Housing

Why is it that all new housing is suddenly being built on a large scale around Wigan when for years, sites like the former Pemberton Colliery, Cattle Market, Regentruck, Frog Lane Council Yard, Standish Rectory Lane etc have been derelict or fields for years.

The site of the Cattle Market was actually earmarked to be part of a new link road between Frog Lane and the Saddle Roundabout, but never happen.

The government stopped all large scale housing during the pandemic. Now restrictions have been lifted building can now commence on a large scale

Errrr…….could it be down to the fact there is a housing shortage?

Just throwing it out there

It could also be down to the fact that the government launched a 'local strategic development plan' back in 2013 and ordered councils to provide 20,000 to 25,000 new homes by 2031?

Just throwin' 'em up out there!

Throwing them up being the right description with a housing policy now based on quantity rather than quality.

OC: meanwhile all the shops in town are closing (all towns) and offices. They could be refurbished as housing. It's cheaper for these developers to build on new than on old, but I think they should make these developers use old stock as well as make new.

Todge?

Yeah you see the odd bit of new build shoddy subcon workmanship along with a compo-face in the Sun now and again but it gets put right in the end.

Ask yourself a question….If modern housing designs and construction techniques were not up to an adequate standard would the banks and building societies be lending billions of their pounds against them for in some cases 35 years?

Stardelta

I have a relatives who two years ago bought a new house and already they are finding faults like or example, cracks in the plaster, plumbing not working properly, not to mention the internal stud walls which are a feature of modern housing and which allows new houses to be built at a faster speed and more profit for the building companies.

Why do you think that more sensible people are investing in pre and post war properties which were better constructed and soon go when put on the market.

And you were evidently not around at the end of the second world war when there was a housing crisis far worse than that of today. I spent the first ten years of my life with my parents living at a grandparents three bedroom house with them sleeping in one bedroom, a uncle in another bedroom, me in a small box room and my parents sleeping in the lounge before they got a Council House.

And there were no mortgages as people then could not afford one.

Stick to the sarcastic and flippant comments which appear to part of your education!

OC / I will say one thing and that is you are correct about older property being built far.far better , my parents were one of the very first to get a council home in Walpole Ave ,Worsley Mesnes in 1954 it's still going strong today not like some of the new builds . I recall when they were having a new gas fire installed and wanted a change to the fire /chimmney breast when we tried to knock it down ,well were we thought it would be a piece of cake ,it took us an eternity to knock it down . And now today one of my siblings still lives in it after buying it ,it looks every good as a new build . GB .

"I have a relatives who two years ago bought a new house and already they are finding faults like or example, cracks in the plaster, plumbing not working properly, not to mention the internal stud walls which are a feature of modern housing and which allows new houses to be built at a faster speed and more profit for the building companies"

And why am I not surprised to hear yet another little anecdote??

I remember as a kid snow blowing in under the eaves of my Grandparents council house, water dripping down the chimney when it rained, the curtains flapping like flags because of the draughts through the window frames and just 4 lightbulbs in the whole house! Their neighbour started turning over the back garden to grow some veg and found not one but three scrap cars buried under it!!

Was EVERYTHING better in the old days Todge?

LINK

.......and half a stone of monkey nuts!

Don't forget the ice on the inside of the windows, and your dads coat on the bed.

Built to last them old council houses eh Todge?

Well...........so was Stonehenge and I wouldn't want to live in there either

What the Hell! Does it really matter?
Let's admit it. Most of the posts on here just lead into moaning about this or that, bitching, trying to get one up on somebody else, sarcasm, know-it-all attitudes, bullying, mobbing, supporting buddies and condemning others... the lot!

Not long ago, I received some news which places things under a different light and puts things into a different perspective.

Why don't you take a step back, open up your eyes and take a good look at all of this!
Then! Ask yourself! Is this what life is about and what I want my remaining days on Earth filled with?

Well said, ianp.

Stardelta

Your ignorant and sarcastic attitude says it all about you as a person!

Don’t forget your monkey nuts Todge

Owd Codger.... put him on your ignore list like the rest of us do... he is a non contributor and acid tongued like his mates Basil brush and Leccylegs... the site is a better place without their negativity... Dont reply to this you three as you know we cant see your drivel.... try it Owd Codger

Tut!
No sense of humour some people

Perhaps they don't find your crudeness funny?
Just throwing that out there.

There are many on here who can be crude and offensive. The difference is I don’t let it bother me, why would I need to?

If someone is going to make a claim or statement they really should be both able and prepared to deal with whatever response it brings. All I see is grown men (and women) crying about it when they read something they don’t like or can’t cope with brought about as a result of something they have said themselves.

In here it’s all about who your friends are and backing them up….. always has been, always will be

BB: it has been a nicer World since the ignore button has been used.

Take Platty for instance, decided to throw a few comments my way one day, he got a few back, it carried on for a while then suddenly he ran out of things to say. He realised he couldn't take it further and didn't want to play anymore so rather than losing face he decided to brand me the troublemaker, claim total innocence, put me on ignore and take the easy way out......and he is not the only one to do it.

Comments are comments , but to use a crude word instead of a username is not cricket and shows the world just how juvenile you are.

My mate sludge put up with it for years, no one rushed to his defence.

And where were you a few weeks ago when (everybody's favourite) Terry W was calling people w*****rs and naming people after mass murderers and child abusers?…Like I say, in here it’s not what gets said, it’s who says it and as for Todge, we’ll you probably hadn’t noticed but he was getting a bit lippy with me way before I gave him his nickname.

I see WW’s answer to the Dalai Lama is up early today. No doubt spreading words of wisdom.

A bit lippy??? Grow up.

If the housing situation is so bad, perhaps the building of prefabricated houses and other cheaper houses in a Social Housing programme might speed up the situation instead of the now what appears to be a building programme of mainly large 4/5/6 bedroom houses for those in the country who can afford the type and size of houses now being built.

The words "housing Shortage" now appear to be more of a excuse for the better off to buy a bigger house, bigger profits for the house building companies and more council tax for the Councils and not what it should be, a priority of essential need!

The old Billings hospital site has been used as a brownfield site, so can’t complain about that. All very well but they look so crammed together are they pleasing to live in.

Errr.........thats not how it works.

People already on the ladder trade up to the 3/4/5/6 bedroom expensive houses leaving cheaper houses lower down the chain for the first timers. A new build house may have a sale price of £350k but for many half of that will be from equity.

Building cheap houses isn't the answer either. As soon as they went on the market the demand would be huge, upshot being the values would rise instantly and no one is going to sell a house for £100k if someone else is offering £110k for it. If I could buy a brand new house for £100k I would do it this this afternoon!!!......along with many others of my age and financial position......Then we would rent them out and in doing do line our pockets but at the same time deny many from getting on the property ladder at that point.

House prices and values are based on supply and demand and they will only start to drop when people cant afford to fund the mortgages needed to buy them or if there is an oversupply of houses on the market

If you can only afford £500 a month to pay a mortgage its a certainty that someone else will come along and be able to afford £501 a month.

Posted by: broady (18029) View broady's page
I see WW’s answer to the Dalai Lama is up early today. No doubt spreading words of wisdom.

Stop being lippy William........Jathbee doesnt like it

Anne... the majority are awful hen sheds... disgusting development... we were supposedly having a surgery and pharmacy on the development.... but it never happened.... and nearby smethurst road another 150 houses.... wakky races around here in the mornings.

I expect lots of the affordable houses will be bought by housing associations, and rented out, or used for migrants, and if there is a shortage why are there many thousands of houses for sale, the sellers will have another house to move into.

I thought that certain percentage of new builds had to be affordable housing,

It depends on the size of the estate whether there are some affordable houses included, I think it is has to be more than 40 houses, there is a new estate in Leigh were all the houses are for rent only.

In the early seventies, Barratts built a estate of flats and houses in New Springs but could not sell them with the result that the Council bought them, only to find within the same decade, tenants were buying them under Thatcher's right to buy policy at a price far lower than what the Council had paid Barratts for them.

The irony being that the 'private' estate that Barratts could not sell in the seventies is now more or less a 'private' estate,.

Most of the new houses now being built in the country today are being bought are by the relatives of many of those who jumped on the bandwagon of buying the Council properties at the lower prices than what they were worth, selling them at a massive profit and with the profit buying a new 3/4/5/6 bedroom house on many of the estates springginh up all over the country.

People selling land including greenbelt land for profit, house building companies building more of the larger houses which yield more profit than smaller houses and not building bungalows for the increasing elderly population as again there is less profit in single story houses with Councils getting more council tax on the bigger houses than what they would get on the smaller social housing.

A housing policy which is now more based on making profits rather than a necessary need for those desperate for a home of their own.



p.s. Even Labour politicians at both national and local level who opposed the Thatcher policy of the seventies have not been adverse in jumping on the profit making bandwagon!

Owd Codger

When in 1976 the IMF bailed out the UK with, what was then, it’s biggest ever loan one of the conditions of the loan was that the accumulated debt from building council houses had to be cleared. The chosen method of clearing the debt was to sell off part of the council housing stock. This was dressed up as the right to buy.

Gaffer

That may be correct, but the facts of todays house building has nothing to do with why they are building more expensive houses and not enough affordable social housing for those less fortunate and no bungalows for the increasing elderly population.

In Wigan, there are now bungalows built by the Council for the elderly and disabled people now owned by younger and fit people as a result of the folly of allowing bungalows to be included in the right to buy!

If wigan council gave everyone in the borough a house rent free Todge.......I bet you would moan about the wallpaper!