EU Referendum Vote - Poll

Fretwired

digitalscream said:

Fretwired said:

digitalscream said:

Fretwired said:

ToneControl said:

The trouble is building the infrastructure, and changing our antiquated planning laws, which put the preservation of the status quo in our countryside (which is not natural, it's mostly intensively farmed)

Hopefully, this time we could have planned where people are going to live, and avoid creating ghettos. I'm fantasizing, of course 

GDP isn't everything. What about our quality of life? Are we going to concrete over the whole southern of England? We need to be building new cities which will need rail and road links - where are they going to go?

Given that the urban landscape is 10.6% of England, 1.9% of Scotland, 3.6% of NI and 4.1% of Wales..."concrete over the whole southern of England" is a patently ridiculous statement.

No it isn't. I live in a town that's doubled in size in 15 years. There are plans to add another 67,000 houses around it. Check the map. There are large parts of England where you can't build anything or where there's no infrastructure or work. The county council have put up a plan to build a new town of 150,000 people. We have one shit motorway and one train line into London. This is a reality where I live.

And, given that only 10% of England is populated, it's not exactly difficult to figure out that such places are the exception, not the norm.

Look at this map .. http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc134_c/index.html

Where I live we have 880 people per square km and this will grow as more houses are added. If you look around London and the Home Counties it's highly urbanised - it's where there are jobs and where people want to live. Sure you can build in Devon, but there's no employment and poor infrastructure. It's the same with the other major regions such as the Midlands. Sure there are great swathes of countryside but many are farms or national parks, or are just unsuitable for homes.

Phil_aka_Pip

The south east of England is already tarmaced over. You can drive down the A30 from London to Camberley and it's built up on either side all the way. I haven't been to Camberley for  a few years, but the first sign of open space around the A30 was after the roundabout at the bottom of the hill rising away from Camberley. Wouldn't surprise me if that's been built on by now.

East Anglia has also suffered. Places that were once villages are now little more than suburbs of a big town. Other villages suddenly double in size with a massive ugly modern housing estate being plonked like a huge carbuncle on one of its edges.

I don't care for the "statistics" about how many % of the land is being built on. It feels like the Urban Borg is expanding to consume everything green and turn it tarmac with street lights.

Fretwired

Phil_aka_Pip said:

The south east of England is already tarmaced over. You can drive down the A30 from London to Camberley and it's built up on either side all the way. I haven't been to Camberley for  a few years, but the first sign of open space around the A30 was after the roundabout at the bottom of the hill rising away from Camberley. Wouldn't surprise me if that's been built on by now.

East Anglia has also suffered. Places that were once villages are now little more than suburbs of a big town. Other villages suddenly double in size with a massive ugly modern housing estate being plonked like a huge carbuncle on one of its edges.

I don't care for the "statistics" about how many % of the land is being built on. It feels like the Urban Borg is expanding to consume everything green and turn it tarmac with street lights.

Spot on Phil .. the same here. It wasn't so long ago that there was countryside between each of the towns where I live. That's all gone. I could walk the 10 miles to the next town on well lit pavements. The local farms and woodland as gone to accommodate more homes.

And the other problem we have where I live is pollution. Some areas are worse than London.

DamianP

Phil_aka_Pip said:

The south east of England is already tarmaced over. You can drive down the A30 from London to Camberley and it's built up on either side all the way. I haven't been to Camberley for  a few years, but the first sign of open space around the A30 was after the roundabout at the bottom of the hill rising away from Camberley. Wouldn't surprise me if that's been built on by now.

East Anglia has also suffered. Places that were once villages are now little more than suburbs of a big town. Other villages suddenly double in size with a massive ugly modern housing estate being plonked like a huge carbuncle on one of its edges.

I don't care for the "statistics" about how many % of the land is being built on. It feels like the Urban Borg is expanding to consume everything green and turn it tarmac with street lights.

I live near Camberley so can help...... I reckon that within a 10 mile radius of Camberley only about 20% of land has been built on. There is far more open space than areas that have been "Tarmaced over".

Phil_aka_Pip

Within a 10 mile radius of Camberley is Bracknell, once a small market town. When I left, its population was around 100k and new housing estates were still going up around an already bloated new town. It was horrendous. Sandhurst, Crowthorne, Binfield, and other places were expanding at an alarming rate.

Like I said, I don't care what percentages people claim to have been/ not to have been tarmaced over. The point is, if you have the misfortune to live there, all you ever see is open space being built on.

EDIT I just had a look at googlemaps. The farmland at the back of the ICL (now Fujitsu) building in Lovelace Road, Bracknell has all been built on. It would not surprise me if in 5 years Bracknell and Wokingham were joined at the hip.

chillidoggy

Fretwired said:

digitalscream said:

Fretwired said:

digitalscream said:

Fretwired said:

ToneControl said:

The trouble is building the infrastructure, and changing our antiquated planning laws, which put the preservation of the status quo in our countryside (which is not natural, it's mostly intensively farmed)

Hopefully, this time we could have planned where people are going to live, and avoid creating ghettos. I'm fantasizing, of course 

GDP isn't everything. What about our quality of life? Are we going to concrete over the whole southern of England? We need to be building new cities which will need rail and road links - where are they going to go?

Given that the urban landscape is 10.6% of England, 1.9% of Scotland, 3.6% of NI and 4.1% of Wales..."concrete over the whole southern of England" is a patently ridiculous statement.

No it isn't. I live in a town that's doubled in size in 15 years. There are plans to add another 67,000 houses around it. Check the map. There are large parts of England where you can't build anything or where there's no infrastructure or work. The county council have put up a plan to build a new town of 150,000 people. We have one shit motorway and one train line into London. This is a reality where I live.

And, given that only 10% of England is populated, it's not exactly difficult to figure out that such places are the exception, not the norm.

Look at this map .. http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc134_c/index.html

Where I live we have 880 people per square km and this will grow as more houses are added. If you look around London and the Home Counties it's highly urbanised - it's where there are jobs and where people want to live. Sure you can build in Devon, but there's no employment and poor infrastructure. It's the same with the other major regions such as the Midlands. Sure there are great swathes of countryside but many are farms or national parks, or are just unsuitable for homes.

There's 1,323 per square kilometer where I live.

quarky

So what percentage is too much? If England is 11% "urban", is 20% not enough? 30%? 40%? Where do people who think there should be more and more development think it should stop? Especially considering that we already don't grow enough food for the current population (not that we should need to, but the lower the %, the more vulnerable we are to external factors).

If we have an issue with scare resources such as housing and infrastructure, surely a better and easier approach to just building more, is to stop the population growing so fast isn't it? No doubt it would infringe on some groups rights, but do that *and* build more houses and we see a difference much faster than just building more and more towns.

 

Sambostar

The only 'Sustainability' the liberals and lefties understand is GDP and as long as GDP is rising and mortgage backed securities, the financial industries and the big developers are doing well we should be thankful apparently and celebrate treading on each others feet. 

This generation of intellectual preachers and politicians haven't lived through wars or great depressions and see no problems with importing everything, including all our energy needs and building ever denser population centres with more pressure and reliance on  existing antiquated infrastructures. 

In fact, they are so short sighted that their version of, down your throat, Nazi sustainability amounts to the devil in the detail of having a permeable front driveway which apparently solves the problem surface water fallout of building on flood plains or a Catalytic converter or particulate filter which apparently solves the problem of extra traffic pollution or a roundabout or an extra lane, which apparently solves traffic congestion, or enforced positive discrimination which solves minority cultures not integrating or maybe reducing energy consumption by restricting the power of kettles?

Sleeping policemen or a roundabout is their favourite cure all to all ills. 

Unfortunately, with all they rhetoric, they seem to be completely oblivious to the big picture and Agenda 21 has all but been forgotten about.

But it's OK because they all have cushy jobs, second homes abroad and are experts at practicing NIMBYism.

All the while they put more diesel, petrol and wood on the fire, completely obviously to the looming dangers of reaching the flashpoint.

The biggest issue discussed in Agenda 21 was population.

Fretwired

Chalky said:

So I have to agree that the concept of "concreting over the whole of southern England" is a strong emotional feeling but is factually and evidently silly.

You have to define what you mean by southern England. Take Kent. There's plenty of green but there are lots of farms and hop and veg growers. You can't build anything there .. I live in the home counties .. concrete central as it's close to London. Too much of the UK's wealth is generated within 100 miles of London.

BintyTwanger77

If there is a vote to Leave, Europhile Scotland will hold a 2nd independence referendum, and Yes will win, thereby negating any talk of a Leave vote to protect British sovereignty, because the UK won't exist.

quarky

BintyTwanger77 said:

If there is a vote to Leave, Europhile Scotland will hold a 2nd independence referendum, and Yes will win, thereby negating any talk of a Leave vote to protect British sovereignty, because the UK won't exist.

Fine, it will be English sovereignty then, or rUK sovereignty. I see Sturgeon is still banging on about using the Pound if independent. What about the EU joining rules? Or does she think Scotland is too important for that?

chillidoggy

Bugger.

I've just missed having a chat with Nigel Farage, apparently he was outside my office earlier. I'd have made him a cup of tea, or bought him a pint.

Fretwired

BintyTwanger77 said:

If there is a vote to Leave, Europhile Scotland will hold a 2nd independence referendum, and Yes will win, thereby negating any talk of a Leave vote to protect British sovereignty, because the UK won't exist.

England, Wales and N. Ireland might disagree. And good luck with independence without a central bank, a stable currency or an oil industry.

BintyTwanger77

@Fretwired @quarky I supported the No vote in the referendum, I want Scotland to remain in the UK and I want the UK to remain as part of the EU. I can't stand the SNP. I'm not flagwaving, I'm just pointing out the depressing reality of the situation.

Fretwired

BintyTwanger77 said:

@Fretwired @quarky I supported the No vote in the referendum, I want Scotland to remain in the UK and I want the UK to remain as part of the EU. I can't stand the SNP. I'm not flagwaving, I'm just pointing out the depressing reality of the situation.

I'm not sure. Nicola Sturgen is no fool - a vote for independence could cause all sorts of problems for Scotland. Technically Scotland would have to take the Euro if it joined the EU as a sovereign state - would the people of Scotland want to join the Euro zone given the problems in countries like Greece and Spain?

BintyTwanger77

Fretwired said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

@Fretwired @quarky I supported the No vote in the referendum, I want Scotland to remain in the UK and I want the UK to remain as part of the EU. I can't stand the SNP. I'm not flagwaving, I'm just pointing out the depressing reality of the situation.

I'm not sure. Nicola Sturgen is no fool - a vote for independence could cause all sorts of problems for Scotland. Technically Scotland would have to take the Euro if it joined the EU as a sovereign state - would the people of Scotland want to join the Euro zone given the problems in countries like Greece and Spain?

She certainly isn't. However, I think being a majority pro-EU country, and with anti-Westminster fervour ramped up by the SNP in the event of a Brexit, voters are more likely to favour the Euro, despite all the potential risks...or maybe adopt the kroner and form some sort of Nordic pact with Norway? I don't know. The best thing would be for Scotland to keep the pound, and the only way to do that is remain in the UK, but the best thing by far would be for Britain to remain in the EU. Turbulent, depressing but interesting times ahead...

Phil_aka_Pip

BintyTwanger77 said:

..or maybe adopt the kroner and form some sort of Nordic pact with Norway?

now THAT would resurrect some very ancient alliances! I don't know if it would work, but weren't the people north of the present Scots border allied with the Scandianvians some 2000 years ago?

fields5069

Oh my good grief that is scary. It's a very close run thing at the moment.

Fretwired

BintyTwanger77 said:

Fretwired said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

@Fretwired @quarky I supported the No vote in the referendum, I want Scotland to remain in the UK and I want the UK to remain as part of the EU. I can't stand the SNP. I'm not flagwaving, I'm just pointing out the depressing reality of the situation.

I'm not sure. Nicola Sturgen is no fool - a vote for independence could cause all sorts of problems for Scotland. Technically Scotland would have to take the Euro if it joined the EU as a sovereign state - would the people of Scotland want to join the Euro zone given the problems in countries like Greece and Spain?

She certainly isn't. However, I think being a majority pro-EU country, and with anti-Westminster fervour ramped up by the SNP in the event of a Brexit, voters are more likely to favour the Euro, despite all the potential risks...or maybe adopt the kroner and form some sort of Nordic pact with Norway? I don't know. The best thing would be for Scotland to keep the pound, and the only way to do that is remain in the UK, but the best thing by far would be for Britain to remain in the EU. Turbulent, depressing but interesting times ahead...

I don't think the Kroner is a goer as I'm not sure that Norway's central bank will want to stand as Scotland's guarantor and lender of last resort.

mellowsun

Ban second homes and we wouldn't have a housing crisis. I've just got back from East Sussex, in Rye and Winchelsea, 75% of the houses around there are second homes and are empty. In the whitesand development in Camber, this is as high as 90%