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Let's Build!: Why We Need Five Million New Homes in the Next 10 Years [Paperback]

James Heartfield (Author)
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Publication Date: 20 Sep 2006
You have been told that the housing market is booming. So why
are there no houses that you can afford being built?
You want to know why house prices have spiralled out of control. House
building is lower than it has been since the Second World War, and there
are not enough homes being built to meet the demand.
You have been told that developers want to concrete over the countryside.
It is not true. No more than one tenth of Britain is developed.
Far from being in short supply, land is going to waste, because the law
stops it from being developed
This book explains why Britain stopped building homes for its citizens to
live in. For too long government policy has been in the grip of officials
who want to stop new building.
Let's Build! explains whay all of the reasons for not building new homes -
the scare stories about the environment, about suburbia, about social
cohesion - are just excuses.

Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: audacity (20 Sep 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0955383005
  • ISBN-13: 978-0955383007
  • Product Dimensions: 24 x 17 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,291,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

From the Publisher

audacity organises authoritative international research, large
conferences on pressing development issues, has a provocative website -
audacity.org - and publishes a dynamic school of writers, public
speakers and photographers. Let's Build! is the first in a new series of
publications

From the Inside Flap

Sponsored by the Modern Masonry Alliance. They develop and
promote masonry construction - the bricks, blocks, and stone; the cement
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modernmasonry.co.uk
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Customer Reviews

3.2 out of 5 stars
4 reviews
3.2 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Let's Build - why you can't afford a house 10 Oct 2006
By Jessie Henderson
Format:Paperback
If you've ever wondered about crazy house-price inflation or why reasonably paid workers can't afford houses in the area, town or country, where they live and work,read Let's Build (it's also very readable and entertaining!) James Heartfield goes through all the reasons why we aren't building enough houses for people to live in, which, of course, also means rocketing prices. There's the planning regulations which are 30, if not 50 years old. There's the green-and-pleasant-land ideas of the planners, the architects and builders on government quangos and the civil servants and members of government also - many enjoy the Georgian- house- in- the- town- and- country- cottage lifestyle themselves. There's the old Town Bad, Country Good idea, even though towns are where 80% of us live. What do we need? 50 million homes in the next ten years,

Heartfield says. And says how it can be done, but first reason has to prevail among government officials, planners and architects. James Heartfield has stood up and said 'The Emperor has no clothes.' A good read for anybody and even more if you're struggling to buy in a booming market that always overtakes you, like in some bad dream where you can't quite catch the train - and perhaps if you're sitting in your house, wondering why you're getting rich on paper but wondering where your children are going to live.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Let's Build! 12 April 2010
By Mr. R. Longley
Format:Paperback
Quite a protracted read with lots of historical "titbits".

I think the veil is well and truely pulled aside on this absurd and damaging statute; "The Town and Country Planning Act 1947".

The guy (James Heartfield) certainly uses the biggest demolition ball he can to refute the so called "purpose" of this, quite frankly, mad legislation.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars A bit misguided... 17 Feb 2008
By NH
Format:Paperback
... But thought provoking nonetheless. James Heartfield believes that the solution to the housing crisis in the UK is to be found in the construction of 5 million plus new homes, at ten to the hectare, over the greenbelt in the south east and doing away with the the planning laws (as we know them), in the process. In making such an argument his is an unusual voice - reflecting a hotchpotch of political opinions, a mixture of thatcherite libertarianism and social democratic optimism.

It is a very readable book, it's argument is sometimes difficult to follow but it does fit together. His main criticism is an attack on the governments policy of restricting the development of greenfield land, in favour of land that is essentially being reused: 'brownfield' sites in planning terms. What he believes this has led to is inner city areas being regenerated at great expense with dubious social consequences - tiny flats, high house prices and cramped urban conditions. He argues that this situation has come about due to an irrational committment to the seperation of 'town' and 'country', the product of a nation dwelling in the past and not looking to the future, and the direction of architects, planners and politicians that people should live on top of each other and take public transport everywhere - political beliefs dressed up in the language of sustainable development and environmentalism that are extremely profitable if you are in the loop.

So far, so good. The problem is that, whilst his radical alternative vision is welcome, it strikes me that it would never work on a practical level.... Read more ›
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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking but flawed 4 Oct 2011
By C. J. W. Owen
Format:Paperback
This book was written in 2006 so since the bursting of the sub-prime mortgage bubble we now have the benefit of hindsight. The drivers for prices were clearly not planning regulations. Nothing changed in planning regulations when prices doubled in 4 years earlier in the decade. The only thing that's keeping prices up is 0.5% interest rates and £200billion of quantitative easing and that is failing miserably. The end result of population growth and whatever construction has or hasn't happened has actually been a steady and clear decline in household sizes over the previous decades rather than the opposite!
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