Catford Stadium Redevelopment

[Eagle]

Someone mentioned the average price of a semi in SE26 is well over 310k.

If that is the case it is very sad as people will have no chance to buy. Infact the only buyers would be the dreaded Buy to Let vampires.

I regret the Governments recent leglislation to guarantee lenders against a fall in the market is a really bad thing which will in turn escalate the market.

Eventually the market must fall. What for instance if London falls well down the league table as financial centres. Surely money from that sector which props up the middle to upper end of the market.

[Eagle]

Tim
You seem to batting a dodgy wicket.

Reason for prosperity of the pottery towns in the 19th century was the nearness of coal and water power plus cheap labour. Most of the china clay came from Cornwall.

How often when buying pottery , do people try and look for Made in Stoke on Trent. I do but I am a patriot.

No reason why industry of some sort could not return to then Potteries. Has excellent transport links and cheap labour.

Neither of which Sydenham has.

[michael]

Dagenham isn't as bad as many people might think, but the average price of a semi there £169, 324 over the last year, compared with £309,554 in Sydenham tells you something about where in general people would prefer to live. Requiring more houses to be built there rather than here would widen the price discrepancy further, creating here paper gains for owner occupiers and continuing excessive rents for those not so fortunate.

Thank you. So if we did have more supply, prices would indeed come down, but we don't. That is exactly what I hope you would agree.

I'm a little confused by these two statements. If we do build in Dagenham does that put prices up or down for people in Sydenham? My view it is has virtually no effect, but you seem determined to argue that it would lead to both 'paper gains for owner occupiers' and 'prices would indeed come down'. I realise that my knowledge of economics could not be compared to yours, so perhaps you can explain what you mean by these seemingly contradictory statements.

Delightful as Dagenham is, or sublime as is Stoke on Trent, if someone doesn't have an economic reason to work there, are these aesthetic factors enough to justify moving to these exotic locations?

Dagenham is 25 minutes from Canary Wharf, about the same as Sydenham. Economically Dagenham has the same pull factors as Sydenham, it just needs some serious regeneration.
And why is North Greenwich not filled with these houses that are in such short supply? 2 minutes from Canary Wharf and yet vast areas of emptiness. I don't think this is another failure of the planning system. There is something else going wrong.

[Tim Lund]

Dagenham isn't as bad as many people might think, but the average price of a semi there £169, 324 over the last year, compared with £309,554 in Sydenham tells you something about where in general people would prefer to live. Requiring more houses to be built there rather than here would widen the price discrepancy further, creating here paper gains for owner occupiers and continuing excessive rents for those not so fortunate.

Thank you. So if we did have more supply, prices would indeed come down, but we don't. That is exactly what I hope you would agree.

I'm a little confused by these two statements. If we do build in Dagenham does that put prices up or down for people in Sydenham? My view it is has virtually no effect, but you seem determined to argue that it would lead to both 'paper gains for owner occupiers' and 'prices would indeed come down'. I realise that my knowledge of economics could not be compared to yours, so perhaps you can explain what you mean by these seemingly contradictory statements.

More houses in Dagenham, other things being equal, would push prices down there. To the extent that there is some interaction between housing across London, it would also impact prices elsewhere in London, including Sydenham, but to a lesser degree, so the discrepancy would increase. Is that OK?

In fact, other things would probably not be equal, and nor would we want them to be - any house building would need to be accompanied by infrastructure development, so we could actually see the downwards impact on prices there more than offset by the benefits of other investment. I think it's because of this normal pattern - the result of the sensible sort of planning we can agree on - that Lee misses the relation between supply and prices, which really is there. What happens when you get the right infrastructure spend is that demand also increases.

But Dagenham is different from Stoke, and I should perhaps not have linked them, because Stoke is so much further from the delights of Canary Wharf and the other attractions of the South East. Very much more infrastructure spend would be needed to make people want to live there, and it would not be economic.

Delightful as Dagenham is, or sublime as is Stoke on Trent, if someone doesn't have an economic reason to work there, are these aesthetic factors enough to justify moving to these exotic locations?

Dagenham is 25 minutes from Canary Wharf, about the same as Sydenham. Economically Dagenham has the same pull factors as Sydenham, it just needs some serious regeneration.

I'd agree it still need some regeneration, although it's 34 years since I lived there. It may be the same time to Canary Wharf as from here, but there's an awful lot more of London which is more accessible from here, which I think will justify higher property prices here for a while yet.

And why is North Greenwich not filled with these houses that are in such short supply? 2 minutes from Canary Wharf and yet vast areas of emptiness. I don't think this is another failure of the planning system. There is something else going wrong.

I suspect you are right. There is something else going on, but I hope I've never suggested that the sort of broad brush supply and demand way of looking at property is the whole story - certainly not in the short run. I have the impression that the development of North Greenwich is subject to game-playing by developers. Do you know what the pattern of land ownership is there? What planning permissions have been granted? There has to be a planning context, even if it's not to blame for the failure to develop to date.

[Tim Lund]

No reason why industry of some sort could not return to then Potteries. Has excellent transport links and cheap labour.

Neither of which Sydenham has.

By excellent transport links, I guess you mean the M6. But what matters more is being where 'creative' people are - vitality feeds on itself. The old factors of nearby coal and easy canal access helped sustain Stoke's prosperity, but that was only part of the story. In nearby Birmingham there were relatively few such advantages - a few small coal fields, maybe, but the canal network only came in response to the growth in industry. What mattered to Birmingham was the extraordinary local small engineering culture, with leading manufactures such as Boulton and Watt being just the tip of the iceberg. It was a culture rather like today's German Mittelstand - and thanks to family connections, I can witness it still exists to some extent.

In contrast, London has extremely good public transport, and international links via our airports, and lots of creative people living here and coming to live here. Cheap labour is not a good way to maintain a competitive advantage in a modern economy - you need quality, and you need to pay for it.

[Eagle]

Tim
Valid points

However when mentioning good transport links was refering to goods not people.

If companies are to return manufacturing to UK ( as in happening in USA ). Some of the manufacturing jobs will by nature be lowish paid. But better they are here than overseas

[Tim Lund]

Tim
Valid points

However when mentioning good transport links was refering to goods not people.

If companies are to return manufacturing to UK ( as in happening in USA ). Some of the manufacturing jobs will by nature be lowish paid. But better they are here than overseas

Physically, the best location for goods now in the UK is probably Felixstowe - the scale of the place is mind-boggling. But actually it's people who matter most, and successful modern manufacturing is no longer metal-bashing - it's as much part of the 'knowledge-economy' as IT or any of the creative professions based in London. It's possible to see the same thing happening with food production. I'm not against wage flexibility, but low wages are bad policy - better education to justify decent wages is far more important.

[Eagle]

Tim
I do understa nd your point about Felixstowe. I worked in Logistics for over 40 years.

Despite imports coming through Thamesport, Southampton or Felixstowe the vast majority of imports are distributed through Hub centres based in East or West Midlands.

Of course we want knowledge based companies but if we want more employment and better balance of payments would need to in source a number of manufacturing jobs.
Places like Stoke ideally placed here

[Nigel]

Michael
Must admit I agree. The community freedoms argument is fatuous in that compliant community members who follow process will never compete with developers who usually have no investment , beyond property itself.
In response to Tim's parting shot at Nigel Farage ( a beer and skittles type snub on the rest of us I suspect) I would have to say that Mr F will have done more to reduce housing pressure by effectively compelling the coalition to reduce , and I mean significantly , the amount of people pursuing social housing .
Although Tim is a , a decent cove ,b, very clever and c, very well-meaning , his arguments are only for increased density , against what he sees as sentimental conservation and leading to over-complex worldviews that leave most to despair.
His reference to pressing need to house our younger generations makes me wonder whose younger generations ?
I for one am for arguing for open spaces , best possible architecture and nice shops , pubs and restaurants . Lets let some of the wealthier boroughs with lower crime , deprivation , substance misuse and overcrowding solve their share of the housing shortage.
Good afternoon
Nigel

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Tim Lund]

Thanks Nigel for those kind words, which might apply equally to yourself and Michael. You'll be pleased to know I'm not going to pursue this one for the time being.