Green Belt homes plan is madness

[observer]

Thanks Con, seems they have ticked all the boxes then !

[Dizzy]

On 12/09/2017 at 7:58 PM, Confused52 said:

....... Whatever amount it is, the family will need to find up to £16k per year, is that really not possible for incomers to Warrington?

Why do you say 'incomers to Warrington'?  What about all the youngsters in their mid 20's + who have been born and bred here but who stand virtually no chance of ever buying their own home in their own town with prices already so high and mortgages so hard to get.  A lot of the proposed new housing is earmarked for the likes of Appleton, Walton etc where prices are already so high even most of us who already own homes couldn't afford them even if we sold up and re-mortgaged.

I can see why the council would prefer new housing in the likes of Appleton, Walton, Thelwall etc though as with the land being worth so much more to any prospective buyer/developer and the higher the house prices the more council tax is there for the taking for WBC's pot.

I'm still trying to understand the rest of your post but re te part above where you say up to £16k per year is needed and is that really not possible  ....does that figure include mortgage payment, council tax, bills, water rates, insurance, food and all other costs associated with being a homeowner or are they on top of your quoted monthly figure.

Either way £16k is a heck of a lot of money per year and I'm glad I'm not looking to buy a home these days

[Confused52]

Dizzy,

The reason I said incomers is that I was using the top end price ( middle of the range of top 25% of rental figures) for houses with four or more bedrooms. A family relocating to the town would need to acquire such a property and could not just stay with parents etc. a little longer, they need a large family of their own straight away. That is why I suggested incomers, just like New Town days but on a bigger scale -- New City perhaps. I suspect that is the linkage to New City by the way and New Town 2 doesn't work because the council criticised the New Town so much.

Anyway turning to youngsters I make the assumption that there will be a mix of properties and two bed properties are provided to act as starter homes, they would need to be build with a cost of £550 a month to count as affordable, (based on 2 bed median costs, the upper quartile is £626/month). So that is £6600 total cost per annum (rent + mortgage, to allow for shared ownership) but excluding any service charges. All the other costs you mention are on top.

The DCLG figures give a range of family types of varying ages and sizes . They suggest the number of dwellings needed for each type of family. The challenge for the council is to grow the total housing stock to fill the gap between what is the predicted need and what already exists. That means that you cannot look at any development in isolation. They all have to contribute to the mix. That is the purpose of development briefs for local areas which are then used to help developers put forward sensible mixes of house types.

I cannot see that the Appleton price tag will survive and I surmise that it is necessary to keep the new lower priced properties as a separate community which cannot be compared in price with the current up-market south. The existing houses were built at prices to reflect the cost of compulsory purchase of the land, which was not necessary in most of the rest of the New Town. The high prices also often led to M56 accessed employment (Manchester and Chester) in order to sustain the mortgages reducing the demand for car trips to North Warrington which would needed the bridge and expressway that the Council prevented from being built by objecting to them as not yet needed.

Well that is my theory anyway!