New Town planned for Sussex

[34064 Fighter Command]

Well Mayfields is right next to the A23, and for a car owning, property purchasing YUPPY that's exactly what they're after..........

Why must any development be within walking distance of a railway station anyway, are buses or pushbikes not good enough for everyone then? Mayfields to Hassocks Station would be quite an easy cycle ride as it's flat all the way.

 

[34064 Fighter Command]

I know. I wasn't talking about Mayfields in that post.

Did the quote from GNLF not come up on your page?

The perils of trying to speed read a thread whilst attempting to answer telephones and e-mails at the same time means I don't always read all the thread, or even all the post!

 

[Deleted member 22389]

I still maintain that argument is a little hollow all the time there are 10's of thousands of empty properties lying dormant.

I agree people arriving in an area looking for social housing, then yes the amount of empty properties in existing towns could be used.
Set criteria should be used for these new properties thou, your working and have paid in to the system for x amount of years. You are a first time buyer and have lived in the area for x amount of years.

 

[Diego Napier]

New towns never work - and another chunk of the Sussex countryside will be bulldozed over...

What, you mean like Letchworth or Welwyn Garden City or Bracknell or Corby or Harlow or Newton Aycliffe or Telford or Runcorn or Peterborough etc. etc.?

Why aren't they working?

Edit: oops didn't read entire thread, missed post #17 34064 Fighter Command's more comprehensive list!

 

[Deleted member 18477]

Here it is...

Those houses will not sell that quick I wouldn't have thought. Quite far from the nearest station - Bhill.

I don't have to commute to work but I'd still want a house within walking distance to a station.

Edit: actually they're perfect for your A23/M23/M25 daily commuters... What am I talking about! Can see the town being a success... I'd rather live there than Crawley put it that way...

 

[Gwylan]

I still maintain that argument is a little hollow all the time there are 10's of thousands of empty properties lying dormant.

I agree. According to Empty Homes, there are currently about 100,000 empty homes in the south-east, 30,000 of them being empty long term. And according to Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England, there's enough brownfield land available to build 1.5m homes - a quarter of that in the south-east. I'm all for more homes, but let's fill that space first.

 

[The Large One]

There are, apparently, around 1,000 empty homes in Brighton (i.e. unoccupied for at least six months), the 'vast majority' of which are privately-owned.

 

[yxee]

Well Mayfields is right next to the A23, and for a car owning, property purchasing YUPPY that's exactly what they're after..........

Why must any development be within walking distance of a railway station anyway, are buses or pushbikes not good enough for everyone then? Mayfields to Hassocks Station would be quite an easy cycle ride as it's flat all the way.

Yes, it's possible to buy a bike and then cycle 7 miles every day to a station then pay £400/month for a season ticket to London and live in an isolated village 10 miles away from the nearest city.

The simple fact is, this is NOT what the so-called yuppies want. They live in flats in cities, not villages 2 hours away from their place of work. And I very much doubt a load of rural houses in the downs will be affordable.


It is targeting the older generation market, not affordable and practical accommodation.

 

[34064 Fighter Command]

I agree. According to Empty Homes, there are currently about 100,000 empty homes in the south-east, 30,000 of them being empty long term. And according to Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England, there's enough brownfield land available to build 1.5m homes - a quarter of that in the south-east. I'm all for more homes, but let's fill that space first.

And this Government currently has ZERO money to purchase any of them. Assuming each property has a market value of say £ 300 K ( and that's probably on the low estimation of value in this region ), you're suggesting an expenditure of £ 9 Billion.

Fat chance.

 

[beorhthelm]

Wow - that's big. Not sure where I stand really. I fully accept we need to build more homes but is it really necessary to concrete over large areas of the country side ?

i despair at this point of view. firstly as its inaccurate, its not "concreating over" much at all, figerativly or literally. secondly, we all enjoy living in previously undeveloped pieces of countryside. want homes, have to free up stock (kick over 60's out of their omes), move people and businesses en masse up north or build new.

 

[beorhthelm]

I agree. According to Empty Homes, there are currently about 100,000 empty homes in the south-east, 30,000 of them being empty long term. And according to Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England, there's enough brownfield land available to build 1.5m homes - a quarter of that in the south-east. I'm all for more homes, but let's fill that space first.

frankly, i simply dont believe those numbers of empty home, or at least there must be more to it than that - house and rental prices tell us theres a large undersupply. brownfield is somewhere we should be developing more, but theres contention with local planning, industrial uses, and a significant problem if burdening existing infrastructure. ideally we should add smaller developments to existing towns (as they have tried for the past generation or two) but they still get Nimby objection and have legitimate problems with over stretching things like schools. a 100 house development might be too much to stretch capacity, but not enough to built new.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

The property developers make a bigger profit building houses in the South than in the North. The land might cost a bit more to acquire but a 2 bed house will sell at £275k whereas up north it will only realise £100K

 

[The Large One]

frankly, i simply dont believe those numbers of empty home, or at least there must be more to it than that - house and rental prices tell us theres a large undersupply. brownfield is somewhere we should be developing more, but theres contention with local planning, industrial uses, and a significant problem if burdening existing infrastructure. ideally we should add smaller developments to existing towns (as they have tried for the past generation or two) but they still get Nimby objection and have legitimate problems with over stretching things like schools. a 100 house development might be too much to stretch capacity, but not enough to built new.

http://www.emptyhomes.com/statistics-2/empty-homes-statistice-201112/

 

[Gwylan]

frankly, i simply dont believe those numbers of empty home, or at least there must be more to it than that

From the Empty Homes site "...The data is obtained from council tax information. The data is supplied by owners of empty homes who report their properties as empty to their council. Councils usually offer exemptions from council tax for empty homes, which gives an incentive for owners to report their property as empty..."

So, yes, owners could be reporting occupied homes as empty - wonder if the councils do any checking.

However, there are certainly a good many empty properties in the UK, it's going to be in the thousands.

But we really need to be developing brownfield sites: the old Preston Barracks down the road from me has been lying idle for more than a decade - why is that not being used? And that's just one example from Brighton.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

Do we?

Does that mean every other home is occupied and/or inhabitable?

No, there are 800,000 empty houses in the UK

There are two problems

1. Most are not in the area where people want to live

2. Often in a poor condition.

The biggest problem is that it's cheaper for developers to build on green fields than to redevelop brown field sites.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

As long as the Palace Pikeys don't move down there, like they have in places like Crawley.

Joking apart, much as huge numbers of West Ham fans deserted the East End for the new towns of Essex in the 50s and 60s anyone who can afford to is now trying to leave huge parts of South and South East London.

Sussex is a great place to live, and people want to live here. Problem is, it doesn't have the infrastructure to cope with thousands of new houses.

 

[gazingdown]

They've identified the need for an extra 42 homes in the village I live in for people currently residing there. The place is fecking tiny so unless we're all going to be ordered to start popping babies out I've no idea what they're going on about. Madness!

I think we live in the same village, I could accept more homes IF and only if they made the A272 bypass the village somehow, maybe make it DC all the way from the A24 to the A23 too. Traffic is bad enough at times and ill only get worse anyway regardless of adding more properties.

The main issue I haven with many new build is the cheap quality shoebox nature of so many of them. So many are ugly/featureless too.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

But we really need to be developing brownfield sites: the old Preston Barracks down the road from me has been lying idle for more than a decade - why is that not being used? And that's just one example from Brighton.

Exactly.

But it's more expensive to redevelop brown field sites than build on green fields, and developers are only interested in profits.

 

[Lincoln Imp]

It would be impossible to get to a railway station from Mayfields without driving through the centre of Burgess Hill or Hurstpierpoint's extremely narrow High Street. The site is utterly hopeless from a public transport perspective.

 

[Gwylan]

Exactly.

But it's more expensive to redevelop brown field sites than build on green fields, and developers are only interested in profits.

Well, that's easy enough to fix. Alter the tax system so it's cheap to develop on brownfield sites and expensive develop green fields. Although the chance of the Tories doing something sensible like that is non-existent.

The other thing that could be done is stop reduced council tax for second homes. It should be twice as much (in the first year), then three times as much, four times as much etc. That would free up thousands of rural homes. But I wouldn't bet on the Tories doing that either. For a start it would hit them in the pocket and property developers want to keep prices high so that profits remain high (and construction companies are big contributors to Tory funds)