howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#1
surprised that dover did not get a mention here, we have a lot of low rent properties sitting here empty.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/18/london-homeless-forced-move-hullJan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#2
I wonder how many will want or be able to move out of Greater London to areas of low employment.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
#3
Please don't pounce on me, but I'm sure that London's homeless are are lot more street-wise and savvy than our home-grown homeless.
I'm quite pleased they've gone/going to Hull instead.
Roger
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#4
Surely we could find plenty of jobs for our unemployed planting trees in the Pennines.
This would increase the number of woods, ensure future timber reserves and embellish the country-side.
Wouldn't this be better than just sending them to Hull and elsewhere to sign-on?
This sign-on mentality is no good, it's no good for people's health, it's no good for the economy, and no good for morale.
Planting trees would be healthy, people would earn money and invest it in the economy rather than living off £67 a week JSA, and we'd have something in return,
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#5
they could plant trees in hull alex, just a matter of ripping up the shopping centres.
the problem is not so much current homeless people but those who will be made so when the housing benefit limits come in .
i am surprised that our planning dept is not inundated with proposals to change rundown old houses into rabbit hutches.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
#6
Howard a few people might have to move to cheaper areas. The main losers will be urban landlords whose rental income will tumble.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
#7
We do not want rabbit-hutches, we want good quality houses.
If people are moving to Dover, I'd rather they be people working in London on a good salary and living here where they can spend their money. We don't need any more homeless, let's up our game and beckon higher earners here.
Roger
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#8
not my understanding peter, all the reports from london councils and his majesty the mayor - boris johnson point to a seismic shift in people from the capital.
roger
i don't think we have much of a choice, the demand is for smaller and smaller properties.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#9
I didn't suggest ripping up houses and planting trees in Hull, but planting trees in the Pennines, rather than sending unemployed people to Hull and other cities and towns to sigh on there.
There are plenty of places in the countryside where trees could be planted, not only the Pennines.
No wonder we don't get anywhere in terms of reducing unemployment, because no proposal is ever good enough, or it get's changed into something completely different.
Yawwwwn It's soooo tiring! I give up for tonight!
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
#10
I don't believe that there is a greater demand for smaller and smaller properties - unless by the unemployed and homeless.
We (Dover) should be looking for people who have jobs and well paid jobs; they will want better properties and have a greater disposable income to spend here.
If we say, "we have plenty of tiny boxes come and live here", it will only appeal to a certain part of society and for Dover to improve, it wants less of them and more high earners.
Not many people become high earners without a good education, so having and wanting to have, a good education is most important for any and everyone.
Roger
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#11
Roger, you are right about good education, but we still have to answer the question:
how to give employment to the many unemployed rather than sending them to sign on in Hull and other cities and towns?
This question remains unanswered.
Adding to that, many jobs, such as in factories, on farms and others, do not require any particular standard of qualification, and could be easily taken up by the unemployed.
So if you don't want London sending a few thousand unemployed people to Dover, what do you propose the Government do?
Do you expect them to say: "Oh, you applied for growth point status, and we gave it you, but you don't want unemployed people from London, so we'll make an exception for Dover!"?
A reality check will show that in Dover District, most factory jobs are not available to local people, and the same applies elsewhere in Kent.
So by talking around the subject, we won't solve anything.
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
#12
There are a number of big issues that this forum can't answer.
We didn't get growth-point status to build tiny boxes for single, unemployed people and if did do that, we certainly wouldn't benefit at all.
Even if Dover District cannot supply jobs for all the people, because people tend to spend their disposable income, at or near to where they live, we should still work on attracting high earners to relocate here.
As regards jobs and perhaps work-experience, I do believe that the job I was doing for the Channel Chamber of Commerce was very worth while - the young people thought so too.
I'm not trying to talk around the subject, but there isn't just one answer to the unemployment; people need to have money to spend other than just on essentials, to do that, they need more income, whether through paying less tax or earning more money, or with other benefits like tax credits.
Businesses do need incentives to create jobs, but if no one has the money to buy their products and/or services, there's no point, or less point.
Roger
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
#13
We have to trade on the HS1, under an hour to Stratford.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#14
oddly enough i saw a report earlier that canterbury city council has seen no discernible growth in tourists from london since the arrival of the high speed link.
maybe they have not marketed it properly?
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#15
Why would Canterbury benefit from HS1 it is not on the route.
I wonder if Londoners are thinking of moving into this area with its cheaper housing, my house would be worth at least four times what I paid if it was in London.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#16
Of-course we don't want to build box-houses for London's unemployed, Roger.
As for attracting high earners to relocate here, the question arises, whether such people want to sell their present house and buy one in Dover. Is there a reason why they should move away from their present residence and area of employment and live in Dover instead?
But if some people do want to move, the free market already offers ample possibilities to do so, and high earners can buy a house in Dover or any other Kentish town by simply consulting the estate agents. So it would be both pointless and peculiar for a town or District council to launch a campaign specifically to attract high earners.
Hundreds of other councils could do the same, and even attract high earners away from Dover.
So it would work both ways and might backfire.
This brings us back to the basic point, not how to encourage high earners to sell their property and move to Dover, or Hythe, or Canterbury, or Edinburgh, or Cardiff, or Aldershot, or Plymouth.... but how to find work for unemployed people.
We do have factories in East Kent, some of these are in Dover, but they don't tend to employ local people. So we have many unemployed local people, who can't invest more than their weekly JSA in the economy.
Because London's rent is so absurdly high, housing benefit for unemployed jobseekers in London is far too expensive for the State to pay. Possibly two, three or five times higher than in Dover. This is the problem the State is trying to solve by temporarily transferring the unemployed from London to Hull and elsewhere, where rent is cheaper.
Meanwhile we have enough unemployed local people in Dover District, so if more come from London, they too will be signing on in Dover and competing for the local jobs, many of which go out of principle to non-British citizens.
Attracting high earners to Dover is just talking around the whole topic.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#17
crossed my mind too jan ,maybe it was just a piece of poetic licence from the media?
roger, these very small dwellings are not just for the unemployed but also starter homes for the young.
home ownership now is the lowest in 24 years.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
#18
Yes Jan/Howard, the high speed trains which don't come through to Dover go to Canterbury West and Ramsgate. That's why you have to change at Ashford on half of them.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
#19
I don't disagree about low home-ownership Howard; the problem with this is getting the deposit together, sometimes - most times, involving several thousands of pounds which people simple can't get together.
If they were given 100% mortgages, then a small fall in the (housing) market or a recession, as we are supposed to be moving into, will mean they're in negative equity and that's no good to anyone.
Many properties along the Clarendons and lower end of Folkestone Road are lived in by some young couples, many from overseas (not a complaint, just a comment) and you can see the young husband and wife walking out together pushing a pram or pushchair, so both are unemployed, so neither are earners at all, let alone high earners.
I do appreciate it is very difficult for many of them and they will be unable to rise above their current standard of living, if their income doesn't rise, or they can't keep more of it.
Roger
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,948
#20
peter;
don't know why you would want to use high speed train when you have a local service to canterbury east
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