[diggers350] George Monbiot calls for massive housebuilding programme

[Peter Hack]

i support the call for more housing and find this
contribution poor; the brutal fact is that UK
population is growing and so has immigration but no
one knows by how much... but all you have to do is
walk down the street and know that its a lot.People
are getting older and also single people are living in
larger units which before might have housed a whole
family..the waiting list for social housing stands at
over one and a half million while Global population is
growing and a lot of people are on the move.

Hardly any houses are being built by past standards. 
House building will of course cause GHG emissions to
rise but whats the alternative increased wealth
division through a shortage of housing?

it would seem from this that the convenor of this list
is content with homeslessness and overcrowding for the
UK working class and wealth division(for that take a
whole generation): that is the inescapable conclusion
from this posting.

facts are the bais of debate and if you dispute the
Office of National Statistics or the 9/11 then facts
or some critique not opinion are the basis of
arguement.

Anyway why does this list have to be moderated? Why
are ones views filtered? it smacks of control and i
for one am not happy with this. 

                Peter Hack 

 


--- Gerrard Winstanley <office at evnuk.org.uk> wrote:

> We build 3 million homes - or leave these families
> in Dickensian misery
>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2217573,00.html
> (full article copied below)
> 
> 
> But could this mean the destruction of much of the
> rural environment
> and urban open space George holds so dear, and an
> unacceptable
> increase in greenhouse gas emmissions?
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Unrestrained Globalism-Monbiot agrees to 3 million
> new homes
> http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386717.html
> 
> Unlimited immigration-Who benefits?
> 
> Having been feted and promoted by the SWP Monbiot is
> clearly placing
> his views with Big Business. As with 9/11 where he
> defended the Bush
> line unconditionally years after almost everyone
> makes fun of it he
> has now come up with why Britain needs unrestrained
> building.
> At the same time the next day an article appeared
> whereby the
> population of the UK will allegedly reach 108
> million. If anyone can
> believe official figures then one must take the
> lates figure with a
> pinch of salt and probably reduce the timescale of
> 75 years to a third
> of that and add another half to the figure they
> quote. Only 13,000
> allegedly were predicted to arrive when EU borders
> opened up. Now they
> are talking of the entrance of Turkey and the
> Ukraine another 110
> million added to the EU population!
> In other words the Japanesation of Britain whereby
> millions will live
> in even more cramped conditions and travel will
> become even more
> intolerably as investments in infrastructure grind
> to a halt after the
> collapse of PFI schemes like Metronet with billions
> in debts.
> Morissey of the Smiths summed up it appears what
> many already feel is
> happening but are unable to say anything due to the
> unrestrained
> globalism of the so-called 'anti-racist' left. 
> 
> Morrissey vs NME: Mozgate Part II
>
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/11/mozgate.html
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> We build 3 million homes - or leave these families
> in Dickensian misery
>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2217573,00.html
> 
> George Monbiot
> Tuesday November 27, 2007
> The Guardian
> 
> It sounds preposterous: 3 million new homes in
> England alone by 2020.
> My instinct is to fight this project. It threatens
> Britain's
> countryside, the character of our towns, our water
> supplies and carbon
> targets. Today the housing and regeneration bill,
> which will help to
> implement this building programme, has its second
> reading in the House
> of Commons.
> 
> Where should we stand? Is the housing crisis as
> acute as some people
> have claimed? Or has it been whipped up by the House
> Builders
> Federation, hoping to get its claws into the
> countryside? To find out
> whether these homes are really needed, I asked the
> charity Shelter to
> take me to meet some of the people it works with in
> London. I had no
> idea. I simply had no idea.
> 
> Article continues
> Wendy Castle moved into her flat in Trellick Tower,
> in west London,
> when her eldest child was a baby. He's now 16, and
> she has three
> others between 13 and two. But her flat has only two
> bedrooms. She
> sleeps in one of them with her two youngest
> children. The room is
> completely filled by beds. On one side they are
> jammed against the
> window, which no longer shuts properly. On the other
> they are pressed
> against the heater, which can't be used because of
> the fire risk. Her
> two oldest boys share an even smaller room.
> 
> She keeps her flat in a state of Japanese
> minimalism, but in the tiny
> living room the children were sitting on each
> other's laps to watch
> the television. Like all the women I met that day,
> Wendy, tough as she
> has become, cried when she told me how this crowding
> was affecting her
> children. Her oldest boy is falling behind at school
> because "he
> physically does not have space to do his homework.
> He can't do
> anything till the other kids go to bed".
> 
> But the real shock came when she explained why she
> was stuck.
> Kensington and Chelsea, like several London
> boroughs, operates a
> points system, reflecting people's level of
> deprivation. Every Monday
> morning it posts up the flats available for social
> tenants (those who
> pay less than the market rate). People with enough
> points can bid for
> them. Wendy has 40. She has been able to bid on only
> one occasion.
> Though her family is officially "severely
> overcrowded", her bid came
> 87th out of 92. Eighty-six households, bidding for
> the same flat, were
> deemed to be in greater need than hers. "I've tried
> everything. But
> when I ring them they say: 'I don't know why you
> bother. You ain't got
> the points'."
> 
> In a block across the road from the tower I visited
> Aisha and Abdul
> Omarzaiy. They have 280 points, but they have also
> been told they are
> wasting their time. Aisha and Abdul received asylum
> from Afghanistan
> in 1992. They were given this flat five months after
> they arrived in
> Britain, and were promised that after six months
> they would be moved
> to a bigger place. They now have four children, aged
> between two and
> 19, in a tiny two-bedroom flat. (Remember this, next
> time someone
> claims that people granted asylum get priority). The
> oldest boy and
> girl have to share a room, a desk and a homework
> rota. The youngest
> girl sleeps in bed with her mother. Abdul and the
> 10-year-old sleep on
> the living room floor. The 19-year-old has dyslexia
> and needs peace to
> concentrate: he is now re-sitting his A-levels for
> the second time. He
> can't bring friends home, as there is nowhere for
> them to speak
> privately, and he's embarrassed about sharing a room
> with his sister.
> Like Wendy, Aisha keeps the flat neat and sparse.
> But prison cells are
> more spacious.
> 
> Now suffering severe depression, Aisha has lobbied
> the council and
> written to her member of parliament. "When I had
> three children they
> told me I'd be moved straight away if I had another
> one. I didn't want
> another one. But after seven years the fourth came
> along. They still
> won't move us." The council did offer a solution: to
> put the oldest
> boy in a hostel. "They told us straight," Abdul
> said. "They don't have
> big properties."
> 
> Kensington and Chelsea, as the diligent councillor
> Emma Dent Coad told
> me, has a poor record on social housing - a kind of
> economic cleansing
> seems to be taking place. But there are similar
> backlogs all over
> London. Shelter took me to meet Jacqueline Pennant,
> who 
=== message truncated ===



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