My posting of yesterday gave details of the staggering new range of house building figures that ‘experts’ are saying ‘need’ to be built in Sefton in the coming years. It was a target of 615 per year but now may be as high as 1290! This is my third posting on this issue. There’s a link to the previous one below:-
tonyrobertson.mycouncillor.org.uk/2015/07/07/sefton-green-belt-the-staggering-new-stats/
Of course building anything on high grade agricultural land which grows the food that we all eat is crazy but what will actually happen if Sefton’s Labour Council goes for the latest finger in the wind guesstimates from the expert statisticians who have never been wrong before!
Well at face value and in a worst case scenario it will lead to a doubling of the present target of 615 houses being built per year to double that. But can this be done without negative consequences? Of course it can’t and the negative consequences are not just the environment which will of course take a very big hit indeed. No, the other consequences are:-
* Could the infrastructure cope? By this I mean do we have enough GP’s and dentists, sufficient capacity in our sewers, the availability of school places etc. etc.? Well when the 615 figure was being promoted it was very clear that such things were down to little more than chance! But imagine if the vast majority of the extra houses were all to be built in one part of the Borough rather than being spread around? I’ll come back to that one.
* If too many houses are built at one time in one area what are the consequences? When firstly the developers may not wish to build so many all in one area as it could well depress sale prices and there may not be the demand for houses anyway. No developer is going to build without a guarantee of 100% sales.
* Then again what about the consequences on the already established housing stock. Yes, you’ve guessed it they may well suffer a loss of value because there are too many houses on the market in that area. I seem to recall a Lib Dem Focus leaflet that predicted that very scenario that was delivered around Maghull & Lydiate in the Autumn of 2013:-
Click on the image to enlarge it
OK, so where would those additional house go? I quote from the document presented to our Labour rulers on 3rd July ‘The vast majority of additional sites are in Maghull/Lydiate, Aintree and Melling, which is already proposed to take the largest proportionate share of the housing allocations [based on the 615 house building per year figure] relative to its existing population’. It goes on to say ‘There is a point at which the local market in this area would become saturated and unable to absorb the number of houses required, even if additional sites were identified.’
Read my next posting to see what Council officers see as the solution to this housing crisis/conundrum.
