But isn’t that what many people are? Why do all sorts of foreigners want to be in France, for example? Why should ‘we’ be judging the reasons anyway, lots of people move for what may be considered frivolous reasons by some.
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France has rules for people coming to live here and economic migrants who cannot support themselves are not welcome.
That is exactly the same in UK.
There has been a huge increase in young men from Albania taking the illegal route and making it more difficult for people with a genuine reason for crossing the Channel.
Looking at the heading of this post, we should be looking at Israel, where Netanyahu looks as though he has regained power with an alliance with a Party which has racism as its raison d’etre.
Maybe look up association des amis de callac et ses environs and you’ll find the French aren’t happy about it either. Biggest problem in UK is the shortage of housing, I don’t yet know enough about France to says it’s the same here. I find it difficult to hear that the UK govt has a legal obligation to house these migrants but there are UK citizens (a lot ex forces) sleeping rough - why doesn’t the government have a legal obligation to house them? But that’s it in a nutshell - govt needs to get it’s backside in gear.
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Large Building Companies control the Land Banks and continue to build houses in the traditional way.
Sectional Building would go a long way to solving this problem.
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FTFY
The problem (in the UK) is that developers sit on plots which have planning permission but do not build - this constrains supply and puts prices up. Not hard to work out who profits from that.
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They do, and there have been big efforts to end homelessness. Unfortunately unless people are able to hold down a stable lifestyle they tend not to be able to hold stable housing either so are in and out of hostels and temporary accommodation. A lot of street sleepers have sever mental health problems (particularly ex-forces) or issues with alcohol and drugs, so it is not as straightforward as handling over a key to a flat.
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That’ s exactly what I said. They control the Land Banks, thus stopping others from building homes.
The land bank myth has been debunked time and time again. It is a attention grabbing headline, but not the reality. Every year the Local Government Association stirs this up by releasing planning stats that are not properly qualified - with the aim of making it the housing developers’ fault that not enough homes are being built, not the planning authorities.
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I don’t believe that it is a myth - but would love to examine a reference which supports your claim.
I will sort something out for you BB but I am currently up to my eyeballs trying to get planning permission on circa 350 plots with 3 local authorities - and it has taken over 6 months so far and NO further forward that we were at the beginning.
The issue the UK has is a broken planning system, with untrained Councillors who are beholden to their voter base for their position. Regardless of the country’s needs, if the ‘locals’ dont want new housing on their patch then their councillor will vote against granting planning permission - regardless of the local plan policies.
In this day and age, with land costing eye-watering sums (3 to 4 million / acre in the Midlands), developers cannot afford to sit on land-banks, especially with bank interest rates as they are. The WIP costs would wipe out any profit before the first property is sold.
Here’s the first one that popped up. Orchestrated by HBF, so obviously comes from that camp
In all my years in the industry my experience was that housebuilders would build out sites at the pace that suited them and the local market, their supply chain and workforce. Once land has planning permission it rarely sits idle.
I’m sure some LAs do drag their feet though (if only because LAs are chronically short of manpower).
As are construction firms, without mentioning lack of materials. And of course figures increased during Covid - huge periods where sites were closed or workers off sick.
All very well to say big firms should release land to smaller ones, but if anything that would put prices up as one thing the big firms do is efficiency and cost control.
The solution is a complex, multi factorial one. And no single actor in it is better or worse than any other.
Caring Conservatism and competence?
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I agree the conditions at Manston are far from ideal but if these people have really fled from war, terror and survived an almost 20 mile journey on the open sea wouldn’t you think they would be glad to be safe at last. Someone needs to manage their expectations - the UK is no longer the land of plenty but the land of sweet fa. And why are police in Dover telling people to keep their doors and windows locked if it’s not an invasion? Time to get real I think.
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Isn’t that the critical word? They have not made that journey to be killed by diphtheria in an overcrowded detention centre. The UK media heaps scorn on other countries for detaining people in rancid conditions, so should be ashamed that the same is happening on UK soil.
Refugees should be treated decently, whatever their expectations. Which is simply clean conditions, edible food, and warmth. And what needs to be managed is the criminal gangs lying to them.
A month or so back our local cinema showed this film about a group of refugees in Scotland. We thought it was great and would recommend it heartily if it ever comes your way.
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I don’t disagree with Jane but what to do? Thousands of houses can’t be magicked? out of thin air. It is wrong to give these people the impression that they can. I always thought they should have told the Afghans the truth last year: you are welcome but you’re going to be stuck in a hotel.
There is no shortage of housing in the UK…
What there is, is a crisis of social injustice and inequality. Enabling private developers to build more houses will make the problem worse, as well as increasing negative environmental impacts, because they will do what comes naturally, and precisely what they have been doing - build the wrong kind of houses (big profitable houses for the relatively well-off, not affordable homes).
There are simple, evidence-based, tried and tested solutions: wealth taxes that reduce inequality, and in particular disincentivise ownership of mansions, multiple homes, etc - investment in a massive public sector housing programme - the ‘Housing First’ policy (which has just virtually eliminated homelessness in Finland) - etc - etc…
So if the answers are so simple why hasn’t the UK government implemented them?
Again, the answer is simple: ideology. The answers involve taxing wealth, growing the state sector, and giving homeless people free housing until they get back on their feet. All anathema to Tories.
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Don’t new constructions need to be started (at least) within two years , or have the regs changed ?