More Houses for Stratford

[Lex]

I'm finding it hard to believe that Stratford District Council are planning another huge housing estate in the town. Stratford's already creaking with the amount of traffic, and another 2,500 houses will snarl the area up completely.

http://www.stratford-herald.com/loca...stratford.html

[Lex]

It seems that Chris Saint, the leader of SDC, isn't really in favour of the development, but seems to think it might go ahead anyway.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...shire-21496597

[Lex]

And yet more!

http://www.stratford-herald.com/loca...stratford.html

[cathidaw]

They have plans we don't hear about.They dont allow a new Waitrose and brand new community centre in the middle of fields for nothing.

[rebbonk]

They have plans we don't hear about.

This is always the way. The overall/long-term plan is very difficult to get hold of.

Mind you, a company I worked for did this with Stratford Council; they kept putting up little bits adding to what was there. Eventually the council with-held further permissions, until they knew what the plans for the foreseeable future were. I don't think we were absolutely truthful...

[Lex]

Yeah, there's already a housing development being put up between Waitrose & Trinity Mead. I've been half thinking about leaving the Stratford area for a number of years now, partly because it's very difficult to afford to rent anywhere and buying somwhere's impossible for someone on a lowish income (social housing's a waste of time with me being the wrong gender / ethnicity / not being married / having no dependants & earning slightly too much to warrant any benefits).
Building new houses won't help my situation as they'll either be too expensive or I won't get social housing as I'm the wrong gender / ethnicity / not married / have no dependants & earn slightly too much to warrant any benefits.

[cathidaw]

TRINITY MEAD.
THATS THE PLACE I MEAN. aLL OF THAT SURROUNDING COUNTRYSIDE WILL BE GONE IN A COUPLE OF YEARS TIME.

[Dun Scotus]

The problem is this.
Up until about 20yrs ago, Stratford was a town pretty much for the self employed. Very few people historically commuted to Birmingham. It has always been a fairly affluent town though also with a fairly sizeable social housing element as well.
That demography has now changed.
Over the last 20 years , a lot of new houses have been built for youngish people who are on high mortgages and are commuting from Stratford everyday to the London south east area. This trend I think is going to continue with more houses build for the upwardly mobile who are being drawn in to south east for work.
I guess all these people are working in service industries and the financial sector. London is now becoming like the wild west, a dangerous place, with no structure to it, no regulation and everyone trying to pile in to the city where there is a lot of drug cartel money swilling around( i.e HSBC fine for two billion dollars for drug dealing).
I think in due course, the nice ambience of Stratford will go, because it just can't absorb the number of people and traffic.

[Lex]

I think in due course, the nice ambience of Stratford will go, because it just can't absorb the number of people and traffic.

Yes, that seems to be on of the big concerns about all this (potential) development - the sheer amount of traffic that will appear alongside the new housing; there's talk of a relief road being built if the estate (large village) is built off the Banbury Road, but looking at the one planned for the Shottery development I'm not hopeful of its adequacy. On top of the traffic issues, there's schools, facilities, council services etc. to think about.

[Shizara]

According to The Empty Homes Agency, there are an estimated 870,000 empty homes in the UK and enough empty commercial property to create 420,000 new homes.

We know why the developers reject these properties, after all it is more cost effective to build on green fields.

[cathidaw]

Also I have just heard that VAT on 'new builds' is at a much lower rate.