There are some stories that almost leave me speachless, and this is one of them.

According to insurers hundreds of thousands of homes could be uninsurable and uninhabitable unless stricter planning controls are introduced. The Association of British Insurers say a third of the three million new homes the government wants to see by 2020 will be built on flood plains . It said 13 major developments have been passed, despite Environment Agency advice on flood risk in the past year. Seven of the sites, including a new caravan park and a development of bungalows, are deemed to be at high risk from flooding.

At what point are people going to realise that building on floodplains is total madness? Or is it a case the govenment and developers being in bed together and to hell with the environment?

Well spoken... and i feel the same..total madness, i dont think they think further than their yearly budget targets and the revenue that it brings in until its too late, and then its out of their hands.

There are some stories that almost leave me speachless, and this is one of them.

According to insurers hundreds of thousands of homes could be uninsurable and uninhabitable unless stricter planning controls are introduced. The Association of British Insurers say a third of the three million new homes the government wants to see by 2020 will be built on flood plains . It said 13 major developments have been passed, despite Environment Agency advice on flood risk in the past year. Seven of the sites, including a new caravan park and a development of bungalows, are deemed to be at high risk from flooding.

At what point are people going to realise that building on floodplains is total madness? Or is it a case the govenment and developers being in bed together and to hell with the environment?

You should live in the United States! It's a given that people want to live in floodplains. They buy their way onto coastlines.

When the floods hit, or the coastlines erodes, they whinge and complain. Everyone pays...

Why would anyone want to rebuild New Orleans right where the old city was? But they do.

Kingfisher

It is incredible that after all the floods there have been in recent years, that the government is thinking of building millions more on flood plains. There will be nowhere for the water to drain away when the floods hit and it will just sit in the built up areas. Millions of damage will be done and then it will be paid for out of tax payers money!

The problem is that the Government is hell bent bound on building around 200,000 homes a year. Half the reson for this is that Margaret Thatcher's Government sold off all of the council houses and then never built any affordable housing...so everyone has to buy a house, which drives demand, which drives up inflation...which makes it impossible for us to achieve parity with european interest rates...so we can't join Europe fully! The Treasury's Barker Report and Review by Kate Barker more or less admits this...John Prescott was even quoted saying that the Green Belt was a Government policy and he intended to build on it! Thank God he haas gone.

It does seem like the problem comes from setting ridiculously high targets which are never going to sensibly be met. It is a problem though because there are so many families who are finding it difficult to get homes. Surely there must be a better way than building on flood plains, and even worse, green belts?

It's a very difficult issue in my opinion. The Government targets originally identified in The Treasury's Barker Report and subsequent Barker Review talks about 200,000 new homes every year for 20 years! I think we have achieved is about 160,000 in one year! In 2002 it was the first time so few houses had been built since about 1947! (About 127,000 I think?) One of the drivers of this is the need for affordable housing - to replace the council houses sold by the Thatcher Government in the 1980's and the fact that few affordable homes were built in a decade.

I believe the big questions are - what is the Government obsession with building so many homes. My hypothesis is that if they can dilute the number of UK homes the price will fall so that interest rates can drop without creating rising inflation which will then enable us to join the European monetary system fully. Until we achieve parity on both of these we won't be able to join.

So this raises the point do any of us particularly want to join a European superstate? Not I! Particulalrly if this leads to us having to build all over the Green Belt, cram more homes into existing settlements, convert industrial buildings and tear up woods!

End of mild rant!

I agree totally with all that is said here, but also surely some of the responabilty must lay with the house buyers.
I am sure if i found out that a house was built on a flood plain i wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, which you would probobly need, so if people started using there brains and didn't but these houses, surely that would make the developers look at other places.
Hopefully not other green belt areas and areas of importance to widlife.

Yes you are tight...consumer demand is the best way to show the developers what we think. Maybe though the key is deciding what is really important...not all all areas of the Greenbelt is actually all that attractive....or full of rare animal life....perhaps allocating areas where proper building could take place is a a more pragmatic way forward. The greenbelt was started as a concept back in the 1950s...perhaps a really big change needs to take place - because I don't much like all of these infill plots in towns being built on....look at places like Croyden...they are awful...Milton Keynes was a totally new development on a greenfield site? Or maybe we just stop pretending and stop building...and people have to stop coming here from Eastern Europe?

Tim

I can only think that people who buy houses on a flood plain either don't realise that is the case, or simply have no other options. We all know it's a nightmare for first time buyers at the moment, so you can't be too harsh on people who are buying.