Housing plans look increasingly fragile

“Thanks allenkeyte - my mistake about Cheltenham/Tewkesbury which is Lib-Dem. I also agree with most of your analysis - the main problem is social expectations built over a previous economic environment and a target culture which is now seen to be built on quicksand.

Seriously, social housing is a mirage - and demand (read expectations) will keep on rising with time - increasing population, and formation of single-unit households because of social changes. Government should be bold enough not to promise more jam tomorrow, instead help educate the population in managing better with the diminishing resources, including housing. The coalition govt whatever its sins has started the ball rolling, and Ed Milliband sain similar things yesterday although slightly different in tones - there is so much government - national or local can do or should attempt to do - people will just have to be smarter in managing their resources better and prepared to do without - luxuries such as 5G phones for their children or cutting out overseas holidays, etc, much of today's demands have been engineered by smart market Gurus and it is time people started realising the river of no return - depleting resources, and increasing populations sealing mankind's demise from planet earth in the not too distant future. So this discussion on housing numbers would be academic soon.”

“Bomkim. Tewkesbury at one time shared a chief executive with Cotswold District - not Cheltenham. Borough Councillors certainly do not support, and never have done, the 43,220 figure mentioned in the article. 28,500 is the maximum figure for the three areas of Tewkesbury, Cheltenham and Gloucester - with something like 8,400 being actually needed for Tewkesbury Borough (over 20 years) of which 3550 already hyave planning consent. If there is a housing shortage why doesn't somebody build these 3550? The reason is recession/impossible mortgage deposits/prices not affordable for many. Come on coalition government, the answer to economic problems is not just to build houses it also means encouraging jobs elsewhere and keeping taxation down to the minimum possible whilst clearing debts and balancing the budget. A simple way of creating jobs is to scrap employers (for one year) national insurance on anyone employed who has been out of work for more than 3 months. This would encourage the increase in employment which is vital.
It is true that working with Cheltenham and Gloucester is complex for Tewkesbury Borough - but it is possible to reach agreement provided goodwill exists on all sides. All authorities have to try to work together accordingly to this government. If we fail then we have to go it alone. The main thing is that we all need to decide quickly so that planning decisions are not taken by developers but by elected representatives of the people. Simples?”

“for a while Tewkesbury/Cheltenham shared CEO/and were trying to evolve common waste strategy/contracts, etc, all about partnerships, sharing services, etc, seriously if all that is useful, why not scrap the different district councils and just have a unitary - also what is the value of separate democratic administrations if all they are doing is arranging separate elections and job/staff/services sharing. Unlikely it would be economic if different districts have different political priorities - 'A right pickle' - democracy has stopped working a long time ago as people lost interest/the services they got appeared standardised products and very little connections with elected councillors.”

“Shireresident - don't have and stereotypical hang ups - what I said applies to all housing - and social housing/subsidies/ housing benefit, etc, all part of the social agenda of all political parties - Ed Milliband has said similar today - no such thing as a free lunch and social expenditure will be prioritised along political lines but no party will go for broke one way or the other and old ideologies are dying a natural death as times and generations change and external and internal demands/costs/pressures vary.”

“Actually Mr. B I think you'll find that quite a large proportion of people in social housing are actually in employment, sorry to spoil your stereotype. Also a lot of people in privately rented property get housing benefit due to our low wage economy. Clearly any joint strategy should also allocate industrial as well as housing sites. I agree the chances of Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury actually agreeing on anything are fairly remote which is why I wonder they attempted a joint strategy in the first place.”

“Matt1006 - Tewkesbury, Gloucester and Cheltenham are quite different geographically, and politically - so how can they develop a common housing or economic strategy. Furthermore, the main hindrance is not land, planning and design criteria somewhat - but the greatest stumbling block - people just don't want new building works where they live. Council officers find new-build easier than the hassle involved in bringing empty homes to scratch or to allocate them once refurbished. Cash is also short so the open hand funding from a previous decade difficult to justify - ultimately compromises will have to be made, house prices lowered and an open planning policy set up in place to make it unprofitable for developers to horde land with planning permission. One other factor - if the numbers of social homes are increased where are the new jobs? or will the government be lumbered with a higher housing benefits bill for the new tenants?”

“Wasn't this reported yesterday? TiG regenerating another article, for no apparent reason?

If they can't agree, then I guess the individual councils will have to remain on their own, and do their own thing. But is there then a danger that without a co-ordinated cross-council agreement that the total number of new homes granted permission could exceed the suggested total numbers? Although as the total combined number seems to be swinging somewhere between less than 19,000 to more than 43,000, does anybody have a clue on the total projected numbers, with or without a JCS?

But, the long-running issues still remain: like the thousands of empty existing homes in the county. Plus the number of new-builds which have planning permission now but aren't being built (400,000 nationwide, no idea how many of these are local, but must be hundreds if not thousands of plots). Where are the prospective buyers for these thousands of new homes coming from, and where are they going to work if they do ever materialise???

Seems like some heads need banging together.”

“From the point of view of Tewkesbury Borough Council, going it alone might be easier than looking at targets for a wider geographical area. This is because they are sitting on an easy solution to all thir housing problems once the army camp at Ashchurch is sold off. The area involved there is huge and a brownfield site so once it comes on stream they'll hit their target, simples.”