Environment Bill

[JennyMorgan]

Interesting read, both in content and in reference to National Parks and The Broads Authority:

https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/analysis/environment-bill-new-nature-strategies-could-impact-development

[floydraser]

I had a go at reading it. It's easier if you imagine Sir Humphrey speaking it. 

[Vaughan]

The best way to preserve and enhance our English countryside, is to stop building dormitory towns all over it.

[ChrisB]

32 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

The best way to preserve and enhance our English countryside, is to stop building dormitory towns all over it.

And swallow the bitter pill and de-contaminate the brown ex industrial sites to provide homes.

[Poppy]

1 hour ago, ChrisB said:

And swallow the bitter pill and de-contaminate the brown ex industrial sites to provide homes.

A very large site in the centre of  Norwich is an example of precisely that . Where there's a will....

"

PICTURE the scene. It’s 1997 and a young reporter for Anglia TV is covering plans to revive a rundown part of Norwich with new flats, pubs and a cinema. The land is so contaminated that the media have to wear steel toe-capped boots, voluminous yellow overalls and safety glasses. It’s this particular reporter’s debut “piece to camera” and he looks suitably awkward, not to say ridiculous, as a result.

The soil on the site ran thick with the waste of several decades of heavy industrial use, some of it from the railway, much more from a famous Norwich name – the manufacturers Boulton & Paul. Thousands worked here over the decades. The contaminated land would become the Riverside development (pictured above)"

http://riversidenorwich.blogspot.com/2013/05/wanted-memories-of-boulton-paul.html

[Vaughan]

27 minutes ago, Poppy said:

much more from a famous Norwich name – the manufacturers Boulton & Paul.

Funny the article mentions the Sopwith Camel but not the Boulton and Paul Defiant, built about the same time as the Hurricane and tested on their own airfield, which is now the Heartsease Estate, just north of the Plumstead Rd.

The Defiant had a powered machine gun turret, which was later used on certain MGBs of Coastal Forces and on RAF rescue launches.

[JennyMorgan]

3 hours ago, Vaughan said:

The best way to preserve and enhance our English countryside, is to stop building dormitory towns all over it.

I wholeheartedly agree but many people clamour to escape the cities, understandable, and want to live in Norfolk or Suffolk, equally understandable. Our villages have become dormitories, no longer the communities of old. If I take Beccles as an example I'm as likely to hear an Essex whine as I am a sing-song Suffolk mumble. What is the answer, apart from elocution lessons and mass sterilization? Personally I rather like the reality that Norfolk and Suffolk generally makes immigrants welcome. I agree that there is a cost to that welcome but more than that I would hate to see the barriers go up. 

[Poppy]

16 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

I wholeheartedly agree but many people clamour to escape the cities, understandable, and want to live in Norfolk or Suffolk, equally understandable. Our villages have become dormitories, no longer the communities of old. If I take Beccles as an example I'm as likely to hear an Essex whine as I am a sing-song Suffolk mumble. What is the answer, apart from elocution lessons and mass sterilization? Personally I rather like the reality that Norfolk and Suffolk generally makes immigrants welcome. I agree that there is a cost to that welcome but more than that I would hate to see the barriers go up. 

They are indeed welcome provided that they are prepared to move to existing properties - or if they must have 'new' as appears to be the trend currently they must be on 'brownfield' land . There are almost 1000 acres of such land with space for more than 12500 homes .

Every borough and district authority is now required to keep a brownfield register .

[Turnoar]

The environment angle certainly doesn’t square with Boris’s directive to build build build. Leave the green belt alone for sure but continuing on the redundant riverside theme Deal ground next maybe?

[floydraser]

And if the retail industry doesn't recover there'll be a few more redundant units. 

The trouble with buying existing old properties is the parking of modern, wider cars on the street. At least new houses are usually required to have parking for at least two cars off the road. Some new houses are now designed with a bit of style too. That said, I don't like to see farm land given over to housing.

What about that big old place in Lowestoft between the marina and the council offices?

[annv]

If you buy an existing property at last you know what you are getting i have recently built a bungalow the number of rules you have to abide by,   the new catchword is being able to live and die in the same property, fixed ramps to the door wide doors for wheelchairs bathrooms and toilets disabled friendly, nothing wrong with these if your going to use them, but for newly weds it adds a lot to build costs. John

[Cheesey69]

You can lead a horse to water...

A lot of brownfield sites are in places people don’t want to pay big money for and the construction companies know that. 
The government has to start building maybe use a no deposit mortgage scheme. 
But remember, more houses means the house is worth less and a lot of people base their wealth on how much their house is worth. 

[JennyMorgan]

3 hours ago, floydraser said:

What about that big old place in Lowestoft between the marina and the council offices?

Three problems there, one being the huge, even vast amounts of asbestos to be disposed of. When the factories and wood stores were built asbestos was seen as being harmless, there are acres of the stuff.

Two, much of that land is liable to flooding.

Three, the rise and fall of the tides makes providing moorings for yer average yacht rather expensive due to the angle of dangle on access ramps, especially, at low water.

The asbestos disposal has been costed at many millions of pounds and when that total was divided by the number of homes planned for the site it was realised that that put very many tens of thousands onto the eventual price of each house.  

Contamination of some brown field sites is proving hideously expensive to rectify.

 

[Poppy]

18 minutes ago, Cheesey69 said:

You can lead a horse to water...

A lot of brownfield sites are in places people don’t want to pay big money for and the construction companies know that. 
The government has to start building maybe use a no deposit mortgage scheme. 
But remember, more houses means the house is worth less and a lot of people base their wealth on how much their house is worth. 

Why should they have the option ?  Can't they see that they are helping to destroy that which they are trying to acheive ?

[Cheesey69]

2 minutes ago, Poppy said:

Why should they have the option ?  Can't they see that they are helping to destroy that which they are trying to acheive ?

Free market economy.

You provide houses for the people, they call you a socialist, and go running

Allow them to spend loads over the value and suddenly, they are not the problem because they own their own house.

Build social housing and everyone falls around in fear.

Don't forget, "I'm  not the problem, they are, over there"

[Cheesey69]

Also do not forget house prices are king. They cant do anything to dent that

[floydraser]

1 hour ago, JennyMorgan said:

Three problems there, one being the huge, even vast amounts of asbestos to be disposed of. When the factories and wood stores were built asbestos was seen as being harmless, there are acres of the stuff.

Two, much of that land is liable to flooding.

Three, the rise and fall of the tides makes providing moorings for yer average yacht rather expensive due to the angle of dangle on access ramps, especially, at low water.

The asbestos disposal has been costed at many millions of pounds and when that total was divided by the number of homes planned for the site it was realised that that put very many tens of thousands onto the eventual price of each house.  

Contamination of some brown field sites is proving hideously expensive to rectify.

 

I only know the area from passing by on my way to Asda (lovely people there) and looking on google satelite view. I noted they were developing the area but it seems to have stopped, probably for the reasons you say, although I wouldn't have thought flooding was a big problem. However, looking at the georeference history map it would seem that all those old factories are relatively recent? 

[JennyMorgan]

1 minute ago, floydraser said:

However, looking at the georeference history map it would seem that all those old factories are relatively recent? 

Most are, and built when asbestos was king. Apart from the old silk factory I believe that all the big industrial units are post WW2. Brooke Marine was built on a previous shipyard, at a time when industrial contamination was either ignored, or quite simply buried. Some of the old paint factory premises predate the war but most of those building were modified, asbestos roofs for example. 

[JennyMorgan]

38 minutes ago, floydraser said:

I wouldn't have thought flooding was a big problem.

I tend to agree with you but apparently predictions are based on a fifty year projection. 

[floydraser]

23 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

Most are, and built when asbestos was king. Apart from the old silk factory I believe that all the big industrial units are post WW2. Brooke Marine was built on a previous shipyard, at a time when industrial contamination was either ignored, or quite simply buried. Some of the old paint factory premises predate the war but most of those building were modified, asbestos roofs for example. 

 

2 hours ago, annv said:

If you buy an existing property at last you know what you are getting i have recently built a bungalow the number of rules you have to abide by,   the new catchword is being able to live and die in the same property, fixed ramps to the door wide doors for wheelchairs bathrooms and toilets disabled friendly, nothing wrong with these if your going to use them, but for newly weds it adds a lot to build costs. John

Maybe these two quotes demonstrate that we have learned to do something about the environment long term. Surely all new buildings (and cars) should be designed with an infinite lifetime.

Near me, Asda built a head office for the George brand around 1990. In 2010 they tore it down and built a bigger one. Disaster for the environment but we got to share offices with some rather attractive young women during the build. 

[Helian]

1 hour ago, Cheesey69 said:

Also do not forget house prices are king. They cant do anything to dent that

A MHCLG official told me face to face that Govt policy was to flood the market with new houses and depress house prices ...

[Helian]

I am genuinely shocked at the amount of new houses being built on farm land around Brundall / Blofield, Poringland / Stoke holy Cross and doubtless other fringes of Norwich. I don't understand where the extra demand is coming from these days....

[JennyMorgan]

16 minutes ago, Helian said:

I am genuinely shocked at the amount of new houses being built on farm land around Brundall / Blofield, Poringland / Stoke holy Cross and doubtless other fringes of Norwich.

It's the same at Burgh Castle and Bradwell next to Gt Yarmouth. Identical boxes flying up at great speed with little or no prospects of jobs for the new inhabitants. 

[Turnoar]

41 minutes ago, Helian said:

A MHCLG official told me face to face that Govt policy was to flood the market with new houses and depress house prices ...

The developers won’t let that happen though, flood the market that much and the price goes down after you’ve incurred the build cost especially if you run out of buyers, the govt are always moaning that more houses are not being built fast enough but the developers aren’t stupid, they like to take their time to preserve profit margins.

[JennyMorgan]

15 hours ago, floydraser said:

Near me, Asda built a head office for the George brand around 1990. In 2010 they tore it down and built a bigger one. Disaster for the environment but we got to share offices with some rather attractive young women during the build. 

Were said young ladies apt to having their bottoms double patted, Asda style?

That aside, many modern, commercial buildings are built with a twenty or twenty five year life expectancy. Built to be written down to zero value and then replaced.