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[mickeyl]

Maybe Gerryo, the 4000 people on the waiting list will find jobs in the taxpayer funded Public sector with final salary pensions.
 
That way they would live in Government controlled housing, with Government provided jobs, with cars to Government dictated specifications running on Government provided and maintained roads, with children going to state schools and with a health service provided by the Government, with Government provided pensions, with limits on free speech dictated by Government, with Government ID cards, and with the Government apparently giving themselves virtually unlimited benefits.
 
Even Joe Stalin might think this Government had taken things too far with centralised control if he were still alive today

[Mighty Hatfield]

or maybe, just maybe, the 4,000 people ALREADY live (and work) here. - Hence them being on the council waiting list to be housed?  Ever tried going on a housing list for an area you dont live in?

As you say, a local solution needs to be found to this local problem. To suggest that this can be done locally by the conservative local council, the conservative county council, or Grant Shapps really does show a lack of understanding and perception indeed, given that all three are comitted to the selling off of council housing. Thereby making the problem worse. Just have a look at Grants housing proposals.

The real issue is not where the homes will be built, but who will be able to afford them? certainly not the 4,000 people on the list let me tell you.
 
Everyones oh so quick to criticise, I really feel the comments display a total lack of understanding of the situation. Such as approx 4k of the 10k already having been built (so thats just under half already built then), I wonder how on earth people are supposed to have a solid understanding of this when there is such misleading information coming from the Conservative Party.

[Lallyrs]

or maybe, just maybe, the 4,000 people ALREADY live (and work) here so are already housed.  So why do we need to build another 6k(?) houses!

What is wrong with having a mix of owner occupied, social and private rented properties. We've seen recently the problems with making houses too affordable why cant we encourage more secure longer term rental options that benefit tenants and landlords.

Why does selling off of council housing make the problem worse? All those tenanted properties in Hatfield were sold by ex council tenants that made a lot of money out of buying their council house.

Why the cheap snipe “Conservative Party”, cant you make a valid point.

[Banjo]

Well done Grant. A big vote of thanks to you and all who are involved in stopping this. And now let's get this bunch of carpet baggers out of office.

[MikeHobday]

It's sad that there are people prepared to abandon any chance that young people living at home will ever be able to find a home to rent or buy locally. I remember one political party at the recent Commonswood Nature Reserve public meeting implying they could just move to the North West.

My children are on the point of leaving home, and I'm keen for there to be affordable housing locally. As we all live longer, and as families sadly break up more often, there's a genuine need for many more homes to support our local community.

Whether that means more homes on the Broadwater site or more flats at the university can be debated (there's probably a balance of both), but we do need many homes.

With 4,000 people on the council waiting list and more wanting to buy, I think we need a fair few. Not all in Welwyn Hatfield to be sure, but not in the North West either!

[Mighty Hatfield]

or maybe, just maybe, the 4,000 people ALREADY live (and work) here so are already housed.  So why do we need to build another 6k(?) houses!

What is wrong with having a mix of owner occupied, social and private rented properties. We've seen recently the problems with making houses too affordable why cant we encourage more secure longer term rental options that benefit tenants and landlords.

Why does selling off of council housing make the problem worse? All those tenanted properties in Hatfield were sold by ex council tenants that made a lot of money out of buying their council house.

Why the cheap snipe “Conservative Party”, cant you make a valid point.

If they were already housed, WHY would they be on the housing needs list then? Do you really want to go back to the days where mum and dad lived with mum and dad, grandad in the spare room and cousin dave in the shed? I certainly dont.

Youve certainly made me chuckle over my cornflakes this morning, please point out where we have housing that is "too affordable" and what problems it has caused  ?

Why does selling off council housing make things worse? ARE YOU SERIOUS?

4,000 people need homes. There is already a shortage If you sell those homes, where do they go? Some tenants made some money out of buying their homes, thats true. How does that help the 4,000 people on the list? Is a home a money making object or the shelter for the family unit? I think its the latter.

Talking of valid points, perhaps you should really take a long look at the situation before making some quite bonkers comments!  Unless you were being sarcastic of course.

[bmwland]

A High Court judge rejects plans for building thousands of new homes in Hemel Hempstead, Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/8060731.stm#

[Gerryo]

It's sad that there are people prepared to abandon any chance that young people living at home will ever be able to find a home to rent or buy locally. I remember one political party at the recent Commonswood Nature Reserve public meeting implying they could just move to the North West.

My children are on the point of leaving home, and I'm keen for there to be affordable housing locally. As we all live longer, and as families sadly break up more often, there's a genuine need for many more homes to support our local community.

Whether that means more homes on the Broadwater site or more flats at the university can be debated (there's probably a balance of both), but we do need many homes.

With 4,000 people on the council waiting list and more wanting to buy, I think we need a fair few. Not all in Welwyn Hatfield to be sure, but not in the North West either!

Just a thought, but the Labour government has been in power for how long now? In that time how many new dwellings have been built in this council area and how many of those were to deal with the local need you refer to?

[Sleepless in Hatfield]

Well done we certainly do not need houses in the numbers the government were planning. But Grant please remember the shambles of a local authority we have, they would ignore any consultative process more than Westminster.

To Sleepless in Hatfield, all those who want a house in Hatfield my family has been here since 1950, I have a lovely newly refurbished house which has been vacant for six months despite offering it to those on the Council waiting list at a heavy discount. Come on where are they?

I assume you are saying you want to rent out the "newly refurbished property" to a family from the council w/list? Even though you say it is with a "heavy discount"! why would a family want to rent from a private landlord via WHC? would it be for a short lease? - wouldn't they still be on the w/l for a perm move while paying rent for your property? I know some landlords who have enquired about renting via WHC purely because they either own a few properties & have a "spare one" to let or their property was trashed by the last students or its just for the periord when the students go home & then they have made the tenants homeless!!

[MikeHobday]

Just a thought, but the Labour government has been in power for how long now? In that time how many new dwellings have been built in this council area and how many of those were to deal with the local need you refer to?

4,155 from 2001 to 2008 and obviously not enough.

[Gerryo]

Just a thought, but the Labour government has been in power for how long now? In that time how many new dwellings have been built in this council area and how many of those were to deal with the local need you refer to?

4,155 from 2001 to 2008 and obviously not enough.

Thank you. Mr.Blair has won 3 elections, 10 years, and now Brown. 4,155 dwellings in 6-7 years, of which, how many were housing association and or council?

[sunnyjim]

Just a thought, but the Labour government has been in power for how long now? In that time how many new dwellings have been built in this council area and how many of those were to deal with the local need you refer to?

4,155 from 2001 to 2008 and obviously not enough.

4,155 is a huge number of additional dwellings for us to have already had imposed on our area.  What pray is the upper limit?

[carolynharrington]

Hi,
I take issue with the validity of the numbers on the council waiting list because I know for a fact that properties are underutilised or left empty.

So, it's not quite as simple as saying 4000 people would be added to the waiting list because there are probably numbers of individuals who needn't be there in the first place and these would contra with those who go on the list. My mother is in social housing with a 2 bedroom bungalow in Knebworth all to herself and she wants a 1 bedroom bungalow in WGC to get support from her family (anyone on this site who knows someone please let me know). Currently the council/housing association does nothing except pay a membership fee to homeswapper and I've been looking for 7 months for someone to swap with her.

I could name 10 3 bedroom properties where those individuals don't require that number of bedrooms and are often 2 bedrooms in excess of their requirements. I could also name another 10 adverts on homeswapper where council tenants require or possess luxuries like separate dining rooms, garages, driveways, huge bedrooms and large gardens. This tells me that there are people on the waiting list who live in overcrowded or unsuitable accommodation and loads of people who have accommodation that they simply do not need and are not elligible for.

As for home owners, I have grave concerns that my children will have to move far away to own their own homes, but what are we doing as a nation to stop this? The solution isn't just to build more houses and it's certainly not something where there's only one solution. We could stop individuals buying to let, thereby providing more houses for people to buy to live in. This will build communities as those people who live there are invested in the area. We should also stop assuming that the ONLY way to exist is for us to buy our homes and that it's our right to do so. We should cancel all RTB on council properties. Social housing was originally provided for people who couldn't afford their own home. If you can't afford your own home, you shouldn't be buying from the council and if you can, buy privately. We also need to stop assuming that one house should house only 2 adults and a couple of children. It's beneficial for families to have support of elderly relatives and vice versa, so perhaps more encouragement to have multi-generational households is also needed.

Other ideas: we could review the size of properties that are provided as social housing and split properties or extend properties where possible. We could plan on building a few houses here and there rather than removing large parts of the countryside. Review all leases of garages en bloc to ensure they're leased effectively and build on some of those plots where the garage loss has minimal impact.
We also need to provide stricter controls on businesses in London meaning they need to help workers change the way they work i.e. flexible working (which I don't think goes far enough, currently). This would mean people could live further away from the economic centres of the UK as they could work from home or reduce the number of hours they're doing. That way, maybe Herts wouldn't be pressurised to provide the houses that we're saying we need because people could live further away.

Just a few ideas.
Carolyn

[pretty girl]

At this moment in time, we do not have the infrastructure to deal with more and more homes.  10,000 new homes could involves, 10 - 30 thousand children requiring school places.  As more and more families become two, three and four car families, do we have the roads to deal with the increased traffic.  Our hospital is being dismantled before our eyes - post offices being closed, this list goes on and on and on. 

Before any more homes are built on a massive scale - someone, somewhere has to get the priorities right.

[MikeHobday]

At this moment in time, we do not have the infrastructure to deal with more and more homes. 

A serious concern. I'm interested in residents' views about the problems caused to the infrastructure by the 4,155 homes built since 2001 - that might help us work out what problems would be caused by another 5,845 homes between 2008 and 2021.

Mike