Housing Building - Staffs update

Stafford

A few posts under my belt
It all becomes clear - in the Express and Star tonight - Stafford Borough Council is facing up to 3.2 million funding gap in four years time (and possibly more in the worst case).

Councillor Mike Smith advises that there is a great amount of uncertainty. Councillor Patrick Farmington spoke of increasing pressures.

Councillor Aidan Godfrey advised that if Council tax had been managed in a better way - the future financial prospects may not have been so bad.

It seems that the council informed that moving forward that ‘the new homes bonus - we will only get for one year - which is bad news all round.

Wonder why so many individual housing planning applications are being submitted.......
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
It all becomes clear - in the Express and Star tonight - Stafford Borough Council is facing up to 3.2 million funding gap in four years time (and possibly more in the worst case).

Councillor Mike Smith advises that there is a great amount of uncertainty. Councillor Patrick Farmington spoke of increasing pressures.

Councillor Aidan Godfrey advised that if Council tax had been managed in a better way - the future financial prospects may not have been so bad.

It seems that the council informed that moving forward that ‘the new homes bonus - we will only get for one year - which is bad news all round.

Wonder why so many individual housing planning applications are being submitted.......
Just thought I'd quote you before you delete your post.

Who is Patrick Farmington?

What's your point.
 

Stone_Bloke

Well-Known Forumite
It just goes to show the levels of financial incompetence at SBC, and the depths the planning committee will descend to in order to get any money from developers regardless of the view of locals (ie tax payers) affected by the planning decisions.
 

Gareth

Well-Known Forumite
What do you expect them to do, in fact it is good management they need to looks at ways to increase income in.....because it isn't coming from government.

As councils will soon be relying on council tax entirely soon and will taking a larger slice than they do now, because almost no money will come from government.

Godfrey talks crap, miss- management in his eyes is SBC not increasing council tax during the years it didn't.

Well if the populas doesn't want increase year after year.....the best and most effective way is to build, build, build. In Stafford it is what the government want anyway, SBC don't want it in the manner it is, they do not see themselves as a growth town the way government do.

Planning laws, tax.....it is all decided by central government. SBC (or any council) neither have the expertise nor clout/ wiggle room to decide for themselves.

Question is.....here the chance to do something on the twelve, we put government there so it is on us if you want change, because it isn't going to get any better
 

Stafford

A few posts under my belt
What do you expect them to do, in fact it is good management they need to looks at ways to increase income in.....because it isn't coming from government.

As councils will soon be relying on council tax entirely soon and will taking a larger slice than they do now, because almost no money will come from government.

Godfrey talks crap, miss- management in his eyes is SBC not increasing council tax during the years it didn't.

Well if the populas doesn't want increase year after year.....the best and most effective way is to build, build, build. In Stafford it is what the government want anyway, SBC don't want it in the manner it is, they do not see themselves as a growth town the way government do.

Planning laws, tax.....it is all decided by central government. SBC (or any council) neither have the expertise nor clout/ wiggle room to decide for themselves.

Question is.....here the chance to do something on the twelve, we put government there so it is on us if you want change, because it isn't going to get any better


Presume you live in an isolated location and don’t mind mass house building - one of the few happy ones in Stafford. Ps the council receives business rates and therefore are stuffed in Stafford
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Presume you live in an isolated location and don’t mind mass house building - one of the few happy ones in Stafford.
Can I infer from your general tone that you are rather against 'mass house building'? Because it is rather taken as read that there will need to be a massive program of house building over the next decade to just keep up with demand let alone meet it.
the council receives business rates and therefore are stuffed in Stafford
Are you quite sure of this?

I think we all have to accept that our physical environment is going to increasingly change as much as it always has - we have been, and are, surrounded by a lot of land that has easily been taken out of agricultural use. We've all seen it happen around us for so long that we are immune to it.

The next threat will be, of course, when the promised subsidies from a mendacious Conservative UK government to the farming community end up being the empty well they would always be.

That's when it will be ramped up to the nth degree, and this will happen quickly and desperately - there will be few farms that could hope to be even remotely profitable without the subsidies they no longer expect to receive, so the only hope for the landowners (heaven help the lease-holds, coz no-one else will) will be to sell it - lots of land will hit the market at the same time, plummeting prices.

Almost all of that land will be hoovered up by the absolutely wrong kind of Wimpy, the one with an 'e' and all its friends, and it will be 'shovel ready', but only when they say it is, which will be when the land has been held to ransom for as long as it can be.

Zero food security, and endless land rents? Almost like a 'double-whammy'?
 

Tilly

Well-Known Forumite
83 million

83 million additional peeps

Are added

Each year

The plague is a plague of human peeps

Whar about house building for non Catholics
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
But one must accept it is a plague on both our houses n'est-ce pas?

Both or none - we must love one another or die.
 

ben0239

Well-Known Forumite
I personally don’t mind houses in this location and I live within that area. Would rather see houses on brownfield sites than on greenfield or green belt.
However I would rather the site or at least part of it was retained for employment. If the government want to cut journeys they need to put employment near to where people live.

I do fear on how local schools would cope. My daughters go to st Austin’s. My eldest in year 2 which has 30 children and my daughter is in reception which has 18. However the main issue is the number of cars in that vicinity in the morning and afternoon due to having St. Paul’s next door and having a nursery in the former St. John’s building.
 

c0tt0nt0p

Well-Known Forumite
As someone on the crossings I'm not totally against new houses on brown field site however the sheer scale of what is being proposed is completely over the top.

Over 850 new homes within 0.75 miles of each other in an area that already has massive infrastructure problems that the local authorities fail to recognise.

The developers have the council over a barrel however I have a smidge of confidence some common sense will prevail especially given that the third phase of the Crossings originally got rejected as they were trying to squeeze to much in to the space.
 
Top