Can anyone explain to me please:

Why build thousands of new houses which nobody who is not already a home owner can ever afford to buy? Young people cannot hope to save huge deposits. I wonder how many of these new houses will be bought to let, driving prices up further?

91% is one of those meaningless statistics, it varies from area to area. How critical it is depends on how what quality the land is.

Unfortunately much of the growth of population is in areas that are also prime agricultural areas, so that the proportion of productive land already built over or threatened with construction is land that has a competing economic and strategic value in providing food. Go to areas where the land is of poor agricultural value or the terrain is unsuitable for building and much more than 91% isn't built on, but this land is generally far from areas of population growth.

I do get irritated, as Gransnetters will have noticed, with these broad brush statistics that are grossly misleading and tell us nothing useful.

www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/feb/24/uk-trade-exports-imports

Found this too from 2011

Of course; I trust it will be a tropical island with a mango tree, an avocado tree, banana plants (the sweet variety) and whatever else I like! And good soil to grow those potatoes. And a fishing net.
And Man Friday .....

Native bananas?

I do like potatoes. If ever I was on Desert Island Discs (fat chance!) and I was asked what I would like to take with me, I would ask for seed potatoes. I could catch fish and live on potatoes, fish and the native bananas

www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/forget-detroit---newcastle-new-7109558
This was a couple of years ago but I gather it's still happening. Living Oop North is much pleasanter than in the south east. There are many regular commuters to the Great Wen from Newcastle ,Durham, and York .

rosequartz Thanks. If those figures are the norm, pretty soon potatoes will be all anyone can afford.

Here is a breakdown absent
https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/EUOverseasTrade/Pages/EuOTS.aspx

so if it is just potatoes we must be eating an awful lot of them!

The south-east is handy to some parts of Europe but is no nearer northern Europe than the north-east and with modern transportation there is little or no difference in convenience or time when travelling to, say, Germany, from the north-east. It's even nearer Denmark and Scandiwegia. Presumably the channel tunnel does makes some difference as does the demise of east coast ports. Mind you, I am not at all sure what Britain exports these days – besides, of course, exactly the same quantity of potatoes to Germany as it imports from Germany each year.

Work I presume hilda. There are not nearly so many jobs in the countryside, or even rurally, as there once were.

The south east is handy for Europe. The north east isnt.

Quite, whitewave we are now in the throes of having a huge Rolls Royce factory built near us which is good in as much as it will provide more jobs, but it will also create more traffic and more people in this corner of the country, which as I said before is already bursting at the seams.

work?

We travel through villages on our way home from work. One appears to have every other house for sale. My DH was visiting an ex-colleague yesterday and she remarked that only eight homes in her village are not for sale. I live on the Northumberland/Cumbria border. I know we are very northern and rural and property is expensive around here, I was just giving an example. Why does everyone want or need to live in the cities or the south east?

When I hear about the need to build more housing I cannot help wondering when and where it will all stop. Do we just go on building and building until there is not a shred of green ground left? Clearly people have to live somewhere, but there needs to be a coherent policy about the type and situation of housing (high rise, eco etc.) to accommodate these needs without total destruction of farming, drainage, open spaces etc.

I do not claim to know what the answer is, but the priority for proper planning on a national scale is imperative. I do not see this happening.

I must admit than when we travel north, there seems to be a great deal of open space, which I am sure is farmland, but never-the-less it appears there is more space to build in the north, and we once again seem to have the north/south divide. Obviously, wherever they are, not all open green spaces are suitable for building, but I think that where we are building gives rise to additional risks of flooding, and we stand to loose some lovely places for the wildlife on which we depend. I don't know if this applies elsewhere, but it often seems to me that there is accommodation above the shops in shopping centres which might well be used, and of course someone has already mentioned the houses which stand empty. We have one locally which as been boarded up for about five years now, perhaps the owners are abroad and will be back, I don't know, but it seems a great pity that these places do stand empty - during the war the government requisitioned houses like this for those people who had lost their homes. A different state of affairs, admittedly, but a course of action which might be taken.

Apparently builders prefer greefield sites as compared to brownfield sites, because brownfield sites are more expensive because the site has to be made safe.

I understand there are thousands of buildings standing empty because the owners can't or won't put them in habitable condition. At present, I think VAT is paid on repairs and restoration but not on new build. So if you are a professional developer, it's more profitable to build new on unused land or to let existing buildings fall down. The advantage of doing up existing buildings is that you probably already have a community with shops and transport and schools. Opposition to building in green fields isn't just about spoiling the view for people living there already.

janea Thank you.

Very true about the lack of infrastructure

. Where I live the main route to the very large housing estate which was started 10 yrs ago and is still expanding to this day, is via a road so narrow that there isn't room to pass a cyclist. This is also one of the main through routes to other villages. They have just agreed to build the infants school which was part of the original plan. (nearest infants is currently over subscribe and is 2miles away) The nearest small shop is at best 1 mile or 2 1/2 from the other size of the estate.
If we weren't surrounded by marsh land I don't think we would have any green space left in this little part of South East.

I agree with whitewave about land banking - there is plenty of land already in the ownership of building firms, supermarkets etc which is already earmarked for building and could be released without encroaching upon greenbelt land.
The issue needs to be looked at as a whole and no largescale building allowed without ensuring the infrastructure to go with it.

Here on the outskirts of Stockport we have a fair amount of building going on and in the pipeline and certainly we don't even have the roads to cope with it now. Mornings and evenings we can wait 10/20 mins to travel a few hundred yards to even get onto the main A6 into Manchester and the developments taking place will make it 100 times worse.The infrastructure needs to be in place first. This week I have e-mailed the two main candidates for our local seat in May and both agree with me and neither gave an answer.The air quality is said to be below the standard required and will get worse.

jingl you would still be welcome
I agree that businesses and organisations need to consider the benefits of relocating outside London.

I agree with Teetime, that we have room in the East Mids but, in our village, we are getting loads of new houses but we don't get any more school places or medical facilities. They are sold as a benefit to the village but the new houses are on the periphery and there is new parking left in the village as its been built on!

I was talking about two seperate points rosequartz. Which ought not to have been on the same post.
You are absolutely right.

I have posted muddled up thoughts elsewhere this morning as well.
I need to stay away from the keyboard this morning!