New towns are a complete nonsense! We need more decentralisation and more small town and rural building. The state, or better the local state, mustvbuy the land, plan the infrastructure and public buildings like schools, And then sell individual lots to people at cost to build their own houses on or to have houses built by local builders and archtects, not by these awful exploitative developers who take the money and the profit, build inferior houses, and generally rule the roost! Thebsystem mustvchange as well as the mindset that goes with it.
> then sell individual lots to people at cost to build their own houses on or to have houses built by local builders and archtects
I'm not against this, and I think it should form part of the housebuilding strategy, but the whole point of high-density development is that it means public transport is effective, which is good, because the alternative is everyone travelling everywhere by car and spending 1-2 hours in a traffic jam every morning going to work, and the same time getting home.
This is a good idea, but you really have to have the facilities in place. I grew up in Livingston, and it took decades to get decent facilities. They just stuck down a load of houses and a load of factories, and left us to get on with it. Their big idea was to use schools as facilities outwith school hours, but Thatcherism and subsequent cutbacks did for that.
There's practically a whole new town being built at the east of East Calder, with few facilities and no shops, so nothing has been learned.
There are two problems which I feel aren't addressed. One is landbanking by big builders. Because unused land is untaxed land, developers just buy it up and keep it until the prices rise enough. We really need a land tax. There is no land shortage in Scotland - we live on 8% of the land. Shooting estates take up 25% of land!
If local people controlled their councils, they would mostly want small developments to be added to existing towns and villages - it would mean their kids wouldn't have to move to find their own place. AirBnB is also a huge problem for housing in our cities, but there is apparently no way to deal with that under our current system. Or no political will to do so.
So the second big issue is the lack of local control and local democracy. We still live with a council system designed by Michael Forsyth in the 1990s. Councils are simultaneously powerless and unaccountable. They are too big. Highlands and Islands is famously the same size as Belgium. These issues have implications across all of our lives, and whichever party has the most power in Holyrood won't deal with it, because they usually also have the most power at council level. (Labour hegemony being replaced by SNP hegemony).
To my mind, these issues are at the root of a lot of our governance problems, and the impact on housing planning is a prime example.
New towns are a complete nonsense! We need more decentralisation and more small town and rural building. The state, or better the local state, mustvbuy the land, plan the infrastructure and public buildings like schools, And then sell individual lots to people at cost to build their own houses on or to have houses built by local builders and archtects, not by these awful exploitative developers who take the money and the profit, build inferior houses, and generally rule the roost! Thebsystem mustvchange as well as the mindset that goes with it.
> then sell individual lots to people at cost to build their own houses on or to have houses built by local builders and archtects
I'm not against this, and I think it should form part of the housebuilding strategy, but the whole point of high-density development is that it means public transport is effective, which is good, because the alternative is everyone travelling everywhere by car and spending 1-2 hours in a traffic jam every morning going to work, and the same time getting home.
That's true. In most European countries, 50% of new homes are built by individuals to live in. We could only dream of that figure here.
This is a good idea, but you really have to have the facilities in place. I grew up in Livingston, and it took decades to get decent facilities. They just stuck down a load of houses and a load of factories, and left us to get on with it. Their big idea was to use schools as facilities outwith school hours, but Thatcherism and subsequent cutbacks did for that.
There's practically a whole new town being built at the east of East Calder, with few facilities and no shops, so nothing has been learned.
There are two problems which I feel aren't addressed. One is landbanking by big builders. Because unused land is untaxed land, developers just buy it up and keep it until the prices rise enough. We really need a land tax. There is no land shortage in Scotland - we live on 8% of the land. Shooting estates take up 25% of land!
If local people controlled their councils, they would mostly want small developments to be added to existing towns and villages - it would mean their kids wouldn't have to move to find their own place. AirBnB is also a huge problem for housing in our cities, but there is apparently no way to deal with that under our current system. Or no political will to do so.
So the second big issue is the lack of local control and local democracy. We still live with a council system designed by Michael Forsyth in the 1990s. Councils are simultaneously powerless and unaccountable. They are too big. Highlands and Islands is famously the same size as Belgium. These issues have implications across all of our lives, and whichever party has the most power in Holyrood won't deal with it, because they usually also have the most power at council level. (Labour hegemony being replaced by SNP hegemony).
To my mind, these issues are at the root of a lot of our governance problems, and the impact on housing planning is a prime example.