1st stage of Croxley rail link begins

JamieLei · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 9:39 pm

Dave W wrote:

Alan Fry wrote:

I fell that London should annex the surrounding Communter Belt to add breathing space for its population, I feelthat if Scotland goes it along, the rest of the Uk will break off

LEBENSRAUM!

Like!

JGR · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 2:06 am

This thread is about many things, but a minor rail project in Watford is not one of them.

Demolishing Birmingham city centre, and so on aren't smart moves in my book.
Curzon Street if/when it turns up may alleviate some of the issues.

London is already too centralised. Adding yet more and further radial commuter flow and suburbs is not a great idea in my eyes.
Odds are it'll keep happening until it's grossly unaffordable though.

EXTspotter · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:27 am

Isn't that now already though? At least for workers on the bottom rung of the employment ladder. For the placement I am doing, if it was paid at the equivalent level as an employee, I would earn £13000 p.a. . At uni, I am living within the commuter belt. If I were to divide up my costs within the £13000, my rent would cost £4200, my train ticket for the year (Guildford - London plus zones 1-4) would cost around £4500, leaving me with £4300 for living costs and everything else, £82 per week. Whilst this is much more than I have had during uni (around £40 a week), it is still not great, plus as I would be employed I would have to pay taxes, council tax (divided by four because I am in a shared house) would be around £400 and income tax will take some more money off, so in real terms it probably will be closer to the amount I had at uni. Moving closer to where I work would help a little as the cost of commuting will drop, but my rent will go up hugely...

In this way, I do not believe the costs associated with London can go much longer before it starts to hurt the lower end of the employment market, unless the pay in London made up the difference in costs, which in my opinion, it will not.

Alan Fry · **Joined:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:11 pm **Posts:** 971

JamieLei wrote:

What do you mean? There's plenty of space within London that can be redeveloped. Just look at what's going on in Stratford at the moment.

If people want to leave London, they can bog off to other places. Plus there's a green belt to worry out.

I have advocated the end of the Green Belt, all it does is keep house prices high

People want to leave London to find a better quality of life, but they still want to work there, hence London does not end at Enfield, it goes well beyond it

There is not enough speace in London to build enough houses to cope with demand

JGR · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 1:56 pm

Alan Fry wrote:

JamieLei wrote:

What do you mean? There's plenty of space within London that can be redeveloped. Just look at what's going on in Stratford at the moment.

If people want to leave London, they can bog off to other places. Plus there's a green belt to worry out.

I have advocated the end of the Green Belt, all it does is keep house prices high

People want to leave London to find a better quality of life, but they still want to work there, hence London does not end at Enfield, it goes well beyond it

There is not enough speace in London to build enough houses to cope with demand

Building on the green belt will not reduce house prices.
Indeed, how much do you think green-belt houses would sell for? It wouldn't be cheap.

People wanting to leave London but not live there is really the main problem.
Contrary to popular opinion in the south-east of England, London is not the centre of the universe. It's perfectly possible to work somewhere else, and if this is not the case due to London-centric investment, it should be fixed.

Making London even wider is pointless as it makes the commuting problem even worse. It'd be far better to make better use of the huge areas of land already in its sphere of influence, much of which is unnecessarily sparse (I'm not referring to parks, green-belt, etc here).
If this means cheap 60s style tower blocks, so be it.

Alan Fry · **Joined:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:11 pm **Posts:** 971

JGR wrote:

Building on the green belt will not reduce house prices.
Indeed, how much do you think green-belt houses would sell for? It wouldn't be cheap.

People wanting to leave London but not live there is really the main problem.
Contrary to popular opinion in the south-east of England, London is not the centre of the universe. It's perfectly possible to work somewhere else, and if this is not the case due to London-centric investment, it should be fixed.

Making London even wider is pointless as it makes the commuting problem even worse. It'd be far better to make better use of the huge areas of land already in its sphere of influence, much of which is unnecessarily sparse (I'm not referring to parks, green-belt, etc here).
If this means cheap 60s style tower blocks, so be it.

Well the reason house prices are rising this much is because there are not enough homes on the market (within London) to meet demand, more homes in the Communter Belt will slow those increase

There is only a limited amount of land within London, all I can think of is White City, Battersea and Earls Court, and for god sake more 60s blocks will make London even more crowded and maerly create new slums and breeding grounds for riots, crime poverty etc

JGR · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 2:21 pm

Alan Fry wrote:

Well the reason house prices are rising this much is because there are not enough homes on the market (within London) to meet demand, more homes in the Communter Belt will slow those increase

There is only a limited amount of land within London, all I can think of is White City, Battersea and Earls Court, and for god sake more 60s blocks will make London even more crowded and maerly create new slums and breeding grounds for riots, crime poverty etc

Building more (expensive) houses further out will not make those actually in London any cheaper. Commuting is time-consuming and expensive.

My point is more that building a row of terraced houses is nominally no different than building them vertically, the latter just has a smaller land footprint.
Associating a type of building with riots and poverty is just a red herring.

Class 165 · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:13 pm

Allowing London to sprawl over the green belt is a terrible idea. While it may make sense economically, the social benefits of Londoners not having to travel huge distances to the countryside are huge. There are also the threats to wildlife that such urbanization would cause. The real reason property prices have gone through the roof is that wealthy people have been investing in property instead of stocks because property has become a guaranteed profit due to continuing price increases.

Alan Fry · **Joined:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:11 pm **Posts:** 971

JGR wrote:

Building more (expensive) houses further out will not make those actually in London any cheaper. Commuting is time-consuming and expensive.

My point is more that building a row of terraced houses is nominally no different than building them vertically, the latter just has a smaller land footprint.
Associating a type of building with riots and poverty is just a red herring.

Becuase of high house prices (and benefit cuts) more and more people would have to move out of London anyway, also are there any tower blocks in the Chilterns, Surrey and Berkshire?

Class 165 wrote:

Allowing London to sprawl over the green belt is a terrible idea. While it may make sense economically, the social benefits of Londoners not having to travel huge distances to the countryside are huge. There are also the threats to wildlife that such urbanization would cause. The real reason property prices have gone through the roof is that wealthy people have been investing in property instead of stocks because property has become a guaranteed profit due to continuing price increases.

Any area of natual beauty are protected anyway, millions of people live outside London becuase the higher fares is compensated by the lower prices, lastly there is far more demand than supply becuase the urban area of London has not changed in size for decades now, so to help Londoners, scrap the Green Belt and the GLA should annex the rest of the Communter Belt/Metropolitan Area

EXTspotter · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 12:52 pm

Have you ever been to any of these places? Even Guildford, one of the richest towns in the UK, has massive areas of council housing. I should know, my uni house is in one of them...

Alan Fry · **Joined:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:11 pm **Posts:** 971

EXTspotter wrote:

Have you ever been to any of these places? Even Guildford, one of the richest towns in the UK, has massive areas of council housing. I should know, my uni house is in one of them...

Are they any tower blocks there or anything as poor as lets say Tottenham and the East End?

EXTspotter · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 1:23 pm

The fact is that people who are living on benefits should be equally poor everywhere.

Alan Fry · **Joined:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:11 pm **Posts:** 971

EXTspotter wrote:

The fact is that people who are living on benefits should be equally poor everywhere.

Prices do vary and anyway, less people are on benefits in Surrey than in Tottenham

JamieLei · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 2:39 pm

Alan Fry wrote:

EXTspotter wrote:

The fact is that people who are living on benefits should be equally poor everywhere.

Prices do vary and anyway, less people are on benefits in Surrey than in Tottenham

I bet there are more people on benefits in the entire of Surrey than in Tottenham. If we're gonna play the configurable areal units game, let's be silly about it.

EXTspotter · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 2:45 pm

You cannot say that there isn't areas where benefits recipients are at the same or higher concentrations in one place than another. If I compared it unfairly in the other direction, there is a lower % of benefits reccipients in London than there is in the Park Barn area of Guildford. The fact is that generalisations in this way should not bear as much weight as you are putting on them. The percentage of benefits claimants in London is probably not that far off those of other areas of the South East. The larger population of London is making the "deprived" areas in which these people live larger too.

If you're looking at forcing poor people out of London into new areas look at Thamesmead and what a wonderful thriving community that is.

JamieLei · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 2:58 pm

Actually London does have the highest level of poverty in Britain, that is true. I believe 20% of children in London grow up in poverty, which is ridiculously high (Massey, 2007).

Class 165 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 3:35 pm

Alan Fry wrote:

Any area of natual beauty are protected anyway, millions of people live outside London becuase the higher fares is compensated by the lower prices, lastly there is far more demand than supply becuase the urban area of London has not changed in size for decades now, so to help Londoners, scrap the Green Belt and the GLA should annex the rest of the Communter Belt/Metropolitan Area

Hahaha, that is the biggest load of bollocks ever, millions of people live outside of London because they're rich and can afford a house in the country with copious amounts of private primary schools and grammar schools nearby, and no poor people who might hinder their children's development. You're a complete moron if you think that all those commuters are going into London to clean buildings because they can't afford to live in London.

47434 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 8:01 pm

Class 165 wrote:

Alan Fry wrote:

Any area of natual beauty are protected anyway, millions of people live outside London becuase the higher fares is compensated by the lower prices, lastly there is far more demand than supply becuase the urban area of London has not changed in size for decades now, so to help Londoners, scrap the Green Belt and the GLA should annex the rest of the Communter Belt/Metropolitan Area

Hahaha, that is the biggest load of bollocks ever, millions of people live outside of London because they're rich and can afford a house in the country with copious amounts of private primary schools and grammar schools nearby, and no poor people who might hinder their children's development. You're a complete moron if you think that all those commuters are going into London to clean buildings because they can't afford to live in London.

Indeed, and many of these people are 'second-homers' who also own a swanky-ish town house or apartment in Zones 1 & 2.

teccuk · **Joined:** Wed Jan 04, 2006 9:01 pm **Posts:** 576

JGR wrote:

Alan Fry wrote:

JamieLei wrote:

What do you mean? There's plenty of space within London that can be redeveloped. Just look at what's going on in Stratford at the moment.

If people want to leave London, they can bog off to other places. Plus there's a green belt to worry out.

I have advocated the end of the Green Belt, all it does is keep house prices high

People want to leave London to find a better quality of life, but they still want to work there, hence London does not end at Enfield, it goes well beyond it

There is not enough speace in London to build enough houses to cope with demand

Building on the green belt will not reduce house prices.
Indeed, how much do you think green-belt houses would sell for? It wouldn't be cheap.

Lol. Good debate.

If i was in charge there'd be a new city right here: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=51.9239 ... 1&t=m&z=12 east west rail link and the link to Euston. Need a new road too of course. But then an outer M25 would equally kick arse.

Thankfully for you all, i'm not in charge.

JGR · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:28 pm

teccuk wrote:

Lol. Good debate.

If i was in charge there'd be a new city right here: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=51.9239 ... 1&t=m&z=12 east west rail link and the link to Euston. Need a new road too of course. But then an outer M25 would equally kick arse.

Thankfully for you all, i'm not in charge.

You do know that at the present both of those lines are (mostly) closed, and the southbound lines run into Marylebone?
(Admittedly the east-west line is planned to be re-opened soonish).

The idea of building new towns of that sort is not new, indeed if you track NEE, you'll find one called Milton Keynes.

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