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Okay, I look forward to seeing fully argued, well-researched and evidence-based analysis in the journals. Perhaps that will then get through to the policy-makers. In the meantime I hold on to the discourse that it is not a good idea to build relentlessly estate after estate of so-called cheap housing on areas of land that are likely to flood. On the other argument, I know personally lots of people here in Bristol that are doing-up houses. In some cases they are investment jobs for resale and in others they are recreating family houses for living in themselves. It's definitely happening in this city. In South Wales for nearly twenty years there's been a wave of refurbishing old mining houses to bring them up-to-scratch and habitable for modern families. I helped do-up three myself! best Nick In a message dated 24/07/2007 11:48:40 GMT Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes: While I'm not convinced that new-build would be too expensive, a similar point about cost can be made about existing urban structures. A lot of what is empty and derelict is not habitable, and if it is older stock, is unlikely to be environmentally friendly. The cost of renovating existing urban structures might therefore be prohibitive in the manner you suggest. It may be that a significant portion of new accomodation are temporary, portable, and so on in order to work within the various restirctions of cost, sustainablity, location. David -----Original Message----- From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nick James Sent: 24 July 2007 11:15 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: UK flooding - Housing & Population Yes but ... if they did it properly, safely, sensibly it would be too expensive! Therefore with all the constraints including the continued likelihood of flooding on floodplains and the like it is not viable. Let's go back to Ince's point about empty houses within cities. Nick In a message dated 24/07/2007 11:06:07 GMT Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes: Nothing inherently wrong with building on flood plains, estuaries, swamps, bayoux, deltas, fenlands and other wet places. It's more a question of what gets built, how it's built, and the manner of services provided and lifestyles catered to, which is in turn a function of what's allowed under planning law. I would guess that an expanded range of 'waterside' developments would be a developer's dream. Granted that these could not be the usual converted actories or suburban tract houses, but a lower density, lower impact style of building. dp -----Original Message----- From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sam Kinsley Sent: 24 July 2007 10:28 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: UK flooding - Housing & Population [snip] 2) In the green paper on planning to address the serious shortfall in housing presented to parliament yesterday there was a statement that building new housing on flood plains is 'not ruled out':