Times letters: Bureaucratic barriers to building houses

Sir, Emma Duncan presents an informative but polarised perspective on what she sees as the “stifling regulation” of the UK building sector (“We need to axe red tape to get Britain building”, May 10). Energy efficiency regulations may well add £4,850 to the cost of building a home, but the savings from energy efficiency over the lifetime of the building generally make this a good, and responsible, investment.

In contrast, the absence of appropriate and comprehensive building regulations, the lack of mandatory qualifications for builders and certifications for building companies, the limited remit and weak execution of building control, and the ineffective enforcement of Trading Standards, all add up to a lack of quality in new UK domestic building and renovations that can cost consumers an order of magnitude more than the additional marginal costs that Duncan highlights. Moreover, the bankruptcy rate among builders, rather than being solely due to the “regulatory burden” is frequently the use by builders of weak insolvency regulation enabling them to avoid their obligations and write off their debts. What is needed is better regulation, not necessarily less.
Darran Messem
Windsor

Sir, Emma Duncan correctly lists some of the barriers that volume housebuilders face. As a planner of 50 years’ experience in both the public and private sectors I have been involved with housing provision at many levels. Duncan quotes four years from conception to approval: in fact it is closer to ten. In my local area, developments are starting now that I was involved in original planning discussions in 2008.

The system is broken: the problem lies in the differences and delays caused by individual local planning authorities and the inevitable local political involvement in the planning process. My solution would be to take away the powers of local planning authorities to deal with larger housing developments (say, of more than 25 dwellings) and create a national housing development corporation with appropriate planning powers. These worked effectively after the war in the development of the new towns.
Steve Dance
Planning consultant, Bramcote, Notts

Sir, Emma Duncan calls on the government to encourage private development by lowering the affordable housing requirements. However, developers have already successfully wriggled out of many affordable housing commitments here in Somerset, and our experience is that about two thirds of new-builds are bought by inward migrants from other parts of the UK. The result is that development in our villages and market towns mainly consists of grotesquely expensive houses aimed at downsizers from elsewhere.

What we need is low-cost rural social housing for local people designed by leading architects, not a development free-for-all.
Fletcher Robinson
Trustee, CPRE Somerset

Sir, Emma Duncan overlooks a point recently made by William Hague in The Times: we have nowhere near enough skilled artisans to build these houses. It is time that we switched resources from our overblown universities into good vocational training, and required housebuilders to play their part in this.
John Crofts
Cockermouth, Cumbria

VAT on school fees

Sir, The Independent Schools Council’s data on private school pupils should be viewed with a degree of caution (“Labour’s VAT plans blamed for fall in private school entries”, May 11). That organisation represents about two thirds of independent schools, primarily but not exclusively at the higher end of the fee scale. Many parents concerned at any fee increase owing to Labour’s VAT plans will have the option to “trade down” to less expensive offerings. Indeed, lower-cost private schools are likely to boost their numbers and new entries to the market will take advantage of rising fees elsewhere. It does seem that some parents have been spooked by the messages highlighting a 20 per cent fee increase, even when a proportion of any VAT imposition can be offset and some private schools have built reserves through staggered fee increases since Labour’s plans were announced, while cutting office costs considerably. The sector may look a little different in years to come but Labour’s plans are unlikely to bring about the dire predictions that some promote.
Neil Roskilly
Chief executive, Independent Schools Association 2009-20

Sir, Your report sets out succinctly the challenges facing private schools for when Labour decides to impose this tax. Most private school governing bodies will have had this item on their agendas for a while now. Many of them might well be planning to expand their sixth-form offer to those parents who can no longer afford five years of school fees but who may well opt for the two A-level years.

It could be argued that this is a double-edged sword for the state system as it adds to the burden of accommodating more students up to GCSE while running the risk of depriving them of their brighter A-level students.
Simon Bowes
Tarrant Keyneston, Dorset

Phallocentric peaks

Sir, Like Richard Morrison, I worry about the many tall buildings that already loom over our cities, and the many more that are coming (“We’re soaring to disaster if we keep waving through skyscrapers”, May 10). There are hundreds more in the pipeline for London alone, 583 to be exact. These include a proposed tower above Liverpool Street Station that would encroach on views of landmarks such as St Paul’s cathedral. Another proposed 43-storey building, which has already generated hundreds of objections, will blight views of the Tower of London World Heritage Site and overshadow the Bevis Marks Synagogue. With damaging proposals like these coming in their hundreds, surely now is the time for a more considered approach to tall buildings?

The cumulative effect of tall buildings should be considered, rather than each one looked at separately. Of course our towns and cities should change, grow and flourish, but that can be done without losing what makes them special. Tall buildings, if in the wrong places and poorly designed, can seriously harm our irreplaceable historic environment.
Duncan Wilson
Chief executive, Historic England

3D printer army fix

Sir, Your report that the British Army is finding new ways to get old vehicles back in service (“3D printer gets army’s ageing, damaged fleet back to front”, May 10) will amuse those of us in the vintage and classic car restoration world, as we have been doing this sort of thing for years. The UK has the world’s largest vehicle maintenance and restoration industry, capable of reviving just about any powered vehicle made in the past 130 years. We have huge experience in producing obscure and obsolete components as one-offs or in small batch productions. If the MoD would like to get in touch I could put it in contact with any number of specialists who can tackle its “list of 1,000 components needed”.
Derek Magrath
Vintage Metal; Colwall, Herefordshire

Real A-level grades

Sir, Further to your leading article on predicted A-level grades as a means of university application (“No Brainer”, May 11), when I worked as a sixth-form tutor I had to be back at work by mid-August to deal with any pupils who had missed a grade; my husband, a university admissions officer, was back at work at the same time to help candidates who had missed offers of places for the same reason. The rest of August was taken up with phone calls to and from the clearing house.

Why not do as other countries do and apply after results are known? To achieve this, A-level exams would need to take place in April and May, with marking finished by the end of June and offers completed by early September (surely possible with modern technology). Term could still begin in October and perhaps the saturnalia of freshers’ week could be curtailed to allow more time for teaching and tutorial activities.
Jenny Banks Bryer
Birmingham

Curbing migration

Sir, While doubting the effectiveness of Labour’s plan, I welcome Sir Keir Starmer’s statement on what he would do about the small boats (“Starmer will deploy MI5 to combat Channel crisis”, May 10). However, Starmer is less forthcoming on what he would do about legal migration, which accounts for the vast majority of the unsustainable annual increase in the population of the UK.
Duncan Heenan
Kington, Worcs

Sir, The fatal flaw in Sir Keir Starmer’s immigration plan is that it deals with migrants once they are on our shores. Meanwhile the Rwanda plan is already working before a flight has even left, with asylum seekers fleeing across the Irish border. Others are failing to turn up for their regular review meetings for fear of being detained.
David Jensen
Dorking, Surrey

Renegade lobbying

Sir, Sir Robert Buckland’s disclosure concerning Natalie Elphicke’s visit to him in his capacity as justice secretary to lobby about the location, timing and judge in her husband’s pending trial reflects poorly on him and illustrates the attitude to double standards of our government. It seems it is perfectly OK to sit on this tale of unacceptable lobbying for only so long as the perpetrator is a Tory MP. Only now that she has deserted the sinking ship is it apparently appropriate to disclose her apparent wrongdoing. Why did Buckland and all others present sit on this until now? One law for Tories, another for those outside the tent, perhaps?
James Wood KC
Doughty Street Chambers, London

Older and bolder

Sir, When I turned 80 (letters, May 11) this year February I got a tattoo on my right lower arm. It reads “Nobody really cares”, which is in fact a positive statement, as now I feel totally happy to do, say, wear or behave exactly as I want to. So there!
Vicky Toone
Nuneaton, Warks

Class takes flight

Sir, Truancy (letters, May 11) is nothing new: in 1887 the headmaster of the village school local to Studley Royal estate recorded in his attendance book that during the week of Lord de Grey’s big shoots there were few children in school because “they were needed for [the] beating”.
Rupert Godfrey
Heytesbury, Wilts

Tiresome tussocks

Sir, On military slang, I disagree with your correspondents (May 7, 9 & 10). Every British infantryman knows that babies’ heads are not a nickname for rations but are in fact the solid tussocks of grass found in abundance on most British Army training areas and which are guaranteed to sprain your ankle when encountered on a night “tab” (march). The Staffordshire Regiment soldiers with whom I served would preface the warning “babbies’ heads” with an expletive.
Nicholas Benson
Lancaster

Very late edition

Sir, Hearing that someone had requested to be buried with a copy of his favourite newspaper got me thinking: what would be my wish for my “final” copy of The Times? A lead story about the election of a world leader with both compassion and vision, perhaps; a successfully completed Times2 Crossword, and my last Sudoku, to the level of “fiendish” or above; a mischievous Peter Brookes cartoon; a football report on the promotion of Dorking Wanderers back to the National League. Oh, and a UK weather forecast of sunshine and showers.
Robin Elias
Dorking, Surrey