waiting in hope of some scraps from the EU so they can afford to re-point a bit of brickwork in the name of 'urban regeneration'.

 

Maybe, but I wouldn't want to live there on account of the ridiculose traffic.

 

But very quickly being concreted over.
But it depends on what you call the S.E. it seems to be getting bigger all the time.

 

Really?

 

Clue, on some of the housing estates down here, and close to me, they actually move everyone out, knock the houses/ flats down and rebuild at a greater density.

The places were built in the 60s or 70s, its crazy.
There are no derelict housing estates anywhere near me.

 

Its not the amount of traffic as such, its the amount of people.
Along with that very large car park called the M25.

 

Partly, without a doubt. But there are a couple other factors that a visitor from the barren wastes of the north notices when venturing into the south.

One major factor is the road layouts. The M25 is a classic example. Its just insane. There you are in lane 1, like any good motorist would be (unless overtaking, in which case you complete the manoeuvre and get back into lane 1 at the first safe opportunity), then suddenly, without changing lanes, you're now in lane 2 because another lane has appeared to your left from seemingly nowhere. After a few miles you get used to this crazy notion, but then you find yourself in a lane that is now leaving the motorway so now you have to try to merge back in. That's just one example. There are many crazy road plans and junctions down south. For a northern chap used to roads that generally work, its quite scary driving down south. My philosophy if I have to go down south is to treat it like some sort of brave and dangerous mission. The car gets serviced beforehand, I make sure I have more fuel than I should need, and supplies, because you never know where you'll end up if you make one tiny mistake at some crazy junction.

The other factor is the attitude of drivers down south. No offence to our southern friends, but drivers down south are just insane. Some say they have to be in order to make any progress, and to some extent I can agree with that, I've done my fair share of city driving. But very often the 'every man for himself' approach to driving just leads to gridlock. The highway code, if applied, is actually quite a good set of instructions to ensure safe and swift traffic flow. Doesn't work though when people fill the box junctions when they can't even move, or put themselves half on and half off a roundabout when nobody else ahead of them can move, thus ensuring that now nobody can move. Or hogging lane 2 or lane 3 despite the fact that its actually moving slower than lane 1, but if you're in lane 1 you can't just drive to the limit, you still have to go fairly slow, because its illegal and a bit dangerous to undertake. A combination of following the written rules (the highway code) and applying common courtesy now and then, makes a big difference to keeping things moving along. Come up north and have a look. Our road network is dire compared to down south, yet it seems to work better somehow.

 

Very much so.

This makes me laugh.............

"But this was overturned in December, when he accepted a revised scheme............

Mr Justice Ouseley said Mr Pickles had not been kept updated between September and December 2013 and ruled the decision to deregulate the site be quashed.

But the council said the decision to increase the number of homes from 600 to 750 was made in January.

Watford's elected Liberal Democrat mayor Dorothy Thornhill said the court had made a "maverick decision" and the council would appeal.

"We couldn't possibly have told him about a decision that hadn't been made," she said."

So Dorothy Thornhill thinks that changing the schemes details after Pickles had overturned the decision constitutes a "technicality"! What arrogance!