So, currently at Centerparcs, we come once a year for a family reunion. We usually get the cheapest, most basic accommodation which is still very nice. Obviously as a holiday it’s not a cheap option but as a building the lodges/chalets are really solid, have everything you need, and blend in with their surroundings. They are warm in winter, cool (ish) in summer. And there’s a Centerparcs in the Lake District so it’s not a weather thing.
So I often wonder why we don’t follow their lead and create more wooden, single storey buildings rather than ugly brick ones that are a blot on the landscape. I was told recently that new builds now only come with a 25 year warranty and are not designed to last much longer. So why don’t we just build wooden ones instead?
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Most of the cost is the land, and they are not designed for longevity. You might as well build American style trailer parks if you want to go down that route.
because they need to be maintained more than brick ones, and nobody would do it and they would look like shit after a few years
And you get a lot less capacity per unit of land. You can have 10 lodges or 100 flats in the same land area.
Although new buildings should have more trees and bushes planted around them.
all those middle class types would ruin the countryside for peasant, farmer and aristocrat alike?
Houses are cheap to build. Land on which to put them is expensive.
Whoever told you that recently really doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
You can live in a park home. It’s an increasing popular retirement plan. The homes are factory built and often 2 halves put together on site atop a simple foundation, some wiring and piping connected.
There’s a a few issues, like with static caravans.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/park-homes
Don’t you think we should be building more Center Parcs for holidays, so that the actual housing we have is available for locals to buy at an affordable price? Heavy sanctions on second homes in popular areas.
“Why don’t we build more houses which suit my personal taste?”
A 25 year guarantee absolutely does *not* mean that new build houses are only intended to last that long.
You mean like Jaywick?
The lodges (at least at Sherwood) are brick built but have been wooden cladded.
There’s a few places I know that have been built around a green and the houses look onto it.
So a very mini center parcs.
Only thing is you need a committee to run the place and organise grass cutting etc etc. It gets political.
It amazes me how much people pay to go to CP and cycle and walk everywhere.
It then amazes me how much people complain about their local council putting in cycling and walking provisions.
Sadly I don’t know of any housing developments with a lazy river.
It’s much more efficient land use to build houses with more than one storey. Wooden buildings don’t last as long as brick and need more repair.
They did something like this for homeless people on the outskirts of Edinburgh a few years back. Little chalet things about the size of a small static caravan all arranged on a plot of disused land, cleaned up and sorted out. I think it worked quite well, from what I read about it.
There wouldn’t be enough diversity
What you are describing is wooded suburbia. It is neither good for getting the units required to solve the housing crisis not does humans living in manicured lawns and forests enhance biodiversity
If you love nature the best thing you can do is live in a huge tower and leave nature the fuck alone (for the most part)
So a lot of houses especially modern houses are timber framed, they just have a masonry outer leaf, now there are those that have timber cladding and rain screen but more of a minority but getting larger as the thicknesses required for the higher insulation levels of modern houses are getting this to be more common (at least the work I’ve done).
Ones on stilts well you end up needing steel due to needing them to last 60 years under the regulations (with maintenance) and then I’ve done those with screw piles which end up being no cheaper as it’s more bespoke suppliers whereas masonry loadsa guys know how to chuck them into the ground.
New builds come with a 10 year warranty but will last hundreds of years with proper maintenance. Who told you they will only last 25 years? 😂
You are assuming our housing shortage is due to construction costs/issues. It isn’t. It’s caused by planning/local government issues.
Nobody would bother going to Center Parcs if it was just like home.
As all of the above plus they aren’t built to maximise living space. Look at housing estates and the amount of housing that’s crammed in. If we had fairly limitless land like the US then it would be more viable.
I thought this was going to be from an urban planning angle, in which case I would have said yes that integrating homes with nature, amenities and car free zones is definitely something I would be up for. The buildings themselves not so much though.
Centerparcs chalets are great if you’re living out of a suitcase but if you moved into one with your possessions I reckon you’d quickly find they would be incredibly small with nowhere to store anything.
Clacton on sea was a holiday village that got turned into permanent housing.
It’s one of the worst places to live in the UK.
They’re bloody breezeblock underneath
Or atleast on the one I was in.
Centreparcs is not the standard we should aspire to. There are quality green homes out there , I agree we should do more of those .
I’d rather brick, but would be happy with a layout like a centreparcs though, new estates are shockingly poorly planned
New build warranties are only 10 years – not because houses aren’t expected to last more than 10 years, but because homes all need regular maintenance (some more so than others) and if you’re naff at maintaining your home you could have issues at say 15 years which are completely unrelated to the standard the property was when it was built.
Also, not all components have the same life and eg depending on the material you might need to repair or replace the roof or part of the roof, whilst the rest of the structure is fine.
Because the purpose of the housing market in Britain is not to provide good housing
New builds aren’t designed to only last 25 years. Any building, with care, will last many many decades. True, new build quality is sometimes dubious but they are generally going to last a long time.
The British, and that includes all parts of these islands like their own private space and I can’t imagine Center Parcs with gardens. That said your idea could work with a financial model that did not favour a remote landlord yet was very strict with occupants who did not contribute to what would be a very prescriptive maintenance regime. I can imagine the complaints about service charges this would generate.
Because if you have enough money to buy the land and build on it, in a place where people would buy permanent dwellings, you could make far more money making a new build housing estate.
Plenty of random housing estates pop up in the middle of fucking nowhere.
But they sell because they are on main roads and people can commute to work and buy a “real house”
It be amazing, I would live somewhere like that in a heartbeat.
But just cant imagine theres a market there when “generic new build housing estate on commuter road” is a viable option for land development
Because if you have enough money to buy the land and build on it, in a place where people would buy permanent dwellings, you could make far more money making a new build housing estate.
Plenty of random housing estates pop up in the middle of fucking nowhere.
But they sell because they are on main roads and people can commute to work and buy a “real house”
It be amazing, I would live somewhere like that in a heartbeat.
But just cant imagine theres a market there when “generic new build housing estate on commuter road” is a viable option for land development
Some distant family friends of mine once did live in a place like that. But I never went to that home.
Point is, these places do kind of exist, but they are rare and very exclusive.
“We” don’t build anything. Profit driven development companies do.
I’m pretty sure they are wood clad concrete block structure. I’m also not sure how much they cost to heat.
Are they actually wooden? I always figured they just have wooden panels on them, they weren’t always like that and I doubt they knocked down to rebuild.
Because people can’t do the bare minimum to look after brick ones, that need absolutely fuck all doing to them apart from maybe re-pointing once every 50 years. What makes you think they’re going to look after one that has the potential to start rotting and getting wood worm within 5-10yrs.
Sure you can mitigate a lot of potential rot by having the contractors actually do decent work, but unless you’re personally overseeing the cost of the build, they’ll just do whatever is cheapest which means an absolute appalling job.
25 year guarantee is very different from a 25 year lifespan. they will last much longer.
I understand the privilege in what im about to say – butties can live in a small teo bed house for a week, but when there is 4 of us with 2 permanent remote workers and kids with toys and space I would always choose my larger two floored home for space any day of the week.
amazing
I do think people should be allowed to build their own communities similar to this. I know so many people who would love to and be much easier for them to afford to buy some land and build a cabin to live in, doing it with several people to spread the cost of water connection and such. Rules would have to be in place for maintenance and clearance if no longer in use, but it doesn’t seem an entirely far fetched idea if that’s how people choose to live. It would be more affordable and many people prefer to live a little closer to the land and in communities with others who want the same.
It’s almost impossible to build and live in a tiny home in the UK, sad really. I’d rather a log cabin that goes when I die than a dingy, mouldy flat in a city centre, if that’s all I could afford.