Barlow's Beef: Build it and they might (not) come

Can someone help me out please?

Over the past few years I have sold three houses one I owned the others on behalf of elderly relatives.

Each one took over 18 months to sell and one sold well below its purchase price two years previous.

Okay, three house sales is not a valid reflection of the market but many of the properties for sale took a similar time to sell.

So why do we need so many additional new homes (now 36,000)? This latest figure is up 7,000 due to Cheshire East's economic growth forecast now revised to 0.7% from 0.4%.

Clearly this 'growth' has yet to take effect on the current housing market, which appears relatively static judging by the plethora of For Sale signs scattered across the borough.

So, who decided our economic growth will increase 75% (from 0.4% to 0.7%)? He or she must be an economic wizard or the figures are simply being massaged to match the number of houses planned.

Note the word 'planned' as developers aren't stupid enough to build houses and flood the market. They will simply 'bank' the land and force up house prices until they are guaranteed a substantial profit.

I'm assuming the same planners and politicians who predicted the 0.4% growth are now forecasting the 0.7%. Why should they be correct this time if they got it wrong at the previous attempt?

Here's something else I don't understand. I was initially told by Cheshire East there was a growing demand for single person homes but when virtually none of these appeared on any development plan it was changed to 'affordable' homes.

I think we all agree such homes are desperately needed by lower income families and first time buyers but whenever I see a development in progress it rarely has anything remotely 'affordable.' (See picture I took today at a local development)

So, as far as I can see, we are destroying our open spaces for the development of houses, which definitely are not affordable, based on speculative growth figures, which are bobbing around like lottery balls.

There doesn't appear to be any specific funding or detailed plan for the infra structure required by such an ambitious building program meanwhile those in desperate need of cheaper housing will benefit not one iota.

If you can follow the logic in this Build it and They Will Come policy please explain it to me. I'm struggling to see any advantage to anyone other than land speculators and developers.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of alderleyedge.com.

Tags:

Barlow's Beef, Vic Barlow