In todays news...

[gremlin]

What's wrong with just firing up the barbecue and inviting friends over..?

[ZRX61]

I wonder if it's time to rename the vast majority of wars since 1914 "The 109 Year War"? How many fucking times are we going to rehash the result?

[ZRX61]

I can't understand why no one wanted to marry her, she's not totally batshit crazy...much.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-67084850

Looks like Lady Campanula Tottington

[Dodgy69]

Sir Keir gonna kick start the house building amongst other wonderful things. Around here I doubt they could build any quicker if they tried. Taking the piss I say.

[Potter]

Sir Keir gonna kick start the house building amongst other wonderful things. Around here I doubt they could build any quicker if they tried. Taking the piss I say.

Yep, he said he'll ignore any resistance by local residents if they don't want a brand new housing estate on their doorstep and bulldoze through regardless - that should win him loads of votes

[Count Steer]

It's bizarre, if he/his advisers think that taking planning decisions away from local authorities etc (well, more than the current appeal process) and giving developers carte blanche, they've been at the Kool Aid.

They seem to be building as fast as they can get labour and materials anyway. (Not that there's much going for less than £950k. I've got a photo of a place that's under construction on a development not too far away. It looks like they've taken design inspiration from a public toilet. Looked up the asking price for that type...just under £1M. No front garden, small back garden and it's about 1.5m from being a semi-detatched.

I'll dig out the pic.

[Count Steer]

Here y'go


The darker patches between floors are where they punched holes in the walls to lift the cavity wall insulation up again. I think they subsequently removed and rebuilt the front elevation completely. Other houses appear to be completely clad in black recycled plastic tiles of some sort.

I suppose the neighbours are happier with them than if they'd put 'affordable' housing up.

[Potter]

Those sorts of new build exec housing estates sell like hot cakes, and to be fair it's what we chose when our kids were young.
We wanted a nice estate where the kids could all socialise, the houses were all reasonably expensive so it kept riff-raff out, energy efficient, no maintenance because they're new and close to town for work.

We're old now and want the opposite, well away from any estates, old house with character and rural landscape.

[Count Steer]

Those sorts of new build exec housing estates sell like hot cakes, and to be fair it's what we chose when our kids were young.
We wanted a nice estate where the kids could all socialise, the houses were all reasonably expensive so it kept riff-raff out, energy efficient, no maintenance because they're new and close to town for work.

We're old now and want the opposite, well away from any estates, old house with character and rural landscape.

Yup. Everything that's been completed is occupied. It's on the edge of the new country park so they know 'Phase 2' won't suddenly appear and the location generally isn't bad at all. The new places on the other side of the park are much nicer designs though and much less densely packed. (They're all on the flood plain though, but the others were all tanked and have shuttable vents etc). Wouldn't even mind one of the others myself.

If anyone thinks house building isn't happening they need to visit Horsham, they've pretty much added a New Town onto it. I suppose things aren't the same everywhere though. If there are jobs/££ things will sell.

[Rockburner]

Those sorts of new build exec housing estates sell like hot cakes, and to be fair it's what we chose when our kids were young.
We wanted a nice estate where the kids could all socialise, the houses were all reasonably expensive so it kept riff-raff out, energy efficient, no maintenance because they're new and close to town for work.

We're old now and want the opposite, well away from any estates, old house with character and rural landscape.

Yup. Everything that's been completed is occupied. It's on the edge of the new country park so they know 'Phase 2' won't suddenly appear and the location generally isn't bad at all. The new places on the other side of the park are much nicer designs though and much less densely packed. (They're all on the flood plain though, but the others were all tanked and have shuttable vents etc). Wouldn't even mind one of the others myself.

If anyone thinks house building isn't happening they need to visit Horsham, they've pretty much added a New Town onto it. I suppose things aren't the same everywhere though. If there are jobs/££ things will sell.

The Broadbridge Heath estate at Horsham (Wickhurst Green I thin they coined it as), was about 2,000 houses. The new estates north of Horsham are going to be 4,000+ houses. They're promising a new train station to serve the area (the estates will basically join Horsham to Crawley), but they keep changing where they're planning to put it!

[Count Steer]

Those sorts of new build exec housing estates sell like hot cakes, and to be fair it's what we chose when our kids were young.
We wanted a nice estate where the kids could all socialise, the houses were all reasonably expensive so it kept riff-raff out, energy efficient, no maintenance because they're new and close to town for work.

We're old now and want the opposite, well away from any estates, old house with character and rural landscape.

Yup. Everything that's been completed is occupied. It's on the edge of the new country park so they know 'Phase 2' won't suddenly appear and the location generally isn't bad at all. The new places on the other side of the park are much nicer designs though and much less densely packed. (They're all on the flood plain though, but the others were all tanked and have shuttable vents etc). Wouldn't even mind one of the others myself.

If anyone thinks house building isn't happening they need to visit Horsham, they've pretty much added a New Town onto it. I suppose things aren't the same everywhere though. If there are jobs/££ things will sell.

The Broadbridge Heath estate at Horsham (Wickhurst Green I thin they coined it as), was about 2,000 houses. The new estates north of Horsham are going to be 4,000+ houses. They're promising a new train station to serve the area (the estates will basically join Horsham to Crawley), but they keep changing where they're planning to put it!

Yup. Broadbridge Heath was quite a small place, although the business park across the road was there it was nicely kept apart by the Horsham/Guildford Road. (I have to visit Halfords and the DiY place every now and again + the car dealership on the roundabout). Now they seem to have built or be starting to build on every acre of land around it all...with a major dual carriageway running through the middle. It's like 'New Horsham'.

Good idea with the new station though, the old one's now in the wrong place and the parking is pants!

[Dodgy69]

Did Sir K mention more doctors and nurses, more NHS dentists, (ours is going private inJanuary), more help for the poor, more teachers, more doctors, more hospitals, more prisons, more road investment, tighter border control and some nice juicy tax cuts.

[irie]

Those sorts of new build exec housing estates sell like hot cakes, and to be fair it's what we chose when our kids were young.
We wanted a nice estate where the kids could all socialise, the houses were all reasonably expensive so it kept riff-raff out, energy efficient, no maintenance because they're new and close to town for work.

We're old now and want the opposite, well away from any estates, old house with character and rural landscape.

Yup. Everything that's been completed is occupied. It's on the edge of the new country park so they know 'Phase 2' won't suddenly appear and the location generally isn't bad at all. The new places on the other side of the park are much nicer designs though and much less densely packed. (They're all on the flood plain though, but the others were all tanked and have shuttable vents etc). Wouldn't even mind one of the others myself.

If anyone thinks house building isn't happening they need to visit Horsham, they've pretty much added a New Town onto it. I suppose things aren't the same everywhere though. If there are jobs/££ things will sell.

Not difficult to see what's going to go wrong there.

[irie]

Did Sir K mention more doctors and nurses, more NHS dentists, (ours is going private inJanuary), more help for the poor, more teachers, more doctors, more hospitals, more prisons, more road investment, tighter border control and some nice juicy tax cuts.

It'll all go tits up and the Gen Z's will be up in arms about it being someone else's fault. But Starmer et.al. are obviously trying to avoid the disastrous 1992 mistake of saying where the money will come from.

[demographic]

Did Sir K mention more doctors and nurses, more NHS dentists, (ours is going private inJanuary), more help for the poor, more teachers, more doctors, more hospitals, more prisons, more road investment, tighter border control and some nice juicy tax cuts.

Dunno, but he did mention investigating government ministers corruption and holding them to account.
I'm all for that cos the Conservatives might do the same when they eventually get into power again.
With luck doing that might lessen the industrial scale of governmental corruption we've been seeing with the free ports, covid PPE contracts and HS2 land buying and selling.

One can only hope eh?

[MingtheMerciless]

Those sorts of new build exec housing estates sell like hot cakes, and to be fair it's what we chose when our kids were young.
We wanted a nice estate where the kids could all socialise, the houses were all reasonably expensive so it kept riff-raff out, energy efficient, no maintenance because they're new and close to town for work.

We're old now and want the opposite, well away from any estates, old house with character and rural landscape.

Yup. Everything that's been completed is occupied. It's on the edge of the new country park so they know 'Phase 2' won't suddenly appear and the location generally isn't bad at all. The new places on the other side of the park are much nicer designs though and much less densely packed. (They're all on the flood plain though, but the others were all tanked and have shuttable vents etc). Wouldn't even mind one of the others myself.

If anyone thinks house building isn't happening they need to visit Horsham, they've pretty much added a New Town onto it. I suppose things aren't the same everywhere though. If there are jobs/££ things will sell.

The Broadbridge Heath estate at Horsham (Wickhurst Green I thin they coined it as), was about 2,000 houses. The new estates north of Horsham are going to be 4,000+ houses. They're promising a new train station to serve the area (the estates will basically join Horsham to Crawley), but they keep changing where they're planning to put it!

It's already called Crawsham (Horshley was too close to Horley).

[Dodgy69]

They ain't arf good at saying what we want to hear. Thing is, after a lifetime you get to realise it's all bollox. Look out of the window.

[Count Steer]

It's already called Crawsham (Horshley was too close to Horley).

There were armed police looking for a stabby sort of person in Horsham recently.

Nextdoor.com exploded in accusation and counter-accusation that gangs from Crawley were invading Horsham or gangs from Horsham were invading Crawley. I was impressed by the number of people that wanted to tell the world how lovely, peaceful and generally bonzer Crawley is.

(Mind you, having spent an evening in central Horsham a while ago, they may have a point!).

[irie]

So what is Israel going to do in Northern Gaza after (presumably) civilians have evacuated to the south?

FWIW (which as I said previously is probably not very much) what I think they're going to do is a variation of what the Russians did in Mariupol.

Under Northern Gaza there is a huge labyrinth of underground tunnels which must contain large numbers of Hamas fighters and communication and supply systems. It would be suicidal for IDF forces to try to clear out these tunnels. So what I think the IDF will do is, after having evacuated as many remaining civilians and hospitals as possible, raze the buildings to the ground. Then sit and wait for those in the tunnels to run out of food, water and other supplies. Then as they surface if they surrender take them prisoner, if they come out fighting kill them. There are obviously many underground supply routes into Northern Gaza but these could be closed down as they are discovered.

Or flood the tunnel system perhaps, but they'd all have to be interlinked ...

[MingtheMerciless]

They’ve been using bunker busters on the tunnel systems (according to the Twitter/X link I watched on SNAFU-Solomon’s blog).