PokerTime

It's a great design but as is so often the case in London, many roads are not wide enough to accomodate this.

There are dull people to be found in every walk of live. It's not the preserve of any class. That's what really frustrates me about this discussion. It's the same old diatribe that middle-class = dull and working class = charm. It's nonsense. There is dullness and charm in everything if you genuinely look for it. No-one in their right mind wants to see traffic cones in the middle of lakes that house wildlife.

You are making a lot of assumptions there Louisa. You have no idea of knowing where anyone who buys has come from, or where they've grown up. But then again, prejudice often is based on assumption.

There was a report of the slowing of private rent increases in London this week. Down to an average of 3.3% over the last quarter, compared to 6.5% over the same quarter in 2012. A hike in interest rates would definitely have an impact.

Or so I'm told.

That's because there are too many moths.

Even I agree with you on that one!

This one was there by post 14! Is that a record by chance?

Try PC World!

Everywhere was farmland before we built cities Louisa, so what? Economies evolve, technology evolves, and labour evolves with it too. You seem to think ED and other gentrified areas began in the 50s or something. The terraced houses that you so hate being filled with middle-classes, were built for middle classes. It's just a case of the wheel coming back to where it started. And yes, I apologise for miunderstanding your prejudice. So it's just migrant middle class people you abhor then? 'It's the aspirational northern blow-in job seeking types who are to blame. Painfully inversely snobby, and homogenising culture and people as they spread across inner- London.' Working class people migrate to London from all over the country too. Do you have an issue with them? Has it never occurred to you that that kind of migration also puts pressures on services, property and prices? Worse still, many of those migrants working classes come to University here, get good jobs and buy in places like ED too! You can not land the entire problem of house price inflation and the feet of migrant middle-class people. There's actually a very good thread on house prices elsewhere and the wide range of reasons for inflation over the past 30 years. House prices have risen everywhere, including in working class areas. It's a complicated thing.

LOL............. Well there's no better mark of the decline of upward social mobility than the lack of people at the lower socio-economic end that can't get a leg up onto a horse.

The problem with Louisa's comments about class and the local area (and they are a broken record) is they show a disctinct lack of knowledge of the history of the area. Ironically, the areas she bemoans for recent gentrification were never developed for the working classes in the first place. Most of them evolved towards the end of the 1800s, and were built to house the expanding middle-classes. into then suburbs - areas that grew with new rail infrastructure. As for working class charm, I can think of many things that are not charming about working class culture. To blanket describe the middle-classes as dull whilst describing the working classes as charming is just ignorant. And true to form, Louisa probably won't acknowledge any of that. Maybe working class people should reflect that life existed before they came here.

Thank you for the correction tfwsoll. They have 30 days from the date you hand over a deposit to give you the TDS information, not 14.

I agree LM, which is why I think land and planning reform is needed more than anything. No-one ever talks about land but you are right, all the majors reports and research are pointing to the same conclusions. And I'd add to that Jeremy that even former retirement areas for ex-Londoners, like the South coast, have rocketted in price equally.

I entirely agree LM, with everything you write. It is all very complex. All I was trying to say with my post on development is that when you look at what's been build (housing/ flats), the market it is aimed at, and what it sells for, there has been disporpionate results compared to need. I guess my point is that private development is interested in market only (and profit) over town planning a social infrastructure. I wasn't trying to say it was the most dominent reason, just that housing need and shortage can't be left to private developers to solve (i.e. the free market) alone. There needs to be more government backed incentives. On Land. I'm not so convinced by that one. The UK has plenty of Land. 90% of us live on just 6% of it though. There is a plan to build a new garden city , maybe we need more of those?

I agree LadyD. Only when we look at the breakdown for age groups can we know what is really happening population wise. No of people does not equal number of households for example. A large family will show as a population of 6, which gives us more insight on the type of homes needed rather than the number. It's a complex thing to analyse correctly. The other thing I do know about the last census is that LAs worked harder than usual to collect forms. The reason being that government funding is linked to population. Southwark repeatedly visited the large estates door to door to collect forms for example. It would be useful to know how many forms were collected compared to exisitng households for recent census data too, to know whether or not, better collection strategies have played a part in showing an increse in population. I still think a 20% shift from rental to home ownership nationally over the past 30 years has been the driving force of prices, combined with all the other tangible reasons people have offered (deregulation etc). According to the ONS there are 26.4 million households in the uk. 20% of that is 5.2 million, which is much great than any population increase shown by the census data of the last thirty years. Localised problems caused by migration and immigration (both of which London are subject to) are a different matter, and imo one which should be taken into consideration when formulating policy. Debates around migration often refer to net migration (where emigration equals immigration). Whilst it may be possible to balance that through legislation (we'd have to be outside of Europe to do that) controlling migration is a different matter entirely. You can't restrict free movement within the coutry if you are a free market economy. So the answer there has to lie in economically regenerating other areas, and fast. Someone mentioned all the empty homes in Liverpool and Machester. The same is true of the Midlands - all former srong industrial bases with mass employment. There's definitely been a sizeable migratory drift south from those areas. In some cities population has decreased by as much as a third or more over the last 50 years. That is a huge shift of people. On LLW. There was huge opposition to the minimum wage before it's introoduction, and all the same arguments were presented, that it would drive small businesses to the wall. That hasn't happened. I often think the debate around minimum wgae is one of opponents protecting free market interests over labour interests. I think London could support an enforced LLW. I think most companies could pay it. We already subside low wages with tax credits and benefits. Wouldn't it be better to sudsidise genuinely struggling employers instead? I think that would cost the taxpayer far less than it does now in helping those on low wages to get by. I agree with you Jeremy and X1X. There is no sense in taxing capital profit unless someone downsizes and has surplus equity to show for it. I think it would disincentivise downsizing too. I just don't feel that it would be a helpful policy and would have little or no impact on affordable housing shortage. There are better ways to take the heat out of the market. I don't think anyone is calling for stagnation of house prices X1X. It's not unreasonable though to 'slow' the rate of increase in value. Appreciation over the long term is what we had before. Now we are seeing annual increases of 18% or more in some areas. Salaries though are not rising in line and that's a huge problem. It's why the goalposts on mortgage lending were changed, numerous times, to allow people to buy on higher multiples of salary, to keep the market rising. It's not sustainable long term. There was a time when people saw buying their own home as a thing of freedom and security, and an asset to leave to their children maybe. Now we have something completely different. Buying a home is about trading up, to end with the biggest valued asset possible, to pay for a fabulous retirement. It's a fundamental change in mindset. That's a very black and white view of course, and I still think most homeowners are looking for just that, a home. But speculation is definitely part of the game in London. We are just one big monopoly board.

Hmm Kensington and Westminster aren't really good examples of anything. They have always had large numbers of foreign dwellers and most people in the country could never afford to live there. The media is not the best source of a sensible overview on this half the time anyway. Blackcurrant is right in that deregulation and other measures designed to keep the market bouyant are more to blame. After all, housing inflation has affected ALL parts of the country over the past 30 years. We've gone from a country where a third of people lived in social housing in the 70s, to one were 70% of people now owns their homes. That's a major shift that can not be related to immigration. It's that shift, I believe, has fuelled the demand and created the unaffordability.

I did offer an answer to motorbirds Q LM. And made the point that most development in London over the last 30 years has been the wrong kind of development.

I'm inclined to think changing demographics have had more of an impact than immigration/ migration per se. That's not to say of course that if migration were to continue at current levels it won't become a major factor. I just don't think we are there yet. But it needs to be considered when planning for the future.

The increase of the last 20 years has only replaced the decrease of the 10 years before that!

But even at 8.2 million, the capital has held that amount of people before, 50s/ 60s/ 70s. What has changed is the move towards home ownership by the majority of the population over renting. That has had more impact on demand that immigration imo. Also families don't all live together anymore either. I would argue that it's that that has suddenly presented a new demand for more accomodation. Increasing divorce rates, increasing numbers of people that don't marry, longer lives, these have all risen in parallel to new demand for certain types of housing. The other interesting thing to note, is the drop in population from 71 - 81 - A reflection of the deep economic stagnation of the 70's probably. But did we lose masses of houses as a result of that drop? No, they just sat unoccupied.

I think you have to factor internal migration too. Tebbit telling all the Northerners to get on their bikes and the like. If you look at the census figures, London's real population explosion was from 1871 to 1901 when the population almost doubled. That was the precursor to slum clearance and all the other social issues that came into play in the early 1900's. Hence the mass building programmes between 1910 and 1935. Compare that to the last 100 years that suggests around a 10% increase. I'm not convinced that immigration is the big issue there, over migration.

You are right SJ.... Here's the census data too.... http://www.cch.kcl.ac.uk/legacy/teaching/av1000/numerical/problems/london/london-pop-table.html

I also never even hinted at anything like racism....sigh. Anyway..........moving on. I think London is heading for mega-city status SJ, but isn't that just what happens over time? People go where they think work might be.

OK this is what you said ???? (and you have to go back before page 36 to find it)..... "you talk about quality social housing built before the 80s...you are having a laugh aren't you? much of it, especially from the 60s and 70s was cheap shite, often dangerous (Ronan Point anyone?) and largely a failure much of which is now or has now been knocked down with no-one mourning it. Most of it was designed by middle-class tossers from their georgian homes, naturally. Always know what's best for the plebs statists/lefty middle class types...." The tone of the post was one of ridicule, and not a tone that was in any way provoked. That majority of social housing built between the first blocks in 1890 (in London) and 1980 were not built in the 60's and 70's and most of it still stands. Both I and SJ I think corrected you. Anyway I'm not getting drawn in a personal spat with anyone. I don't know anything about you and am sure your a decent person. So let's just agree to disagree and draw a line. I'm sure no-one else wants to read this stuff.