RE: Just had a cheeky little7 Nov 2019 19:55
Love_You, interesting points you make and I have to agree. When I first became a home owner I could claim MIRAS on the first £30,000 of my mortgage, but then again I could only borrow 3 times my salary. It was very difficult then to make the payments notwithstanding interest rates approaching 15%. Years later you could self assess your ability to pay for a mortgage, concocting figures to justify the loan, plus at the same time there were lenders offering better than 100% mortgages. When times got tough then inevitably there were people who couldn't manage the payments. I also remember products like pension mortgages and a considerable number of people that did interest only mortgages in the hope that property prices would increase year on year, enabling them to pay off the loan years later when they downsized.
I've never known such poorly maintained roads and kerbs and pavements and filthy streets. Roads are patched rather than resurfaced, everywhere you park you have to pay and in the north, so many buses and trains are antiquated, delayed or just simply cancelled. For people who don't have cars their journeys to and from work must sometimes be repetitive nightmares.
I look at new build houses and so many of them resemble shoe boxes. Tiny gardens, no drives and limited spaces for children to play. House builders seem to love block paving, presumably as it's fairly quick and cheap to lay, but rapidly becomes an eyesore when it settles through use. There's certainly money in house building and I think Persimmons makes approaching 25% margin on each property. Who would want to build affordable housing when the bigger profits are elsewhere.
I've met and dealt with many foreign workers over the years and have to say nearly every one has been courteous and hard working. But I've also never seen such congestion on our roads and railways and people quick to anger. There's also a lack of manners that often prevails, leading to rudeness and sometimes violence. Watching Parliament and politicians shows they certainly don't set standards as their language is decidedly a few rungs lower than it used to be. The House of Commons has certainly become the House of Clowns.
The population growth figures I gave in an earlier post were from official sources, not my own concoction. That rate of growth is frightening as we all can see how our infrastructure has hardly changed. We can blame whoever we like but when labour is plentiful then wages will inevitably be suppressed and consequently many will be unable to afford their first homes. It may suit some sections of our society to want wholly open borders but the consequences and impact on our infrastructure are plain to see. There is a limit and a point at which government has to exert control and acknowledge that our land can never grow in area and we collectively have a responsibility to limit how much this growth carries on.
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