Skip to main content

Housing

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.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Running ‘till your nipples bleed

An email from a friend of mine arrives; she complains that, at work, she is routinely subjected to gruesome accounts of female colleagues’ intimate medical procedures and gynaecological problems. I am all commiseration because I, too, have had years of listening to workplace chats about periods, childbirth and sex lives. Oh please. Later, I wander off for a walk in the early evening sunshine and it is so silent and so beautiful that I flop down on the grass and lay awhile gazing out over the rolling fields, and the mouth of the river, and fall into a reverie. Two men pass by. A few minutes later sounds of women’s talk float nearer and, by the time the two females of the species draw level with me, I have risen up from my deliciously recumbent position in the meadow, alert and tense, something like a meerkat. “I do feel for her. Going down that IVF route is such an emotional roller coaster. I was never prepared for how terrible it was going to be.” I remain frozen in my meerkat position...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ian McEwan. Amsterdam. London: QPD, 1998

McEwan’s novel about ambition, personal betrayal and revenge features Clive, a modern composer trying to complete a major orchestral work, his friend Vernon, an editor trying to save his ailing newspaper, and Garmony, an unscrupulous right-wing politician on the rise. In common, all three have, in previous years, been lovers of recently dead Molly. They meet at her funeral and the story follows the next few weeks of the men’s lives. Vernon and Clive act as one another’s conscience, each infuriating the other. Which is more important, honesty, friendship and trust or Vernon’s newspaper and Clive’s symphony? The novel presents the difficulties of balancing personal and public morality, the importance of private shame and public reputation, the conflict between taking a moral decision for the greater good, or putting first ones own desires. Not just a simple exposé of a politician with a vulnerable side, Amsterdam is full of double standards and surprises, and takes a long, cynical look a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ralph McTell, Truro, 19 April 2007

Ralph's mates from Pentewan have all turned up in a mini bus to hear him sing and play, and he walks onto the stage looking comfortable; he's amongst friends. He's a big man; very charismatic, with a warm smile and a beguiling aura of powerful gentleness. He's relaxed, we're relaxed, and he sits with his guitar, chatting easily between songs, and playing with an easy familiarity with us, and with his material. His guitar playing is intricate and playful; going from ragtime to blues to folk, and his voice is deep and rich. He comments that he's put together quite a serious programme for the two hours he's on stage; it's true that the lyrics are thoughtful and the subjects serious, but there is light material too; a tune about Laurel and Hardy, and one or two covers of old blues numbers. When he sings Streets of London there are happy sighs and the audience sing along very softly; as softly as a whisper. It feels as intimate as if we were just a few people...
Post a Comment
Read more