'Not in any way implying' inserted in the hope that it avoids my becoming involved in litigation as I was amused by a letter in today's Daily Telegraph when comparing the assertion in the last paragraph with that of the signatory.
"SIR – Edward Williams (Letters, September 2) makes a valid point about self-build, but in the Sixties several councils did allocate land for this purpose. The result was the creation of several beautiful estates, with each house different. Suddenly all of this stopped. I have never found out why.
Was there collusion between large house-builders and the government?
Edward Fiddler
Verwood, Dorset"
7 comments:
The "travellers'" shacks are so badly built that they would never have got building consent if this had been applied for. In the interests of elf and safety they should be demolished without compensation.
Ian: Point taken, but sorry that the humour of the post appears to have passed you by.......
Germany and Sweden seem to be the doyens of Self-Build with regular comparisons of quality on German TV. Once the huge margins of National Builders are taken out there is so much less to spend on kickbacks.
The quality of housebuilding in the UK is poor but the margins are glorious. It is astounding what the British are prepared to borrow to buy off-the-peg houses
Edward Fiddler - great name in that context.
Nominative Determinism is alive and well.
I agree with Tom Tom. If British homes were built to German standards private rental would also be a much more attractive option, allowing people to move for work much more easily. It has always been like that in the UK. There were some well-built solid houses built during the 30s, ror instance, but there was a lot of speculative cardboard mock Tudor too.
TT: Right again, as to off the peg houses it seems we always have.
As an aside, I worked for a house-builder once and suggested that they changed the appearance of the houses with, for example, all brick, half-brick half timber clad, top elevations tile clad etc etc. Damn things sold like hot cakes even though they were the same inside. Too often new estates are all the same visually from the exterior.
JH: Ah you caught the humour, then?
C: In suppose so........
CiA: There still is a lot of speculative cardboard mock-Tudor.....
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