Some serious statements don’t make sense to me. Like, why when we were once a nation of manufacturers and builders, we now have to recruit skilled migrants, yet having a high level of our own unemployed, and so many people on welfare? Is it the unions or the government to blame? From statements and articles in the press, we seem to be heading for a period where money is going to be short and we will need to tighten our belts. This latter is not surprising when we have a huge internal debt similar to the American type, coupled with having to bolster the banks because of America, due to our own vulnerability in that regard. Brown appears to be increasing taxation, while cutting back on services. We are fighting wars, which were intended to defeat terrorism, but which have in fact generated it within our own boarders. With our high proportion of Islamic followers and our small island making linking easy, plus our liberal life style, we are an easy and apparently a justifiable target to some Islamics. The wars plus antiterrorism are a heavy drain on our finances and police resources, which include the costs of time now lost in travel security. On top of these conflicting demands on the exchequer and our pockets, is increased spending by a high proportion on Defence, plus damage and reinstatement costs due to climate change, flooding and the like. Yet Brown is proposing a vast building programme, ignored when we were solvent, partially to house migrants at our expense. Does the latter not provide a further inducement to immigration?
Let us examine our PM’s new ploy which includes Globwarm. The daily Telegraph, 06.11.07, said he proposes to build 100 houses per day, including Globwarm features, for 13 years to catch up on the negligence of the last 10 years. Currently we are building 185,000 new houses per year. In a working year of approximately 200 working days, this means building 925 houses per day. The estimated requirement in the future will be for 220,000 per year because of immigrants and family break-up. In fact I can’t see the targets being met. Some may be ‘dwellings’, not houses. Some migrant occupiers might be single or only two, the broken home is often a girl leaving home with a child. In the 50s we built high rise flats, we must not fall into that trap again, just because it is quicker, cheaper, and in this case all that is needed? Building houses for a mother and child is a greater expense per capita than flats, through the form of the structure, and a greater strain on storm water disposal and the costs through building and maintaining roads. I suggest supervised care home complexes for them with their own flat, would seem a better solution for them both, with more company, help and economy.
Assume that houses with an average of 2 bedrooms, built by national contract not speculative building, cost, say £150,000 each. One hundred per working day equals £75m per week or nearly £4 trillion in the first year. Of course if it comes to pass, it will inevitably take more cash and more than 13 years. Estimates of this type are never right, take the cost of the Dome or the new Wembley as examples. A high proportion of those for whom the houses are intended will not now have a hope of obtaining a mortgage and will be renting, at reasonable rates as we did in the 30s. This time the government will be footing the bill, long term, The tenants too will have to face the costs of furnishing in an environment where buy-now pay-later will most likely be almost a thing of the past. While this is all going on, the infrastructure has to be made to accommodate this expansion and will be costing yet more money. Here, in N. Ireland, building had to be temporarily curtailed because the services had not been correspondingly revised. There will have to be adequate drainage for the increase in runoff from new houses, drives and roads. Sewage disposal may have to be extended, as will waste disposal. Roads will have to be built and some drastically altered to take care of the Mummy-run, because with all this expensive building now being paid for by the treasury instead of private purchase, there won’t be money for public transport. If the houses are built and owned by speculators, that may undermine the object of their being built. Gas, telephones, TV and shops will have to be provided for an influx over 13 or more years.
There has to be planning, with three or at least two, if not several judicial enquiries over planning objections, unless the scheme is steamrollered through. On TV they showed two designs of scientifically engineered Globwarm-friendly houses. To my old fashioned eyes they were monstrosities of science over aesthetic appreciation. One of them looked like half a huge bee hive sitting on a tin garage. If economies of scale are to be made in this vast project, there will be a rubber stamp type of approach to designing.
Frankly, I don’t think we, in our current fiscal state, can afford all this cost and disruption, and the government’s reasoning is obviously partly specious.