Affordable homes are critical and building should continue (From The Argus)

Is this really about housing or is it just an attack on other political parties when an election is coming up?

What a lot of schoolboy babble. For goodness sake!

If New Labour had not bought into the growth-forever "end to boom and bust" nirvana delusion, property prices in this country would never have soared through the stratosphere so that this country's overheads on every dwelling and hovel beggar even the relatively rich.

New Labour (picking up where Margaret Thatcher left off) decided to encourage property speculation so that everyone played at being a developer knowing that the capital gain was tax free on their main home as they traded and traded and traded. And house price inflation grew and grew and grew with it.

Property prices need to drop by 30 to 40%, capital gains on property price inflation needs to be taxed and the population of Brighton & Hove needs to be stabilised at a level that the infrastructure can sustain.

New Labour's property targets for Brighton & Hove were barmy and destructive of the quality of life for existing residents. The hysteria and calls to build have resulted in terrible economic repercussions. Family housing was sacrificed to the building of single-person flats in blocks where family houses once stood and New Labour was proud of that. New Labour jobs are all about working in construction on a building site.

I bet New Labour's university-student candidate for St. Peter's and North Laine doesn't aspire to an apprenticeship on a building site! Just wants them for the hoi polloi, roight?

Unfortunately bigtime (other than developer/constructi
on) employers won't come to Brighton & Hove because of the low level of family housing.

This city may be a fun place for students and visitors, but if this young man is looking for property ownership as a way of creating a capital base for himself, he's missed the boat.

Are the building and property trading bubble the only way to wealth and security? FOOLS GOLD MATE! And a dead-end one-way ticket that has taken us to national bankruptcy. At your age you need to stay liquid and rent so you can turn on a dime and not get trapped in negative equity with a mortgage you can't repay and a dump you can't sell because its too small!

Renting is the norm in places like Germany and Canada. Why not here? Why are you parrotting off tired New Labour cant like its your own thinking? New Labour is TIRED, TIRED, TIRED and needs candidates with fresh ideas and the capacity to dump all that propaganda, not this rehashing old tripe.

I think I'm really annoyed by this letter, actually. REALLY ANNOYED.

You are a sweet boy, Tom, but your naivety shines even more brightly than your charm. Under Labour's policies the only housebuilders to come forward have been those wishing to build ugly, inappropriate, inhumane overdevelopments as proposed for Brighton Marina ... which thankfully never get built. How does that help the homeless?

saveHove - it ill behoves someone suffering from verbal diarrhoea to criticise Tom's "schoolboy babble". How about trying to express yourself clearly and concisely?

Dear Tom
Let's create more affordable housing, so that I can buy it cheap & sell it at a profit! It's called the property chain for a reason.

My fact-filled post shouldn't be over your head, lumen, or that hard for you to understand. Take it slowly.

And you are wrong factually.


The Planning Inspector's Marina decision is not available yet as far as I know and the Marina is not safe from overdevelopment. And it had an affordable element that would indeed put rooves over the heads of the homeless. A rubbish roof and a rubbish way of life that damages that part of Brighton irreparably - but affordable rooves for the homeless were in the mix.

And mtmoocher calls it perfectly: they would only be safe from re-sale at a profit in the first few years of ownership. Their affordable status would then be wiped out.

sorry saveHOVE, but your post wasn't fact-filled. It was a rambling rant. I followed your advice to take it slowly but I fell asleep. Anyway, if you are interested in facts, here are a few for you:
1. I didn't say the Marina was safe from overdevelopment
2. Explore Living's vile development will only 'put rooves (sic) over the heads of the homeless' if it gets built
3. The plural of roof is roofs