Leicestershire to be hit with a new 20000 home Eco town

[SueA]

I tend to agree that I don't think there's necessarily a housing shortage but there is an 'affordable' housing shortage. There are thousands of empty houses throughout the country for various reasons, many with absentee landlords or bought for investment with no intention of being rented out/occupied. Councils, landlords & housing associations leave houses to rot so that they can knock then down & rebuild more lucrative flats etc. instead of renovating. Our council encourages new builds in our town & lots of 3 storey blocks of flats are popping up, many left empty, this is not to alleviate a housing shortage in our area, it's to encourage new people to move here as we don't have a high enough population to pay council tax & support the infrastructure. So either way you lose, you get more unwanted housing or you have to pay higher council tax! 20,000 houses sounds like quite a big town Piglet, I'd probably be shocked if that was happening round here never mind in the countryside! Shame they didn't decide to build on a 'brownfield' site but then that probably wouldn't attract the type of people who will be able to afford the houses.

[nick the grief]

I suppose the only bright spot in this is they haven't tried to build on the lottie site Piglet ... YET

The main thing with these new developments is they are so bloody boring. God know why they need architects as they are all the same soulless little boxes. Of course the next thing is they will be moaning that the rain has no where to go when there is widespread flooding unless someone can invent concrete & tarmac that will soak up water.

I suppose the EEC has to take a bit of blame for this as well. Now we have now state boundary and folks can come and go as they please we are going to get more and more pressure on a finite resource.

I shall now step away from the soapbox

[bubblewrap]

Where will all the water go when it rains if they build these 20,000 new homes?
Into the Soar! even more flooding round Barrow/Loughborough!

[mapcr77]

HAVE YOUR SAY - Pennbury
Petition to: urge the Communities and Local Government Department to ensure: (a) a full democratic planning process and consultation with local authorities and neighbouring communities concerning the Eco Town proposal by the Co-operative Group south-
http://leicesterairport.com/files/Si...oTown_size.jpg
Eco Town proposal | Leicestershire Aeroclub

As a leicestershire resident, I too feel very sorry about this.

Me and OH just signed the petition.

[valmarg]

Hi

I am an eco person, and I also rent where I live.

So I am generaly against building, but we do need more houses!

T

Why do we need more houses??

To accommodate the influx of immigrants???

valmarg

[gojiberry]

I live in a smallish village with just over 1000 houses. we are not on any through road so it tends to be reasonably peaceful. We have recently been told they are planning to build 3000 new houses in around our village trebling the size.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Why do we need more houses??

To accommodate the influx of immigrants???

valmarg

Not necessarily - look at the divorce rate, and for every family unit that splits up, another dwelling is needed.

[pigletwillie]

Mmmm to a certain extent Hazel but 800,000 poles may come into the equation more so than divorcees.

I am not bothered who lives in the houses to be honest, its the total lack of ifrastructure when new projects are built. Schools become over subscribed, GP surgeries are overflowing and so on ad nauseum.

[JanieB]

*Puts on political hat.

Every new building scheme has something called an S106 agreement attached to it. This is money that the developer HAS to give to the council to help with the changes to the infrastructure that the town/village needs because of the development.

Unfortunately a lot of District Councils and Unitary Authorities take this money and don't use it for the purpose intended. As a local council where this has happened to our town several times, we have now insisted that a substantial proportion is spent where it is needed and not twenty miles away paying for leisure centres and fountains in a town to which our residents have no public transport service.

*Political hat off

[Alison]

Can we please keep it to the subject rather than turning this into another irrelevant dig at immigrants, especially from people looking to migrate themselves. Thanks

Right, complaint over, now to my comments re the thread:-

I can see why people don't want a large (especially this size) development on their doorsteps and certainly one which isn't well thought through - believe me there are plenty of examples around the country. As PW says, the real issue is the infrastructure which needs to be developed alongside any housing. There is most certainly a need for more housing (although the figures quoted do seem excessive) but this must be affordable not more of the ridiculously expensive appartments that they seem to be throwing up all over the place. Often we don't want things to change as we like them as they are, however that isn't necessarily a reason for things to stand still. At some point the houses that we all live in were probably seen as a step too far for some people. As I see it, it is important that things are challenged for the right reasons and it would seem that there are many of those to challenge this one..............

[pigletwillie]

Can we please keep it to the subject rather than turning this into another irrelevant dig at immigrants, especially from people looking to migrate themselves. Thanks

I presume this was aimed at me Alison, as I say in my post, I dont care who lives in what house but immigration is certainly driving up the need for new houses far and away above what would otherwise be needed. The need for extra housing and migration are intimately linked and personally I dont feel that they can easilly be seperated. Racist comments in posts will not be tolerated but open discussion cannot have any key elements removed from it.

Please note that Leicester is due to become the first city in Britain with a non white majority within a couple of years and I DO NOT have an issue with that. I have lived with migrants of all nationalities for all of my life, indeed Leicester had a thriving Polish community before the current influx so for me, the subject is something I was brought up on and indeed embrace. Spongers of any race however I will not tolerate but that IS a different subject

Indeed in the medium term I am looking indeed to migrate to France for the lifestyle, not the lack of migrants, added to the fact is that my money will buy much more land over there than here.

People have to live somewhere. However I dont think any migrants, unless they are well paid professionals will be living in the proposed eco town as its sat right in one of Leicesters most affluent areas and the very word eco suggests it will not be an affordable development and it is that very development that is required by the majority of people who live in the UK regardless of origin.

There is so much Brownfield site in Leicester where infrastructure is already in place but even that commands huge prices. Old mills are converted into 1 and 2 bedroom flats and you are lucky to find one under £170k, again not good for those on even an average wage.

[Peter]

Sadly immigration does have some bearing on this and it plays into the hands of zenophobes to pretend it does not.

Our island is the most densely populated part of europe.
If you just take London and the Home Counties it is one of the most densely populated areas of the World.

Only twenty five years ago statisticians were predicting that the UK population would shrink, now they are predicting the opposite. The actual demographics are that a sizable proportion of more recent arrivals to the UK have religious or cultural beliefs or norms, - that were historically in a minority in Britain, - which encourage larger families than trend was in he indigenous population.

Extrapolate the building rate, area by area across the UK and flowing out from London we will have no unbuilt land left apart from that too steep or too wet to build on.

Kipling referred in "Arial Board of Control" to a London that stretched across most of the south east and that view is now more believable than anything our rulers and their paid employees pump out regarding housing.

[Alison]

I presume this was aimed at me Alison.

Believe me Piglet it wasn't aimed at you in any way, you have made it very clear that your concerns are far more general than that and I've felt that, in spite of your obvious and understandable distress about the developement, you have been able to be pretty balanced in your comments which must be quite hard at times. No problems with what you're saying re this developement which obviously you know far more about than most of us here, was just commenting that there are people who don't want any change as they like things as they are and some changes are necessary and don't perhaps see that their actions could cause a similar negative impact on somebody else. More of a general comment really but probably badly worded, and in trying not to point the finger at certain indviduals managed to make you think I was having a go at you - from what I can see you tend to be pretty much a "live and let live" kind of guy! Sorry!

[Alison]

Sadly immigration does have some bearing on this and it plays into the hands of zenophobes to pretend it does not.

Our island is the most densely populated part of europe.
If you just take London and the Home Counties it is one of the most densely populated areas of the World.

Only twenty five years ago statisticians were predicting that the UK population would shrink, now they are predicting the opposite. The actual demographics are that a sizable proportion of more recent arrivals to the UK have religious or cultural beliefs or norms, - that were historically in a minority in Britain, - which encourage larger families than trend was in he indigenous population.

Extrapolate the building rate, area by area across the UK and flowing out from London we will have no unbuilt land left apart from that too steep or too wet to build on.

Kipling referred in "Arial Board of Control" to a London that stretched across most of the south east and that view is now more believable than anything our rulers and their paid employees pump out regarding housing.

Imigration has an impact but you can't blame the imigrants themselves for poor planning decisions, especially when so many migrant workers are in fact putting so much into our economy.

[pigletwillie]

No need to appologise Alison.

Its a fact that migration is here with us and is not going to stop. The infrastructure required to meet their needs and indeed the population as a whole is never however going to be properly funded as the government has not got a clue to how many are resident here and because of that underfunds local councils massively. This is the key cause of resent as services are cut and council tax goes up to pay for the additional people who are not recognised as being here by by the government, who happily take their tax payments and other revenues such as vat and the like.

Ergo, more people and less funding means non existent services and facilities and so the circle turns. The blame lies squarely on incompetence and blindness in the government, not migrants.