23rd March 2013, 12:31 PM
There certainly doesnt seem to be any shortage of housing schemes (a lot of them huge, 50ha+) either going through various stages of planning or actually under construction around here, so the existing planning regs are hardly choking the system, merely raising the developers' overheads/cutting their profits - its more a case of who the h*** they're planning on selling them to? There are already plenty of overpriced empty properties (3 out of 40 in my street, plus 2 unlet student houses = 12.5%, and its a 'good' street) so do we really need more on green-field sites?
On a different track, the construction industry should take a long hard look at how they do stuff, from the top-down incompetence and inefficiency I've seen over the years on numerous schemes, they could be knocking out the same houses for half the price - e.g. why do they always topsoil-strip the whole site (which they invariably then turn into a swamp as a rod for their own backs) and then put it all back after (often using new imported soil) - that must all be costing a fortune and also adds to their archaeological overheads. A couple of weeks ago I was treated to some builders machining up (into a skip) freshly-laid kerb-stones so they could, errr, lay all the services...makes you want to weep... :face-crying:
On a different track, the construction industry should take a long hard look at how they do stuff, from the top-down incompetence and inefficiency I've seen over the years on numerous schemes, they could be knocking out the same houses for half the price - e.g. why do they always topsoil-strip the whole site (which they invariably then turn into a swamp as a rod for their own backs) and then put it all back after (often using new imported soil) - that must all be costing a fortune and also adds to their archaeological overheads. A couple of weeks ago I was treated to some builders machining up (into a skip) freshly-laid kerb-stones so they could, errr, lay all the services...makes you want to weep... :face-crying: