Lord Wolfson chief executive of Next writes in todays Times of his massive concerns surrounding the planning process:
“I had an extrodinary meeting with the officials of a local council on the South Coast. I came with a proposal for at least 150 new jobs, investment of £4m and a vastly improved retail offer for local people.
The economic development officer breezily explained that the creation of new jobs was really not a concern for him, unless they were for high paid workers. His logic was that houses were so expensive in his area that he really didn’t want jobs created for people who could only command average wages. The irony is that the astronomic price of houses must largely be down to the woeful restrictions placed on the development of new homes by his own authority.
This small insight into the parochial thinking of some planners not only points to a cavalier disregard for wider economic growth but also identifies one of the most powerful potential stimuli for growth – the pent-up demand for new homes in the South East.
The burden of proof for planning should be reversed . Planners should give good reason not to grant planning permission, rather than developers having to go through the tortuous and time-consuming process of proving a “need” for their investment.”
I live in hope that his voice is heard!
Morning
Just seen an advert for Rightmove saying it had X million visitors on the first whatever day of January!
What are all these visitors looking at and are they actually in the Market to buy or rent?
With stock levels so low for Sales & Lettings, agents need a stock drive not more buyers and tenants….. How could Rightmove with all it’s visitors actually work for all it’s paying agents and push the stock levels on????
RM is such a strong voice in the Market and the Market needs all the help it can get!
Thoughts?????
Just read an artical from BBC news.
Hear are some of the scary stats:
5 million on the social housing waiting list.
The VAT rise will mean another 7500 jobs will be lost in the building trade.
In 2010 2500 building firms went bust
So are the Government & Banks going to start funding builder developers to build homes for social housing??
We have the land they just need the funding.
The big question
When will they start lending?
Why is this such a bad thing to the banks?
The CML have now insisted that any property being purchased with a mortgage of any % has to have been owned by the seller for at least 6 months.
Why?
We had a situation in November where we brought and sold a property in 3 months and with all the charges from The Mortgage Works were £14k+ we still managed to make a couple of quid so all should be happy but No, they won’t lend it to us again so we can make them nearly 20%! Stupid.
I feel that there are a good number of well established landlords and property traders that can keep the money moving along that these banks need to support not put out of business!
Are we finally going to sell this site. Over the last 2 years we have had 4 deals on this and still nobody can get the funding or the inclination to complete .
Another example of the banking system withdrawing funding from a developer part way through and showing him no assistance in getting the site complete and their money back!
I have heard recently that the banks are considering finishing sites themselves once they have foreclosed the developer, and unbelieveably in some circumstances going back to original owners and asking the to contract to complete the site on the banks behalf!!!!!
On so many counts the banking systems seems to be verging on corrupt but is there anything that can be done to stop them…. NO!
