In MetroTalk: what about using vacant properties instead?
In MetroTalk, readers seem unconvinced on the government’s plans to build more houses by potentially sacrificing green spaces.
One commenter makes the point that there are 700,000 homes across the UK sitting empty. So, couldn’t the government start there?
Meanwhile, is Donald Trump using a violent attack to reinvent himself? Should the government hold corporate polluters to account? And, would you fit a water meter in your house?
Share your thoughts on these topics and more in the comments.
To Al Charlton (MetroTalk, Mon), who said ‘yes’ to Labour’s plans to allow building on green space.
I’m sure he was exaggerating when he said that there were ‘billions’ of acres to build on. The total land area of the UK is around 60million acres.
Excluding holiday homes and second homes, there are currently 700,000 empty houses in England, according to the campaign group Action On Empty Homes.
And according to the charity Shelter, there are almost 280.000 homeless people. And to clear something up, the government does not build houses, it subcontracts to private developers, who build for one reason – to profit.
Our countryside is needed not just for farming our food but for enjoyment for it’s wildlife and tranquillity.
Our entire country is ruled by businessmen, who will fight against each other and pit us against each other in order to make as much money as they can.
Until we have a planned economy, run by and for the people who work to keep our country in existence, these kinds of developments will turn our green and pleasant land into a grey unpleasant land. Chris Haws, Bootle
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I live in one of the most populated east London boroughs, between the City of London and the fringes of the green belt in west Essex. I try to understand about the need for more homes but would it not be wise to utilise land and encourage people to live above vacant premises in our dying high streets first?
I used to do voluntary work with young people, who would enjoy hiking and camping in the countryside, all connected with The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
The look on their faces when they were given the opportunity to explore was most rewarding.
Once again, it will be the poorer residents who will be affected the most if this important green lung surrounding any big city is removed.
Please, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, think carefully before making any knee-jerk decisions about basing economic growth on building more houses. Trevor Adams, East Ham
Has the new Labour government decided into which rivers all the sewage from all of these new houses is going to be dumped? David Harrison, Rainford
On the call for additional housing in the South East, north-west Kent has already seen thousands of new properties built and thousands more planned.
But in thisrush to build, no thought has been made about the infrastructure to support all the additional people who will be living here.
There are no additional doctors surgeries, no additional dentists, no additional hospitals or hospital beds and no improvements to our already busy and often gridlocked roads to take the thousands of extra cars that will be using them.
Please leave our part of the South East alone, Sir Keir. We’ve done our bit. Brian, Dartford
GGT’s letter (MetroTalk, Mon) on how relaxing green belt rules will make no difference to government housing targets hits the nail on the head.
The volume of house building follows the economic cycle. When it is profitable to build, developers will build, when it is uneconomic to build they will bank land. Making green belt land available will not change the economic reality of development. Developers are in business to make a profit, not to solve the country’s housing crisis. GMA, Croydon
MetroTalk is full of horror about building on the green belt. Labour has proposed building on brownfield sites, and ‘grey belt’ sites. Grey belt are sites that have been previously developed but blocked by green belt legislation. These sites, with careful infrastructure planning, can protect the environment for future generations. Neil Dance, Birmingham
The water companies’ proposed price increases are but another example of the rip-off attitudes our governments have pandered to since the Thatcherite selling of the family silver – privatise profits but leave the legacy debts for the public.
Whether it’s our climate, rivers, nuclear power stations, health service, soil or so many other things, we need to demand justice. If private money wants it, it must be held responsible for the liabilities.
Government must make polluters pay without hiking prices where they have a virtual monopoly. If they really cannot, government should renationalise. Labour should have the guts to do it. Tope, Rusholme
Isn’t it time all houses were fitted with water meters? I’m watching my neighbour using a sprinkler to water his garden in the rain. Hilda, Southport
The man who incited a violent attack on the US Capitol and tried to interfere in the last election results now presents himself as the candidate of law and order, transformed by a bullet from likely criminal into an unlikely saint.
Meanwhile, his rival deludes himself that he is fit for office with a series of implausible excuses for his ghastly gaffes and doddery demeanour. It would be comical if it was not so serious. An American soap opera that demeans the West in the eyes of the world. Nigel Armistead, London
Can I be alone in seeing nothing wrong with a prison officer enjoying
a pint of Guinness at a pub during their lunch break (Metro, Mon)? If they were drunk this would be inappropriate but there is nothing to suggest that this was anything more than a pub lunch for a group of people with tough jobs few of us would envy. What a miserable, puritanical society we are turning into.
Reg Baker, St Albans
To the driver who called me an idiot when I crossed the minor road, telling me I did not have the right of way. Perhaps I could direct your attention to the Highway Code. ‘At a junction, you should give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross a road into which, or from which, you are turning.’ Henry Page, Greenwich
