Why is there so much house building in Sussex?

Matthew Holdsworth is a planning Officer, and although this is not his borough, and only his personal views, I ask him to give an opinion on why there is so much house building and development in Sussex.

Please excuse the soft focus of the video. Due to a blunder, I reset the camera lens when adjusting the framing and the footage came out somewhat blurred. I hope this doesn't affect your enjoyment of this presentation too much.

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[portcullis]

I travelled to Sussex (from N Yorkshire) in June 2016 to look for orchids and rare butterflies. A beautiful, well wooded county, but carved up and despoiled by over-development. No matter how rural or wooded the scenery, it always felt like I was within a mile or so of the nearest busy 'A' road. Such a shame.
Oh, for a time machine, so I could go back to pre-War England, if only for a day!

[MrGreatplum]

I hope it came across ok - I hadn’t prepared for this at all as we did this a bit last minute.

[glennswalks]

Hi Richard it not just in Sussex they are Building everywhere where I live here in South Yorkshire Hundreds of new Houses And they hardly Building Houses for Homeless People or Poor People more And more People are coming to live here from outside of my Town I live near the M1 And Traffic now is Terrible it won’t be long before our Beautiful Countryside will be gone for good . atb Glenn

[MrNas]

Very constructive and informative Matthew. Building new homes is one thing, but building new homes without taking social responsibility (schools, shops, social outlets, locations NOT dependent on car ownership and use) is quite another. Without firm legislation, money will always win and everything is built to a price, not a standard. Unfortunately, because of how the political system works at national and local level, there is very little chance change will come anytime soon ☹.

[shaunlaverick]

Matthew is brilliant as ever.it's always interesting when he is in your videos and very informative.excellent video Richard.

[jlwrailton]

I with others have been fighting in Pagham to stop a development which will have a massive impact on very special. Nature. Looking forward to you coming across in Feb.

[emissivity]

Excellent input from Mathew and was full of good information put across in a really well informed you.

[tw]

Really interesting video with many good points made. Broadbridge Heath seems to be enlarging a lot. I've also noticed just queuing to get into Worthing after Findon takes much longer than only a couple of years ago. Matthew mentioned about Japan and I agree. Some of the countryside there is starting to have abandoned houses. Thanks for the video Richard and Matthew. 👍🏻

[CosmicClaire]

I grew up in Sussex and when I go back I find the congestion unbelievable. The coastal strip is now so crowded as to make it unpleasant, not to mention the increased traffic. If people are living with their parents until they are nearly thirty then this must be new people. The new people are mostly 'White Flight' from the even more congested cities, where the immigrants are settling.
I don't blame the immigrants, it's been too easy and too desirable for them to come here, why wouldn't they take these opportunities? Tony Blair, and most of his successors have flooded our country with too many immigrants, and too many not even from cultures who will readily assimilate, more like many who want to change our culture into the same they came from.
We can only hope that Brexit will lead to some better control of immigration. I have been pleased to hear the new government talk about employing British people people first before taking immigrants. It's obvious, unless you want to destroy the country for a globalist nightmare agenda the way that Bliar and the globalist EUSSR have tried to do.

[richm]

"Children" are living with family into their 20s and beyond now . The new housing estates are not being built for them to buy or rent cheaply from what I can see .
Many of these developments are done by large developers . and money probably talks . I doubt they are bothered about heritage or community, and will build whatever and wherever they can get away with.

[darrenrobertdendy]

Quite liked the soft focus
It’s like you’re both in a rom com😂
Great informative video btw👍🏻

[haroldofcardboard]

fascinating and very interesting. something ive been reading up and thinking about for several years now. as a native who visits frequently its stunning to witness the ever growing changes. ive also been very interested in planning departments across the uk and to discover that the lovely matthew is a planning professional himself is particularly cool and interesting to me. oh the things id love to discuss with him. i really appreciate his insights and thank you both for this video guys. all the best harold :)

[georgetimperley]

Interesting video, Mathew has a great job as a planner! And therefor lots of knolage on the new build invasion evidently. It's nice to hear some of the reasons this is happening. Well done you 2.

[CosmicClaire]

The park opposite where my grandparents used to live in West Bromwich has recently been built on.
It made me very sad to see this on Google Earth. They lived in a very small bungalow for many years and the open green must have given them a quality of life which will now be absent for the people living there.

[paulpj]

Thank you Matthew and Richard for this interesting topic. There are so many mass new builds in West Sussex there are lots. In London they are cramming them into a single property. Our old Grade 2 listed Terraced Victorian house is now 3 separate properties and are so expensive. Old business shops, schools and pubs etc. being converted into flats or private residences, it's been going on for years. I was aware of the situation in Japan.

[robertbaxter]

Very interesting. Matthew is certainly very knowledgeable. I don't think this is just down south though there are loads of new builds going up where I live too

[dentistry]

Billingshurst was a lovely village when I moved here and there was a lovely walk through the woods to a field for dog walking, all obliterated now with ugly housing, it’s a shame. If they built pretty thatched cottages it wouldn’t be so bad but it’s all so ugly.

[fraserhardmetal]

This is happening all over the country. I have noticed this more in the last ten years or so - particularly after the 2008 financial disaster.

This is an incredibly lucrative activity for the housebuilders; councils ( council tax ) and the government ( stamp duty, vat, jobs etc ). It also ticks all the boxes for the banking system in terms of risk and collateral. Bricks and mortar, property in general, are seen as the acme of investment and profitability.

Long term, property has seen an uninterrupted moneterial rise, with every indication it will continue.

No wonder companies like Persimmon have bought up large tracts of land all over the country, speculatively, to ensure continuity of future supply of building land, even where there is no planning permission ( greenbelt land ).
Such is this insatiable greed, houses have been built in unsuitable areas ( flood plains ) and with scant regard of the effect on the locality's infrastructure to support the
development - services, schools, doctors; groundwater drainage etc.
Of course, this has happened with the total complicity of planners, councils and government. Houses are cash cows that can be milked for years, council tax, vat, job creation, and satisfying the manifesto promises of availability of housing.

I work countrywide and notice all this development is essentially of one type - "Executive Homes" with a cursory nod to the less well off with a few "Mews" type terraces shoehorned in to satisfy the affordable obligation.

My home is in a semi rural village that had changed little apart from some council housing after ww2 and then a small private development in the seventies. In the eighteen years I have been here over 700 homes have been built - out of that, about 50 are so called affordable housing, with no council development whatsoever. This has happened on previously greenbelt land even when there has been undeveloped brownfield land readily available.

The planning system is not fit for purpose - residents are routinely ignored and their quality of life destroyed by greed, jobsworths and corruption.

Unfortunately our system of monetary capitalism will continue to perpetuate this, unless we wake up and re-invent the entrepreneurial ethos of the Victorians where infrastructure, manufacture and wealth creation enfranchised the population to self sufficiency and prosperity.
We need to kick out the money juggling, casino mentality that pervades all, and strike a long term investment in sustainable wealth creation, that is holistically sympathetic to the environment and our well being.

Otherwise our future is looking very bleak indeed.

[CosmicClaire]

The government needs to make policies which encourage birth rates in the indigenous English people, but they can't do that without cries of 'waythithst' and 'xthenophobe' from the SJDubyas.
Tony Bliar is the principle culprit for the destruction of our nation, Brown, Cameron and May continued that dreadful policy. Ironically for them this may be a large part of why we voted for Brexit, and why we voted for it in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and twice in 2019.
Will we ever recover? I don't know, but at least we now control our own country and don't have to take orders from the Fourth Reich any more. Or is the EUSSR, USSR mk 2.0?

[ShanghaiGoat]

Haywards Heath Golf course may be having 15, 000 plus houses built upon it. It's not just about the number of houses, but the roads and infrastructure too.