The glossy proposal leaflet gives the impression that the council and the supermarket are working to improve our town centre , but it makes no mention of the existing lease. The council rents out the existing site to Sainsburys , originally it was Safeways who got the 175 year lease in 1983 , and then Sainsburys took it on in the 90's.
That lease is under negotiation at present - I would be suprised if the rentalvalue can be continued or increased , the towncentre Sainsburys is (in my opinion) the least attractive site of Eastleigh's 3 supermarkets. Asda is huge and well attended , Tescos has a prime position in the precinct for the quick shop. Sainsburys is zipped up with a bus station, looking miserable, poorley lit - it is not , I imagine , making any money..... I also imagine if Sainsburys quit the council would panic - Have you seen the new store in Portswood >
Of course town centres are dying and supermarkets are largely to blame. A large new development can add footfall to the small retailers - but it can remove it also. Certainly the 18 months of firstly demolition , then construction may well kill the patient - with the loss of a large car park I presume market street will suffer further , are people in Eastleigh really lacking supermarkets or is the council trying to monetize a little slice of the park.
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Monday, 2 January 2012
Demographics
The H1 housing paper produced by Eastleigh Borough Council, (http://www.eastleigh.gov.uk/pdf/H1%20Housing.pdf) is at the core of their rationale for the continuing drive to build housing. A brief glance at the data presented and it seems to support their position but a deeper analysis shows the desperate attempt to back up a development policy derived from an altogether different source. PUSH . The Partnership for Urban South Hampshire, is a quango formed from council employees from Eastleigh , Test Valley, Fareham , etc a lot of planning policy has been devolved to this organization in a manner that resembles the passing up of power from the UK to the EU – In the New Labour scheme Regional assemblies like SEERA and their related development agencies (SEEDA) were/are responsible for the 'development' of the South East of England , rather than decisions made in the house of commons by elected MP's , on a national basis, these regional bodies create policy skipping over both local and national representative power. More of these later, PUSH as the name suggests published hefty jargon filled plans to achieve economic targets because they felt that the area was underperforming. How they came to this conclusion and why economic growth should be the raison d'etre for planning is another story but PUSH's primary tool to achieve this economic growth is housebuilding. House prices are so much higher in the SE compared to the rest of the country that an identical housing estate would fetch almost twice the price in Hampshire compared to Tyneside for example. In their 2002 documents PUSH states that the rapid development of new housing in the area will result in economic growth and this will benefit us all.
The housebuilding in the council's plan is justified by demographics presented in their own documentation but a more forensic study of these shows them to be false and misleading. In appendix 1 a graph is presented
which suggests that if no new housing were built the population would fall – the first lie is where the graph starts , 2006 , in a paper produced in 2011 they pretend that no houses are built between 2006 and 2011. In those 5 years about 2500 houses were built ! Is it helpful to model a scenario where you entirely ignore all recent actual events in the field of study concerned , only if you are fudging the figures to fit your designs. These graphs are produced by computer models the projections that the computer outputs are only the reflections of the assumptions that go in, computer modelling is used in many disciplines but is only ever as good as the assumptions used ,if this kind of computer modeling were used in engineering the building or ship designs produced would failspectacularly and people would die.
Local populations and local housing development are intertwined , the council wants to pretend that local population growth demands the housing , but if you build the houses inevitably people arrive to fill them. The demographics model used , The Chelmer Model, understands this and has two modes. It is either in 'demographic mode' where starting population and birth and death rates predict the future local population or 'housing Led' mode , where the resultant population is predicted on the basis of new housing developed.
Only a Freedom of information request confirmed my suspicions – the model is run in housing led mode. The second Scenario (graph above) claims that it is 'zero net migration' and conveniently includes housing completions between 2006 and 2010 , my FOI response states that zero net migration is assumed after 2010 , before 2010 the migration is very significant . The aim of these two graphs is to hide the truth that everyone in Eastleigh knows – intense development in the last decade has brought lots of migrants into the area, and that the inpending continuation of such building will just bring in more people. As they have been told to do by the un-democratic quango PUSH, Eastleigh Borough Council are trying to expand, by building houses, to satisfy an economic strategy (that has failed) which depletes the lives of existing residents. Demographic facts , rather than projections, are important ,as a result of the post war baby boom the UK has an age profile biased towards those aged 50-70 and Eastleigh has this situation to an even greater degree , because of the leap in population between 1961 and 1971. Between these two censuses the population of Eastleigh almost doubled and the population density more than doubled. (http://www.eastleigh.gov.uk/pdf/C1%20Demography.pdf 3.2 and 3.3) these additions would have been infants or migrants to the area during the boom years, and many of those people are now retiring. Migrants tend to be young people who have or are about to have children, the young children of these arrivals are all retiring before 2026 and this presents a problem to our council, less people working means less income more pensioners means more costs. Over 20% of the population of Eastleigh is over 65 that is 7% above the national average, and over the next 25 years it will rise to 30%.
Another assumption entered into the housing prediction model is the average household size, this figure has been declining in the last 50 years because of people marrying at more advanced age, and having less children, older people living longer , divorce et cetera although these factors contribute to the desire for people to live in smaller households the reason household sizes have dropped is because they have been able too. People have been able to afford to live on their own and the housing bubble has helped this. Single people who bought a house in the early 80's and 90's and wish to continue living on their own will be able to because the speculative bubble of credit flooding into the market has given them sufficient equity to do so. Until there is an appropriate correction in the market many people of younger generations will never be able to afford to live on their own even if they aspire to do so because of the fundamentals of the market. A continual decline in household size is far fetched, it would require property values to rise forever but without the huge inputs of new credit which has inflated the market in the last 25 years ,and it would result in standard families with 2.4 children being a rarity. To predict that building no new houses in Eastleigh would reduce the population because of the assumption that a national trend in reducing household size would continue is pretty tenuous.
It is probable that both these statistical phenomena are a result of the same component of the population, and that the ageing population and the reduced household size are caused by the same people – it is the old people who are living alone.
Amongst the flood of statistics published by Eastleigh Borough Council to support their building campaign there is evidence which directly contradicts their claims. Councillors have told us in public meetings that the houses built are for local people,but when it is assumed that in migration is balanced with out migration (C1 3.7) there is only a 4.3% population increase in 18 years as the document states “Running the model on the basis that 9,400 dwellings will be built between 2011 and 2029 indicates that the population would be expected to rise by 9.7% from approximately 123,000 people in 2011 to 135,000 in 2029”
This is a clear admission that the houses are for migrants into Eastleigh. Building the houses will double the growth rate of Eastleigh's population. A further proof that new housing is not for local people but for migrants is shown by the Office of National Statistics own figures from Mid year estimates 2010, from 2004 to 2010 an average of 500 households moved into the area (C1 5.2) correspondingly the average completion rate of new houses in the area each year is about 500 – all the houses are going to in-migrants.
The demographic projections shown in graphical form to support the councils case are created thus to give the impression that housing is needed for population growth derived from the local population, but the statistics in the housing document tell a different story, the graph showing population decline if no houses are built conveniently overlooks the last 6 years of housebuilding which has resulted in a massive increase in population. They do not want to show the spike in population growth between 2006 and 2012. The second graph (zero net migration) starts in 2006, the section from 2011 to 2025 shows a slow and steady population increase and unless you know that the Chelmer model has reversed causality in housing led mode, you think that this indigenous population growth needs the corresponding house building to support it, if you look at the previous section from 2006 to 2011 it is considerably steeper, on a different projection this would appear as a spike, a spike representing all the migrants filling the houses built recently (they might not want you to see that) The two graphs are using the model run in different modes , if you swapped the modes in which the model was run, in the first graph population would rise just fine regardless of the zero housebuilding and in the second graph with the projected house building the population will increase rapidly. Both these graphs are introduced as unrealistic in the text and admittedly the author is telling you what is shown but without quite a bit of research you can't understand it and you don't expect the council to be tricking you, the effect of the two graphs, in conjunction, to the average reader is 1) that if we don't build houses the population will shrink 2) the population is only rising by indigenous growth and the housing being built is just to keep up with that. Neither 1 nor 2 is the case, 1) is a direct result of daft inflexibility of an assumption and 2) is a misrepresentation of a hypothetical trend which is taken as what they think will occur what appears to be a result is actually an assumption, the results of all models are just predictions only as accurate as the assumptions that are put in but placing zero net migration population growth on the same graph as housebuilding rates which would cause much greater population growth is misleading. Choosing the assumptions you input to models is selecting the output.
When you build new houses as fast as possible, as we have in Eastleigh , and plan to continue to with the draft plan the population increases correspondingly. 25 years is actually a short time in terms of planning – plans designed to really improve peoples lives have to look further in the future, in 25 years the children born in the new houses now will need housing , 9400 houses now inevitably needs another 9400 and another and another so we either stop it now or Eastleigh becomes an entirely built up landscape .
Saturday, 24 December 2011
Brownfield first - why it won't happen
EUV - Existing Use Value is an acronym used by developers for the value of land doing what it has always been doing. When a large house in an affluent area sells it's significant garden and two houses are built for a tidy profit , it is because the Existing Use Value as a garden was low enough for developers to buy and build on. The three factors determining a profitable development are land cost, build cost, and sale price , if sale price goes down and build cost goes up, the margin above EUV shrinks and the development ceases to be profitable because the value to the house of the large garden is equal to what developers can pay after build cost and sale price are factored in.
In the 1993 report by Hampshire County Council the heritage landscape of Stoneham park is set out as a valued strategic gap which they are comitted to protect.(Report of the county planning officer 26th July 1993) So why now 18 years later is it being opened up for development , 19 years cannot be too long a time for planners to foresee demographic pressures or affordability issues. Eastleigh residents voted for the stance taken in 1993 and paid for it , and they did not expect it to fade away in such a short time.
Eastleigh's building boom has made some people rich , in 2005 when the Pirelli development was started conditions were perfect for the developers, so perfect that developments were undertaken that would otherwise, and are clearly now, out of place ; such as building on school playing fields at Nightingale school - it was a 'dash for the cash' . 'Brownfield' developments used to work , as many 1 or 2 bedroom flats as possible were squeezed onto a site and with mortgage lenders offering credit to whoever asked politely, the gang of planners, lenders, developers and buyers , all presuming house prices would always rise were living it large in Eastleigh, but the truth was a bubble was being inflated - the lenders, developers and ,I'm sorry to say buyers, will go bust as punishment .The planners should have known better and this correction in bank lending and drop in house prices should result in them losing their jobs.
Mortgage lenders will now not lend £150,000 for a flat in Eastleigh to average wage earners, so developers will not build them on brownfield sites , as build costs have increased due to inflation (diesel costs have an impact) and sale prices have dropped, the profit margins have disappeared so that a brownfields EUV is large enough for it to be left as an industrial site.
Build costs have not just increased due to inflation, councils increasing demand for social housing squeezes developer's margins , Section 106 payments and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) squeezes developer's margins and now the drive to 'carbon neutral' developments through ever stricter building codes has squeezed developer's margins so much that they are no longer interested in brownfield sites. If councils want developers to build on brownfield sites they own, they must give them away. Don't ask why a school playing field is brownfield and don't ask why a tiny flat for £130,000 is affordable , you will be falling out of the daydream , you will be letting go of the helium balloon that is this housing bubble and watching it rocket up into the clouds where it belongs.
On brownfield sites building costs are about £110 per square foot , many industrial sites have added costs when changed to residential , like the old petrol station in Chandlers Ford which I presume will be flats - excavators are carefully removing the petrol tanks under the site, inspectors are monitoring , contamination can be an issue. Housing associations will only pay £130 per square foot, the margin is so low that developers might as well buy residential sites for development , where locations are often more sought after. The discounted rate that industrial sites offered developers has been sucked up in additional costs forced on them by local and national government , so now only the 'uplift' of greenfield sites can feed the monster that has been created.
Winchester council is trying to force developers to build 40% 'affordable' homes in even the smallest of developments and developers are lobbying against it, the councillors fear the promises made on affordable housing , daft as the concept is, cannot be achieved and as one councillor said 40% of nothing is nothing. Whilst cheap credit was available all of these people in the loop were having their piece of the pie, now it is not, they are stuck, only by opening up previously protected green spaces can enough financial incentive be offered to developers to fulfil the politicians promises. Of course you can't build one house and have 40% of it 'affordable' , the council gets cash in lieu of the 'low cost' build (perhaps you could if you made the family buying the 2 bedroom house rent out a 3rd room to a lodger -the effect would be the same but the council would not get the free money)
Eastleigh had a 12.5% reduction in government grant for 2011/2012, worse than predicted, they have made no redundancies like the private sector has, it is income from the continued development of Eastleigh that they need to fill the gaps. There are 32 vacant brownfield sites in Eastleigh with rental values greater than £45,000 p/a but national and local government have been taking ever more of the profits available to developers through S106 , CIL and now carbon neutral building codes - (to me the idea of 'tackling climate change' is ridiculous , CO2 is not a threat and I am proud that I am a climate change 'denier' , one who has an ecology degree and was a Green Party member for years, perhaps we can save that discussion for another time)
The irony of life is such that it is the latest round of green policies which apply to new builds within the time frame of the new draft plan that is forcing us to sacrifice our green spaces to developers. We need a different plan , it is not population pressure that has made EBC (and other councils)change their policy to the 'strategic gap' admirably protected by them for so long , it is the economic situation that exists , and this situation exists with the connivance of our planning department.
In the 1993 report by Hampshire County Council the heritage landscape of Stoneham park is set out as a valued strategic gap which they are comitted to protect.(Report of the county planning officer 26th July 1993) So why now 18 years later is it being opened up for development , 19 years cannot be too long a time for planners to foresee demographic pressures or affordability issues. Eastleigh residents voted for the stance taken in 1993 and paid for it , and they did not expect it to fade away in such a short time.
Eastleigh's building boom has made some people rich , in 2005 when the Pirelli development was started conditions were perfect for the developers, so perfect that developments were undertaken that would otherwise, and are clearly now, out of place ; such as building on school playing fields at Nightingale school - it was a 'dash for the cash' . 'Brownfield' developments used to work , as many 1 or 2 bedroom flats as possible were squeezed onto a site and with mortgage lenders offering credit to whoever asked politely, the gang of planners, lenders, developers and buyers , all presuming house prices would always rise were living it large in Eastleigh, but the truth was a bubble was being inflated - the lenders, developers and ,I'm sorry to say buyers, will go bust as punishment .The planners should have known better and this correction in bank lending and drop in house prices should result in them losing their jobs.
Mortgage lenders will now not lend £150,000 for a flat in Eastleigh to average wage earners, so developers will not build them on brownfield sites , as build costs have increased due to inflation (diesel costs have an impact) and sale prices have dropped, the profit margins have disappeared so that a brownfields EUV is large enough for it to be left as an industrial site.
Build costs have not just increased due to inflation, councils increasing demand for social housing squeezes developer's margins , Section 106 payments and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) squeezes developer's margins and now the drive to 'carbon neutral' developments through ever stricter building codes has squeezed developer's margins so much that they are no longer interested in brownfield sites. If councils want developers to build on brownfield sites they own, they must give them away. Don't ask why a school playing field is brownfield and don't ask why a tiny flat for £130,000 is affordable , you will be falling out of the daydream , you will be letting go of the helium balloon that is this housing bubble and watching it rocket up into the clouds where it belongs.
On brownfield sites building costs are about £110 per square foot , many industrial sites have added costs when changed to residential , like the old petrol station in Chandlers Ford which I presume will be flats - excavators are carefully removing the petrol tanks under the site, inspectors are monitoring , contamination can be an issue. Housing associations will only pay £130 per square foot, the margin is so low that developers might as well buy residential sites for development , where locations are often more sought after. The discounted rate that industrial sites offered developers has been sucked up in additional costs forced on them by local and national government , so now only the 'uplift' of greenfield sites can feed the monster that has been created.
Winchester council is trying to force developers to build 40% 'affordable' homes in even the smallest of developments and developers are lobbying against it, the councillors fear the promises made on affordable housing , daft as the concept is, cannot be achieved and as one councillor said 40% of nothing is nothing. Whilst cheap credit was available all of these people in the loop were having their piece of the pie, now it is not, they are stuck, only by opening up previously protected green spaces can enough financial incentive be offered to developers to fulfil the politicians promises. Of course you can't build one house and have 40% of it 'affordable' , the council gets cash in lieu of the 'low cost' build (perhaps you could if you made the family buying the 2 bedroom house rent out a 3rd room to a lodger -the effect would be the same but the council would not get the free money)
Eastleigh had a 12.5% reduction in government grant for 2011/2012, worse than predicted, they have made no redundancies like the private sector has, it is income from the continued development of Eastleigh that they need to fill the gaps. There are 32 vacant brownfield sites in Eastleigh with rental values greater than £45,000 p/a but national and local government have been taking ever more of the profits available to developers through S106 , CIL and now carbon neutral building codes - (to me the idea of 'tackling climate change' is ridiculous , CO2 is not a threat and I am proud that I am a climate change 'denier' , one who has an ecology degree and was a Green Party member for years, perhaps we can save that discussion for another time)
The irony of life is such that it is the latest round of green policies which apply to new builds within the time frame of the new draft plan that is forcing us to sacrifice our green spaces to developers. We need a different plan , it is not population pressure that has made EBC (and other councils)change their policy to the 'strategic gap' admirably protected by them for so long , it is the economic situation that exists , and this situation exists with the connivance of our planning department.
Friday, 23 December 2011
FOI request on property assets
BACKGROUND:
Council Leader Keith House states in the Hampshire Chronicle on thursday December 8 2011 that income from EBC's property assets have kept council
tax lower than it otherwise would be.
If the benefits of EBC's property portfolio are enjoyed by residents I imagine the risks are also, Property companies borrow, and then invest earning profits from rental and increases in value with dividends going to shareholders, in EBC's case dividends go to council tax payers as reduced bills so they must be shareholders in the enterprise.
When property values decrease the shareholders take the loss, so in EBC's case residents must be taking on some risk, and residents therefore have a duty of oversight on the investments and just as shareholders of a property company would expect full disclosure, I expect to see the full details of Eastleigh Borough Councils property holdings
REQUEST:
I would like a list of all the property owned by the council,both land or buildings, held in whatever capacity, with purchase date and the amount paid, also please disclose the most recent valuation of these assets.
The current status of the property and details of any rental incomes associated.
Also I would like the details of all borrowings undertaken for these holdings, the terms, repayments and lender.
I expect the list to be up to date including the recent purchase of the magistrates court for I believe £500,000
This request is reasonable, and after I have seen the full extent of risk associated with our property investments perhaps you will recieve my gratitude for the wise investments made.
Yours faithfully,
Rigel Jenman
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Response to Email
I have received an email from a potential candidate for Eastleigh councillor who's opinion on housing developments is a little different from mine , this is my response :
My focus is on protecting the farmland parkland and recreational ground 'south of chestnut avenue', it would be a tragedy to develop this 'strategic gap' now, I thought that was a priority of yours also.
In my opinion there has been enough building in Eastleigh over the last 10 years and much of it has been on brownfield sites , the other half of the Pirelli site is about to be developed with 700 dwellings.
I don't understand why you say there is a need for more brownfield sites or a need for more homes on brownfield sites , the council and the MP no doubt agree, of the 9400 they plan before 2029 half will be on brownfield sites, my position is they are not planning for the impact of all these additional people and the quality of life for existing residents will be reduced.
They build houses to make revenue not to improve the lot of local people like they claim , as an example when they finish phase two at the old Pirelli site the pressure on existing infrastructure and amenities will increase a great deal. I needed to make an appointment at the doctors on newtown road for my daughter the other day , she had woken up with a very bad rash ;at 8am my wife and I had to press redial on the phone constantly for about 40 minutes just to get through and make an appointment.
That Eastleigh Practice is working flat out there is very little spare capacity.
Just like all the roads from the M3 to stoneham lane ,people sit in traffic for 30 minutes every day of their lives between the M27 and their work, and that's on a normal day if there is an accident somewhere then it is much longer.
Like Fleming park , the swimming pool is so over subscribed that you cannot take your kids swimming spontaneously on a sunday morning because it is all lane swimming and lessons.
Just like the schools , all the class sizes are very close to the maximum allowed , teachers are overworked ,pupils are not supervised sufficiently.
What about jobs ? Already we have record unemployment , if there was a potential for full employment in Eastleigh then it would rely on the regeneration of brownfield sites to employ people.
We have had immense numbers of new dwellings over the last 10 years , mostly for migrants into the area, and the impacts on services of these people are only just starting to be felt.
They build the houses to make money, to fill the increasing gaps in council funding and it is like a hidden tax on residents because provision of services declines.
By siding with Chris Huhne and therefore the council you are making it easier for them ,if you stand for election as a councillor wanting more housing on brownfield sites or not you might as well stand as a Lib Dem because they will just agree
In the plan they want 4700 dwellings on brownfield sites, that is the equivalent of 3 of the aviary's estates and that does not include the Pirelli development which will be underway already.
Eastleigh Borough Council has to persuade developers to take on a site , and provide some social housing, and then they get as much Section 106 money as they can.
Developers will be less keen to develop on brownfield , especially if it is on industrial parks like school lane , so the council will end up getting a much worse deal with regards to social housing and S106
The whole system of for profit development subsidising council salaries is crooked and the people of Eastleigh need to wake-up to the real motives or Eastleigh will become a completely urban landscape , with the crime, unemployment and social problems of London but without all the great things that living in a city can provide.
Perhaps your stance will appeal to the electorate but if so it will be because your naivete will match theirs, I am trying to set-up a neighbourhood forum but I have not been overwhelmed with responses , it is not the best time of year for campaigns perhaps.
If we can work together on a neighbourhood forum that would be great Parish Councils do not need neighbourhood forums because they can act as one anyway I would like to create a forum for all of eastleigh not in a parish council
My stance would be to protect all greenfield sites from development because of the value of these open spaces to future generations
do you agree with this or not - if you do believe they should be protected why campaign focusing on brownfield sites , where will the jobs be ?
I think you are playing into their hands because the stated desire to build 4700 on brownfield is very ambitious , perhaps unachievable , and more expensive considering contamination et cetera, we do not need to be planning housing for migrants into the area , we need to be planning for a sustainable future for existing residents so my stance is ONLY housing on brownfield sites and if the Pirelli site is developed with 700 flats and houses that should entirely go to the housing needy , freeing their houses up and solving whatever housing 'lack' there might be.
Perhaps we can plan a public debate on our different stances as part of a neighbourhood forum for the eastleigh local area.
 |
| http://www.savethesouth.org.uk/getinvolved.htm |
My focus is on protecting the farmland parkland and recreational ground 'south of chestnut avenue', it would be a tragedy to develop this 'strategic gap' now, I thought that was a priority of yours also.
In my opinion there has been enough building in Eastleigh over the last 10 years and much of it has been on brownfield sites , the other half of the Pirelli site is about to be developed with 700 dwellings.
I don't understand why you say there is a need for more brownfield sites or a need for more homes on brownfield sites , the council and the MP no doubt agree, of the 9400 they plan before 2029 half will be on brownfield sites, my position is they are not planning for the impact of all these additional people and the quality of life for existing residents will be reduced.
They build houses to make revenue not to improve the lot of local people like they claim , as an example when they finish phase two at the old Pirelli site the pressure on existing infrastructure and amenities will increase a great deal. I needed to make an appointment at the doctors on newtown road for my daughter the other day , she had woken up with a very bad rash ;at 8am my wife and I had to press redial on the phone constantly for about 40 minutes just to get through and make an appointment.
That Eastleigh Practice is working flat out there is very little spare capacity.
Just like all the roads from the M3 to stoneham lane ,people sit in traffic for 30 minutes every day of their lives between the M27 and their work, and that's on a normal day if there is an accident somewhere then it is much longer.
Like Fleming park , the swimming pool is so over subscribed that you cannot take your kids swimming spontaneously on a sunday morning because it is all lane swimming and lessons.
Just like the schools , all the class sizes are very close to the maximum allowed , teachers are overworked ,pupils are not supervised sufficiently.
What about jobs ? Already we have record unemployment , if there was a potential for full employment in Eastleigh then it would rely on the regeneration of brownfield sites to employ people.
We have had immense numbers of new dwellings over the last 10 years , mostly for migrants into the area, and the impacts on services of these people are only just starting to be felt.
They build the houses to make money, to fill the increasing gaps in council funding and it is like a hidden tax on residents because provision of services declines.
By siding with Chris Huhne and therefore the council you are making it easier for them ,if you stand for election as a councillor wanting more housing on brownfield sites or not you might as well stand as a Lib Dem because they will just agree
In the plan they want 4700 dwellings on brownfield sites, that is the equivalent of 3 of the aviary's estates and that does not include the Pirelli development which will be underway already.
Eastleigh Borough Council has to persuade developers to take on a site , and provide some social housing, and then they get as much Section 106 money as they can.
Developers will be less keen to develop on brownfield , especially if it is on industrial parks like school lane , so the council will end up getting a much worse deal with regards to social housing and S106
The whole system of for profit development subsidising council salaries is crooked and the people of Eastleigh need to wake-up to the real motives or Eastleigh will become a completely urban landscape , with the crime, unemployment and social problems of London but without all the great things that living in a city can provide.
Perhaps your stance will appeal to the electorate but if so it will be because your naivete will match theirs, I am trying to set-up a neighbourhood forum but I have not been overwhelmed with responses , it is not the best time of year for campaigns perhaps.
If we can work together on a neighbourhood forum that would be great Parish Councils do not need neighbourhood forums because they can act as one anyway I would like to create a forum for all of eastleigh not in a parish council
My stance would be to protect all greenfield sites from development because of the value of these open spaces to future generations
do you agree with this or not - if you do believe they should be protected why campaign focusing on brownfield sites , where will the jobs be ?
I think you are playing into their hands because the stated desire to build 4700 on brownfield is very ambitious , perhaps unachievable , and more expensive considering contamination et cetera, we do not need to be planning housing for migrants into the area , we need to be planning for a sustainable future for existing residents so my stance is ONLY housing on brownfield sites and if the Pirelli site is developed with 700 flats and houses that should entirely go to the housing needy , freeing their houses up and solving whatever housing 'lack' there might be.
Perhaps we can plan a public debate on our different stances as part of a neighbourhood forum for the eastleigh local area.
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Channel 4 Property Scandel empty homes
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-great-british-property-scandal/4od#3266764
This show is a fusion of home makeover and panorama - heavily biased towards home makeover. In all three of the cases featured, the single mum who wants to go back to uni, the divorced ex-serviceman 'sofa surfing' , the word job is not mentioned - as I have said before it is not a houses pritce that makes it affordable, it is the relation between earnings and that price. If these people are earning then they need a better wage , if they are not , they need a job. The reason for rows of empty houses is the destruction of jobs - jobs that pay enough to afford a home.
Later in the program the presenter says coyly what we need is 'cheap money' rather than government money , what is cheap money ? I presume he is saying 'government backed' bank loans , which is basically sub-prime credit. Private companies set interest rates according to perceived risk , people without jobs often do not have a realistic plan for repayment, if the house to be repaired is not owned by the borrower who is money to be leant to ; if tenants take on the debt to improve a council owned house how can that be right ?
The issue of finance for housing was not covered , towards the end the presenter talks about an extra 50 million from the government but makes no attempt to inform the viewer about where this money comes from or goes to and what conditions are attached, I'm sure viewers would be interested in the funding of housing associations and how and where government money is dealt out.
The presenter says 'we can't wait for the Gov or councils to solve this problem' ...... why should they be let off the hook so easily - It is entirely the councils job to solve this problem, the councils allowed whole streets to fall into decay or soldthem off to developers who just sit on them waiting to build another shopping mall. These councils are judging the are to be unworthy of investment essentially because of the lack of jobs.
Later in the program the presenter says coyly what we need is 'cheap money' rather than government money , what is cheap money ? I presume he is saying 'government backed' bank loans , which is basically sub-prime credit. Private companies set interest rates according to perceived risk , people without jobs often do not have a realistic plan for repayment, if the house to be repaired is not owned by the borrower who is money to be leant to ; if tenants take on the debt to improve a council owned house how can that be right ?
The issue of finance for housing was not covered , towards the end the presenter talks about an extra 50 million from the government but makes no attempt to inform the viewer about where this money comes from or goes to and what conditions are attached, I'm sure viewers would be interested in the funding of housing associations and how and where government money is dealt out.
The presenter says 'we can't wait for the Gov or councils to solve this problem' ...... why should they be let off the hook so easily - It is entirely the councils job to solve this problem, the councils allowed whole streets to fall into decay or soldthem off to developers who just sit on them waiting to build another shopping mall. These councils are judging the are to be unworthy of investment essentially because of the lack of jobs.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
avnec meeting yesterday
I went to the AVNEC meeting yesterday at Belmont hall on the Velmore estate, there were representatives from the council and 'FIRST WESSEX' the housing assoc , the police , the school, the nursery, the council countryside team and the resident associations.
The Agenda was basically little issues relating to the estate , like some bushes were 'overgrown'
et cetera . The police sergeant talked about the latest crime in the area, gave out some leaflets about how you can now search an online map from the station and find out about the latest anti-social behavour , he was accompanied by two PCSOs who gave updates about how many people still leave their car unlocked with bags in it.
The guy from Velmore res assoc said he thought there was too much shoplifting in the co-op - I think the policeman was thinking 'thats between me and the co-op buddy'
He is trying to get a no cold-calling zone created , he needs 66% of residents to agree . The police are going to help him canvas residents by ......cold calling residents.
The Lady from 'One Community' was warning us about the TV 'switch over' she said 'there is nothing worse than an old person alone in a house being left without a working television , it really would be awful'
The lady from the Aviary residents association said she heard gunshots in the woods on saturday afternoon and there were kids on motorbikes in the fields again, she didn't think either were allowed.
Another lady from another resident association talked about the boggy football pitch , and the behaviour of local kids, the council representative ,Guy , said the kids only get the drainage sorted if they behave themselves and there is no more ASB , the police agreed .
I tried to talk when everyone else had finished about an alternative plan to the Council's house building frenzy , the loss of faith in institutions the excluded generations, the uncertainty in food and fuel the inevitable social unrest as a result of the gap between rich and poor the fraud in our economy the lies from our leaders and the media and the impacts of 'austerity' on our lives ,everyone started putting thier coats on ,
these meetings are not the place for such dialogue.
Abbe Reynaud the french encylopede in his letter to the convention just before the september massacres when 1000's were slaughtered in the streets said they were all laughing and dancing on the edge of an abyss, our community groups are just politely requesting that a litter bin is moved 20 yards up the street ,on the edge of an abyss.
RESPONSE to Comments 8/12/2011
it seems experienced police officers understand the impact of a gradual urbanization of Eastleigh , much denser housing and much fewer job opportunities will inevitably lead to a worsened level and nature of crime in the area. Perhaps some of them have worked in other areas , London, Portsmouth or Southampton perhaps.
The Agenda was basically little issues relating to the estate , like some bushes were 'overgrown'
et cetera . The police sergeant talked about the latest crime in the area, gave out some leaflets about how you can now search an online map from the station and find out about the latest anti-social behavour , he was accompanied by two PCSOs who gave updates about how many people still leave their car unlocked with bags in it.
The guy from Velmore res assoc said he thought there was too much shoplifting in the co-op - I think the policeman was thinking 'thats between me and the co-op buddy'
He is trying to get a no cold-calling zone created , he needs 66% of residents to agree . The police are going to help him canvas residents by ......cold calling residents.
The Lady from 'One Community' was warning us about the TV 'switch over' she said 'there is nothing worse than an old person alone in a house being left without a working television , it really would be awful'
The lady from the Aviary residents association said she heard gunshots in the woods on saturday afternoon and there were kids on motorbikes in the fields again, she didn't think either were allowed.
Another lady from another resident association talked about the boggy football pitch , and the behaviour of local kids, the council representative ,Guy , said the kids only get the drainage sorted if they behave themselves and there is no more ASB , the police agreed .
I tried to talk when everyone else had finished about an alternative plan to the Council's house building frenzy , the loss of faith in institutions the excluded generations, the uncertainty in food and fuel the inevitable social unrest as a result of the gap between rich and poor the fraud in our economy the lies from our leaders and the media and the impacts of 'austerity' on our lives ,everyone started putting thier coats on ,
these meetings are not the place for such dialogue.
Abbe Reynaud the french encylopede in his letter to the convention just before the september massacres when 1000's were slaughtered in the streets said they were all laughing and dancing on the edge of an abyss, our community groups are just politely requesting that a litter bin is moved 20 yards up the street ,on the edge of an abyss.
RESPONSE to Comments 8/12/2011
The Sergeants name was Sean I think, and we chatted outside for a while, he was somewhat conducive to a discussion of longer term issues and said it might need 4 hours down the pub.
it seems experienced police officers understand the impact of a gradual urbanization of Eastleigh , much denser housing and much fewer job opportunities will inevitably lead to a worsened level and nature of crime in the area. Perhaps some of them have worked in other areas , London, Portsmouth or Southampton perhaps.
Police numbers like schools are unlikely to dissuede the planners , they will just say ,when required we will build another school or expand the police.The problem with this 'just in time' local amenity provision is that they will not allow existing residents to have comfortable class sizes or police numbers ,it will be 'just too late' .My daughters class is 28 (the max is 30) this is far from optimal ;
the numbers of police have probably fallen over the last 10 years whilst all the new developments have gone up , they will not recruit significantly more police until there are real quantifiable (desperate) problems. In both of these cases I fear you will lose communities and then be struggling to get them back , and in that time policemen and teachers will be overworked and worn down.
Of course by the time they build a new school or recruit 10 more coppers we will be ready for another school and another 10 , it is as if the backlog of the housing need list transfers into every corner of social provision ,so just as providing the housing 'somehow' makes the list gets bigger , providing the schools and police 'somehow' makes the need greater. It is the Time Lag involved with providing services years too late that makes it appear that increased provision increases the numbers 'waiting'.
the numbers of police have probably fallen over the last 10 years whilst all the new developments have gone up , they will not recruit significantly more police until there are real quantifiable (desperate) problems. In both of these cases I fear you will lose communities and then be struggling to get them back , and in that time policemen and teachers will be overworked and worn down.
Of course by the time they build a new school or recruit 10 more coppers we will be ready for another school and another 10 , it is as if the backlog of the housing need list transfers into every corner of social provision ,so just as providing the housing 'somehow' makes the list gets bigger , providing the schools and police 'somehow' makes the need greater. It is the Time Lag involved with providing services years too late that makes it appear that increased provision increases the numbers 'waiting'.
Whatever the real numbers of 'housing need' planners should have dealt with them years ago, by PLANNING , their 'plans' now are playing catch-up so if they build 10,000 houses before 2029 they will inevitably be creating the need for another 10,000 houses between 2029 and 2050.
This is a senseless rush to over-develop the area and it does not benefit existing residents , it is the PUSH strategy which has demonstrably failed, as the old fella said in the meeting 'I'll be in a box by then', local groups and the feedback institutions get is under-represented by the 20-50 age group , the 50-90 age group seem to care about immediate issues like dog mess and overhanging branches , which is fine (I tend to pick it up or chop it down which is not so easy for them) perhaps it is not the age of the person involved, but thier outlook which makes them focus only on minor issues ,it as if they think it is rude to criticise council plans, when I tried to talk about this stuff they acted like I had suggested the AVNEC committee design and build a rocket ship and colonise Mars !
This is a senseless rush to over-develop the area and it does not benefit existing residents , it is the PUSH strategy which has demonstrably failed, as the old fella said in the meeting 'I'll be in a box by then', local groups and the feedback institutions get is under-represented by the 20-50 age group , the 50-90 age group seem to care about immediate issues like dog mess and overhanging branches , which is fine (I tend to pick it up or chop it down which is not so easy for them) perhaps it is not the age of the person involved, but thier outlook which makes them focus only on minor issues ,it as if they think it is rude to criticise council plans, when I tried to talk about this stuff they acted like I had suggested the AVNEC committee design and build a rocket ship and colonise Mars !
The 70-80 year olds do not think they will live to 100-110 but they might, who is planning for that success ?
I think Eastleigh should have a moratorium on new housing estates until our institutions provision of Schools , Police , Doctors , Roads ,Care homes, Utilities, et cetera is adequate or even comfortable, instead of being happy that everything is constantly at breaking point, it is existing residents whose quality of life is declining because of the constant expansion of numbers and as we are the voters we can stop it. Remember over-development of the South-East just steals a renaissance from the North.
It seems we are meant to work our whole lives away to buy a cottage in Sherfield English if we want a continued quality of life - more fool you if you are happy with your lot !
I think Eastleigh should have a moratorium on new housing estates until our institutions provision of Schools , Police , Doctors , Roads ,Care homes, Utilities, et cetera is adequate or even comfortable, instead of being happy that everything is constantly at breaking point, it is existing residents whose quality of life is declining because of the constant expansion of numbers and as we are the voters we can stop it. Remember over-development of the South-East just steals a renaissance from the North.
It seems we are meant to work our whole lives away to buy a cottage in Sherfield English if we want a continued quality of life - more fool you if you are happy with your lot !
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