In the news

yay we have a new winner
9 years for trying to burn down a building housing asylum seekers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgedwp08dwdo

glad these people are getting dealt with nice and quickly.

in contrast it's a shame the corporate types who allowed grenfell to be clad in combustible cladding which led to actual deaths will have to wait until 2027 before their trials even start. some reports saying it might even be a decade before they come up before the beak. .

" The police said on Wednesday that it would take 12 to 18 months for evidence to be submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service; offences already being considered include corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, fraud and health and safety offences. About 50 people have been interviewed as suspects, but the report is likely to prompt a new round of interviews. Trials are not expected until at least 2027. "

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/05/justice-for-grenfell-deaths-may-not-come-this-decade-warns-former-chief-prosecutor

surely the public enquiry has been gathering evidence for the last 7 years ?

Eric Pickles

Is this his son? Just resigned at twitter
https://archive.is/7IUMb

Yorkshireman, once ran for Conservative MP... fits the mould

I don't think so. It would be mentioned in every article if so.

The lengths the right wing press will go to to smear green protestors.

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Am I missing something? The article stops short of explaining what the objection of the protestors is / what impact they think it'll have. Not like they're planning on building ALMA up there.

stops short of explaining

Probably because the reason makes too much sense for the smear to hold? Be surprised if 'halt' doesn't actually just mean 'delay' too

Imagine being forced to honour debt by selling assets!

That's not very capitalist though, when you could borrow more to cover losses or just phoenix the business.

It's a perfect system!

Umm what? If your business is building homes and you decide to build multiple developments, you should have a system that insulates you from the risk you have knowingly taken on by making the decision to build multiple at the same time?

This makes no sense to me. If you don't want the risk of building multiple developments you can just build them 1 by 1.

This system just feels designed to encourage risk taking behaviours.

This system just feels designed to encourage risk taking behaviours.

And no need to take responsibility for any shortcuts or failures. It's perfect, you can really focus on making money, money, money.

Depends how quickly you want your new houses, you know the ones that are going to make such a dent in house prices

Well quite. I'm no expert on housing, but I believe there are many other ways to convince homebuilders to build in the UK that aren't allowing them to cut safety critical corners. It's a pretty profitable activity in the UK at the minute without needing further incentives, IMO. However, I know homebuilders often buy land and then sit on it for many years to wait for house prices to go up. You could ban that practice, or simply fine them for buying land and not completing the first homes within a period of time.

It seems to have been the David Cameron era war on red tape and regulations that was a big part of the problem. New cladding and insulation products were coming onto the market that were cheaper and simpler to install, but had potential fire risks. As such we needed regulation to address that potential risk. However, in order to add 1 piece of regulation they would have had to find 2 other pieces of regulation to get rid of. As such, they just didn't add regulation for this. Instead they told home builders to use their own judgement to arrive at a system that they thought was safe.

I'm sure David Cameron would say "well it was obvious to anyone with a brain that this rule of mine shouldn't include safety critical regulation like fire safety in buildings". However, according to testimony from multiple people in the housing department of the civil service, Eric Pickles was an absolute stickler for abiding by this rule.

https://www.ft.com/content/5fab9435-b7c2-473e-90cc-8ab5f9777883

Lloyds Banking Group and Barratt have formed a new venture with the government housing agency Homes England to plan large-scale projects to build thousands of homes.

The organisations will each provide £50mn of initial funding to launch Made Partnership, which will oversee big housing projects such as “large brownfield developments” and “new garden village style communities”.

Shitboxes with tiny windows, gas boilers, faux Victorian/georgian detailing, no trees, no walking/cycling provision no front garden just a paved drive for 2 cars (petrol) and a snagging list as long as your arm.

You could ban that practice, or simply fine them for buying land and not completing the first homes within a period of time.

You don't need to be that aggressive. Just tax the land enough to make it not profitable to do that.

That doesn't work.

Agree, once outline planning permission granted, start charging council tax.

What's with the house obsession?

Not being snarky but having low rise flats with parks take up less space and make public transport and community centres / childcare more viable as you have enough of a population density.

Yes we are in a house, cos garden and few apartments on offer in Belfast that aren't either grim or super £.

The gardens that people pave over cos of "maintenance" those things :)

I got told by someone their estate agent said flats don't hold their value is that why?

Shit landlords/service fees/dodgy cladding/etc?

At least with a house you have some control.

Why not?

The English (I don't know about NI) tend to be snobbish about flats, not to mention public transport, demanding their 'own' space. They are also obsessed with home ownership. This leads to the proliferation of lowish intensity housing and paved gardens which aren't actually wanted as gardens, not to mention all the unnecessary car journeys. As new developments tend to be on the outskirts of towns with inadequate public transport the problems deepen.

This the direct opposite to, say, Holland, where people are happy to live in well-specified apartments with good public transport.

The consequence is that English developers build according to demand and hence profit.

You can actually achieve reasonably high densities with houses. The English love houses.

https://www.mikhailriches.com/project/goldsmith-street/
Won the Stirling prize a few years ago (there are some flats but mostly houses I think)

The English love houses.

It's my fucking castle.

Yeah. I get it. But the whole of our corporate legal structures are basically built on limiting/allocating risk. It has laid the foundation of the sort of risk taking and entrepreneurial spirt that has made this back water island into a global player, and pretty much allowed all of us to be born into a privileged position globally.

So you know. Swings and roundabouts.