Bud the Wiser

Whilst I cannot disagree with that premise, I find it hard to understand why we cannot supply enough nursing staff from within. Especially when you consider the amount of 'A' levels children are leaving school with these days and the increase in students attending university.

Another related conundrum, which I have difficulty coming to terms with is, why do we give foreign aid to countries, then poach the best trained people from some of those countries to leave their country. No objection to foreign aid per se, but it does seem to be a bit of a contradiction if the object of foreign aid is to improve the standard of living in those countries it is given to.

A bit of topic, sorry.

On topic. Infrastructure, it just isn't up to speed with the growing population, regardless of race, colour, religion or ability to contribute.

Editha

It seems to me that the British infrastructure is in considerably better shape now than it was in 1997, by which time the Conservative neglect of our transport, health and education services had reached crisis point.

I won't be surprised if in five years time our infrastructure has deteriorated again, but I won't be blaming immigration.

Bud the Wiser

.

Of course, the buck stops at the politicians. Now if you had said "I won't blame the immigrants", that would have been fine. However, it's uncontrolled, ill planned immigration that will cause problems unless the infrastructure catches up. Transport, schools, hospitals, water, sewage and, of course, housing etc.

Mass immigration: Report warns of strain on Britain’s infrastructure caused by population growth - Home News - UK - The Independent

and in depth.....


http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/LargescaleImmigration.pdf

Editha

You said that our infrastructure isn't up to speed with the growing population. The Civitas report you have linked to states that immigration could put a strain on living standards.

In other words you say something is happening, that Civitas only think might happen in the future.

Bud the Wiser

The report was August 2014.

Google UK housing crisis.

Google NHS crisis/school overcrowding/road and transport over crowding/ water shortage and so on.

All caused in no small part by a badly planned immigration policy.

boom_meringue

The housing crisis isn't because of immigration, it is because the Tories have sold off all the council housing.

Editha

Agreed. The housing crisis has been created entirely by Thatcher's housing policies. When she came to power there was no housing shortage and enough houses were being built each year to cope with additional demand. Since she came to power, the supply of new houses has never met demand, and the crisis has been building year by year.

It has almost nothing to do with immigration. The areas of the country where there are housing shortages do not correlate to the areas where there are large immigration populations. The possible exception is London, but to suggest that immigration is bad for London is to fundamentally misunderstand how the city functions.

Pistolpete2

Nothing has changed from my views expressed in my previous post on this thread, HOWEVER, there are some realities in the UK economy that have a bearing on house prices and the housing 'crisis'.

Immigration has had an impact on the level of wages paid to the average UK worker if only due to supply and demand. Other causes of this include the pressure of off-shoring, decline (allowing zero hours contracts in et al) and lack of union power in terms of strike action and wage bargaining.

As a result, it is now hard for the average worker to move forward financially in life based upon work alone.

As the well-compensated jobs in manufacturing and even financial services have largely disappeared for the masses - chicken and egg?, if there were a better supply of workers there might be better availability of jobs though - and the UK has gravitated much more towards being a consumer economy, actual consumption becomes far more dependent upon the assumption of debt and the preparedness of consumers to spend under an illusion of affluence created by their home equity.

It is in government's interest - quite aside from their self-interest, in such conditions, to support house prices as much as they are able and restrictive planning rules and complete lack of adequate actual house building admirably support this 'effort', as does a net immigration level upwards of twice the level of actual house building over ten years.

Indeed the conversion of council housing to ownership has created real problems where the resultant supply has not been replaced for target families. This crisis 'condition' has been made worse by the level of public funds directed towards housing benefit at a time that overall public expenditure is under extreme pressure meaning that expenditure somewhere else seemingly has to go where public borrowing is not considered an option.

We do need to bear in mind though that if (BOE) interest rates were around 'normal' levels at 4-5%, there would be no housing crisis but then there would be a (worse) debt crisis and housing price and house building further collapse, to say the very least.

Reality is a sorry state of affairs.

Shard

Good point on wage compression.
I don't quite follow your final paragraph?

themajor

In reality, apart from one or two Major cities there is not as such a housing shortage. There are new housing estates going up in Yorshire, Lincolnshire and leicestershire that I know about. The prices are way way below the market generated prices. For example in Market Rasen a 3 bed house with all mod cons at only £150,000-00 two bed considerably less. Also new apartments.

Well done the Govt for allowing these huge building plans to go ahead.

Pistolpete2

I think that if interest rates were normalised, the whole gambit of buy-to-letters, second-homers and home ownership being the only game in town for former savers would be fundamentally altered. In addition, we are seeing mortgage applications fail even at current interest levels so the increase would choke off an awful lot of demand.

Public finances would be less diverted towards housing benefit and could be more directed towards provision of social housing programmes IF a government were that way inclined.

Normalised interest rates would put an awful lot of mortgages under water though and this could create a new crisis, particularly if it further impacted bank lending. We've been there before, of course.

Shard

One or two new housing developments in Yorkshire etc does not mean there is no housing shortage. All the political parties agree that the nation needs 200,000+ new homes per year (at present) and the actual construction total has been a quarter of that. Affordable homes in far flung places are great if there are jobs there, but generally, there aren't. Hence the need to build in or near major cities.

Pistolpete2

Down here the council seems to be totally oblivious to the 'desirability' of having jobs here as a prerequisite to housebuilding. They love the idea of being surrounded by new building sites, presumably to enhance future council tax yields, but there is precious little conversation relating to decent (underlined ten times) jobs being in the offing. Most new homeowners will, as per usual, need to be nomadic, so far as getting to work is concerned.

The local ASDA, Sainsbury's and Morrisons will be happy, but that is it.

I know it's not easy but there is an overall concept that has worked elsewhere. Stimulate a well-educated and diverse local workforce by ensuring that there are a good range of strong educational establishments that produce well-rounded graduates to meet a carefully pre-determined need. Provide incentives for target businesses. They will come. In addition, it raises the estimation of a community in the eyes of more discerning potential future resident and they too will come to enhance the 'gene' pool (excuse me!) and so on. There are lots of businesses that simply don't want to carry the overall costs - in terms of rent and salary levels - that are associated with operating within the Home Counties. They will be only too happy to operate deep in the provinces if they have the resources to hand and logistics is not an issue.

Bud the Wiser

So, if the people who bought their house under right to buy sold their house back to the council, then the council could reduce the waiting lists by renting it out to others. Brilliant !!. Now where do the people who sold their house back to the council live?

If the population increases by 'x' then the housing stock has to increase pro rata. It hasn't, and to go all the way back to the Thatcher years as your primary excuse for the housing crisis is way too simplistic.

Shard

Difficult to say. Higher rates would indeed impact affordability, but would also dampen investment. Housing benefit and housing associations seem a good route to social housing to me.