We must build on the green belt to end this housing crisis

[Gumbo Robot]

Seems that you can't comment on anything in the Telegraph these days.

Could somebody assume the role of Ms Samual please? Not that she'd have read my comments but she had me spluttering into my cornflakes this morning...

The whole country is suffering from a chronic shortage of houses. England has been building about 100,000 to 170,000 houses a year for over two decades. Its estimated need is for 250,000 to 300,000 a year – and that’s just to keep prices steady....

...prices keep rising. Home ownership peaked more than a decade ago. In much of the south, simply getting planning permission to build houses on a patch of farmland increases its value a thousand-fold. Something is deeply wrong.

We’re been good blaming bogeymen for these facts – voracious developers, ghastly second home owners, immigrants. But it’s none of these things

None of these things? So, the extra 300,000 or so extra people that come here every year all move into garden sheds? How can you make a statement like this and then not provide any evidence to back up your assertion?

....Unwillingness of any serious political leader to tackle the holy cow of housing development: the green belt.

The green belt has brought many positives to British cities, preventing urban sprawl and preserving at least some open spaces, but its benefits are massively overstated and it is slowly strangling the economy

forgetting all the attendant environmental impact of the infrastructure needed for for such new developments, you've ignored the most valuable resource of all in this increasingly crowded country - Space (or the illusion thereof) and we all need it (well, I do) for our own sanity.

When I drive out of Bath, you go from urbal -> rural in an instant with none of the rural/urban sprawl that would maybe otherwise have sprung up.

I like that.

And as for the economy, well, sometimes there are more important things.

Finally -

In St Ives, Cornwall, residents blame second home owners for high prices. But Britain has not been building enough homes for decades

To use St Ives, the ONE place in the country where you can say with 100% confidence that high house prices are caused by second home ownership has to be verging on ludicrous?

Very poor journalism. I'm sticking with my Time subscription for the foreseeable.....

[BrilloPad]

The telegraph has hit rock bottom - and still digging.

The UK needs to do lots to end the housing crisis. Green belt building to me seems low on the list. I would always be worried that if there was a war we could not feed ourselves. People do need open spaces. And what about air quality.

To me, number one priority is to end overseas ownership. As SueEllen suggested, to own a house you must have a NI number.

[BrilloPad]

Birmingham homes plan approved amid greenbelt row - BBC News

I suppose living in Birmingham will be fine. Once HS2 is built and you can get a job.

[vetran]

Ah the Diane Abbott gambit.

Feckwits the lot of them.

[Gumbo Robot]

The telegraph has hit rock bottom - and still digging.

The UK needs to do lots to end the housing crisis. Green belt building to me seems low on the list. I would always be worried that if there was a war we could not feed ourselves. People do need open spaces. And what about air quality.

To me, number one priority is to end overseas ownership. As SueEllen suggested, to own a house you must have a NI number.

That's it. I can't help feeling that at least part of this housing bubble is down to foreign investors seeing the London property market as a safe haven for their money.

As a result, prices are ridiculously overinflated & buying a house round my way is a nightmare because you're in competition with cash buyers from London who are cashing in & buying second homes.

[sasguru]

That's it. I can't help feeling that at least part of this housing bubble is down to foreign investors seeing the London property market as a safe haven for their money.
.

That bubble is about to pop, so we'll see if you're correct in terms of its knock on effects.

[BrilloPad]

That bubble is about to pop, so we'll see if you're correct in terms of its knock on effects.

I heard that back in 2002.

The government cannot afford to let it pop.

[sasguru]

I heard that back in 2002.

The government cannot afford to let it pop.

Government is only in control to a certain extent.
Global Real Estate Boom Is Coming to an End, U.K.''s Grosvenor Warns - NASDAQ.com

[BrilloPad]

Government is only in control to a certain extent.
Global Real Estate Boom Is Coming to an End, U.K.''s Grosvenor Warns - NASDAQ.com

It is true the government is not the only influence. But the government controls the money supply.

Property and immigration are the only things holding the economy(Ponzi scheme?) up. Tories cannot now blame Labour if the economy tanks. I expect the government to throw everything they can at the housing market.

Most people are sheep and will fall for it.

I don't agree with it. I think it is wrong. But I think it is what will happen.

[ZARDOZ]

There are lots of brownfield sites available but it's cheaper and more profitable to build on green field hence the lobby groups are pumping money into the government propaganda machine. They wont be happy until everyone lives in an overcrowded croncrete hell hole with overburdened local services which houses their cheap labour. Their mantra is quantity over quality.

It's about time the debate moved to quality of life, from this drive to make ever more money for the super elite at the expense of the wider population.