Legislation must enforce planners and builders to build all new housing to high specification, in terms of low impact on the environment, energy-efficient, sensitively designed for maximum social harmony but, particularly insisting upon the incorporation of wonderful insulation, wood instead of stone, three or four storey instead of a mere short-assed two.
Loss of land cannot continue, small spaces suffocate, shoddy building along with get-rich-quick builders and developers are short-term measures that make the UK an ugly landscape.
To look back for a moment, the design of Georgian houses incorporated a cellar for storage, three floors and more above ground, with interiors designed to be spacious and elegant, unlike the alienating high rises constructed in the 1960s. Terracing was a common feature of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian building, taking up minimum square footage whilst allowing generous space indoors. These old buildings are fetching the highest prices. Rather than advocating a nostalgic re-creation of Georgian architecture, working to those proportions will incorporate the best of previous design with the most advanced energy saving systems.
Houses are being built which incorporate the latest in energy-saving efficiency with low environmental damage, but too few of them. A national building campaign to build upwards instead of outwards will be a confident step forwards. Some of the Georgian and Victorian multi-storey crescents are breathtakingly beautiful so why did this style of building cease? Are there any homes as elegant and gracious as those built to such a bold, sweeping design as the magnificent town houses in London, Earl's Court, Hyde Park are so many other places there, or the Royal Crescent in Bath?
The British national idea of housing needs to alter such that people desire elegant, spacious apartments with wide streets and glorious parks in front for exercise and simply gazing upon. Density housing does not need to be mean little square boxes with an apology for a back yard. Government needs to adopt long term domestic housing policy; local planners need respect and integrity for their own back yards, as in Gloucester and other strictly controlled county planning departments who understand the importance of keeping up standards for the present and the future. It is a sad thought that Cornwall will be soon covered over with housing, 5,000 more to be built in Truro alone - increased from 10,000 at present, soon to look as soulless as Plymouth.
Loss of land cannot continue, small spaces suffocate, shoddy building along with get-rich-quick builders and developers are short-term measures that make the UK an ugly landscape.
To look back for a moment, the design of Georgian houses incorporated a cellar for storage, three floors and more above ground, with interiors designed to be spacious and elegant, unlike the alienating high rises constructed in the 1960s. Terracing was a common feature of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian building, taking up minimum square footage whilst allowing generous space indoors. These old buildings are fetching the highest prices. Rather than advocating a nostalgic re-creation of Georgian architecture, working to those proportions will incorporate the best of previous design with the most advanced energy saving systems.
Houses are being built which incorporate the latest in energy-saving efficiency with low environmental damage, but too few of them. A national building campaign to build upwards instead of outwards will be a confident step forwards. Some of the Georgian and Victorian multi-storey crescents are breathtakingly beautiful so why did this style of building cease? Are there any homes as elegant and gracious as those built to such a bold, sweeping design as the magnificent town houses in London, Earl's Court, Hyde Park are so many other places there, or the Royal Crescent in Bath?
The British national idea of housing needs to alter such that people desire elegant, spacious apartments with wide streets and glorious parks in front for exercise and simply gazing upon. Density housing does not need to be mean little square boxes with an apology for a back yard. Government needs to adopt long term domestic housing policy; local planners need respect and integrity for their own back yards, as in Gloucester and other strictly controlled county planning departments who understand the importance of keeping up standards for the present and the future. It is a sad thought that Cornwall will be soon covered over with housing, 5,000 more to be built in Truro alone - increased from 10,000 at present, soon to look as soulless as Plymouth.
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