CloudHound wrote:A good place to provide homes for people to live in are town centres. There are thousands of sites across the country where dead town centres could be regenerated with affordable homes. Not everyone wants to live in the country.
London is in effect a lot of town centres many of which are now vibrant communities.
Yes and which part of the country is the worst for traffic congestion, overcrowding and pollution? London and the surrounding towns for the commuters that cannot afford to live in London or would like to live somewhere with more green space and fresher air.
Some people love London and some want to be there if they could afford it. Agree not everyone wants to live in the countryside or a town/city centre.
Regeneration in itself would work better in the long term if there was not a growing population that is getting older and the eventual mobility and health issues that many get with old age. The new housing capacity from regeneration would run out eventually with population growth so there still needs to be new houses elsewhere.
My suggestion is to spread out the towns a lot lot further so that they can have their own local economy and jobs and the facilities of other well established towns,. Then as the new towns grow they do not merge into the transport mess that we have in London and the surrounding commuter belt of south east England that is a growing misery to some people resulting in objections to new housing in their local vicinity and commuter/school routes.
Alternative, take a big step and build a new city.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31874886The Egyptian government has announced plans to build a new capital to the east of the present one, Cairo.
Housing Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the project would cost $45bn (£30bn) and take five to seven years to complete.
He said the aim was to ease congestion and overpopulation in Cairo over the next 40 years.
It will be interesting to see what effect that has. I have not read the Egyptian plan, but there was no mention on the news of a need to build houses over airfields.... why bother with a number of "garden villages" when the housing demand can fill a new city?