Aggy

I mean there are actual philosophers and scholars who can’t agree on a definition of atheism so probably not one to get too worked up about on here! The initial point LYB was trying to make though seems to be correct - the ruling has created no legal precedent to get rid of faith schools or stop faith schools from forcing children to pray in assembly. It has merely established that if a school wants to be ‘secular’ and ban all forms of religion and praying, it can.

Yes

Haven’t really seen much about it but all seems a bit nanny state. Given the number of smokers has almost halved in the past decade and, I imagine, is as low as it ever has been in the younger generations, probably see it as something that won’t get much opposition. Which makes you wonder whether alcohol is a few decades behind. It already results in more cost to the NHS and society than smoking, and is becoming less and less popular with younger generations….

Like the peaceful Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Myanmar in recent years? You and Broadstairs were agitated before you knew the “facts” simply because you saw the suspect didn’t have blonde hair and blue eyes. You stopped caring when you realised the “facts” were that he wasn’t a Muslim terrorist but some Australian bloke with a European surname and mental health issues. I am sure people will “draw their own conclusions” as to why…

So you think Israel should go to war with Iran and the US and Uk should join in?

You’d think the US is now behind the scenes putting a lot of pressure on Israel not to retaliate, certainly not against targets actually in Iran anyway. The Iranian response seemed fairly “reasonable” - they just had one of their embassies flattened and responded with little more than a warning shot. If Israel now do anything to further inflame tensions with Iran, you sort of think we’d all be better off leaving them to it - “architects of their own misery” to use a quote from above…

Certainly can’t be any worse and you’d hope there’d be fewer ‘controversies’ at least. I’m not convinced there’ll be as much change as we would like, partly because there isn’t the money to do it but partly because I’m not entirely convinced by the current Labour Party leadership either.

Understood. The developers building park homes to ‘get round the law changes banning ground rents’ are developers who were unaffected by the ground rent law changes and who were building park homes before those changes anyway. Makes sense.

Yes. Nobody has said they don’t exist. The “not really” was in response to your claim that developers are using park homes to get round the ground rent law changes. You still haven’t shown one example of that. You do though continue to post posts like this.

As for park homes more generally, I’ve already posted my thoughts on them. Are they exploitative? Possibly yes to an extent but for the reason that they need to have some form of income generation to be developed. They are predominantly retirement schemes (both links you posted above operate sites for over 50/55s). One of the main other retirement scheme models sees people buy a long lease for a premium, and then have to sell it back to the developer when they move out (or their estate sells it if they die) for 90 per cent of what they bought it for. Most retirement development schemes need some form of income generation to be viable/to attract investors to fund - if they had to sell up front with no future income generation, the developments wouldn’t get off the ground. So if park homes were unable to charge the fees they do, I suspect there would become even fewer of them The flip side with park homes is that you get to live in something that cost you a lot less upfront than a “traditional” house, which is useful when you’re a retiree downsizing and unable to get a mortgage. As I mentioned though, the reality is that for this reason (and the fact you can’t get a mortgage on one) park homes aren’t close to becoming a solution for the housing shortage. They are though a potential option for building much needed retirement living stock, which in turn would free up residential accommodation.

I suspect you’re back in wind up merchant mode to try and avoid saying you were wrong, as I think you’re probably intelligent enough not to be as confused as your posts suggest. If I owned an off-licence and the government banned pubs and bars in order to stop people consuming alcohol on site, would you suggest my continued use of my shop as an off-licence was trying to get round the law change banning alcohol consumption on-site? Park home developers are unaffected by the ground rent law changes, so don’t need to “get round” the change in ground rent law. Developers of traditional homes are affected by the ground rent changes but are not building park homes to get round the ground rent changes. So one group isn’t and the other doesn’t need to. Park homes also continue to be a tiny percentage of the market and almost exclusively aimed at over 55s- no developers are using them as an alternative to traditional housing because they can no longer charge ground rents. So, I’ll ask again, which developers are developing park homes to get round the ground rent law change as you stated?

That’s just a list of park home operators. Which ones were not operating park homes before the ground rent rules changed?

So… which developers are doing this to get round the changes to the ground rent law? Edit: and I don’t see any excessive pedantry. You claimed developers were getting round changes to ground rent laws by building park homes. Your “evidence” is park home operators who operated park homes before the law changes continuing to operate park homes after. Your claim is simply wrong.

While I agree with your last two sentences, it isn’t just thinking about where you build the houses as such. It’s also whether new jobs can be created in the area and things like whether you can rejuvenate high streets to make it a more appealing place to live. You might not mind a longer commute if you’ve got nice things to do near you at the weekend. Often you get planning issues stopping the first point… Near me recently there was a run down, old council estate whose inhabitants raised all sorts of objections to a proposed development turning an abandoned car warehouse (which was bordered up and frankly just looking a mess) into life science labs and a couple of shops and bits and bobs like that. It was virtually city centre and the estate was on a main road near the university and hospital - so not countryside quiet. Would have created hundreds of jobs (many of which could have been filled by locals) but still got objections. A bit further out, an industrial development on greenbelt land (which I appreciate is a bit more controversial) would have created over 1,500 jobs near a deprived area. One I’ve been involved in in the West Midlands saw a large industrial estate built as well as a large housing development around it - with schools, pharmacies, shops etc. The industrial estate has created thousands of jobs plus those in the schools, shops etc. and the houses are very popular. And then you see city centres and big towns trying to rejuvenate high streets by turning the old abandoned retail into more “activity” based things - can that filter down into the smaller towns? Can there be tax / rates cuts to attract businesses and retailers? Etc etc.

So which developers are getting round the ground rent law change by setting up park homes? So far you’ve only mentioned one park home operator who was operating park homes before the ground rent law changes anyway. And you’ve tried to dismiss the stats showing park homes continue to be a tiny fraction of new builds. There aren’t any are there?

If it’s a residential dwelling “sold” by the grant of a long lease, they can’t charge a ground rent. The only way your examples can charge a “ground rent” is if they aren’t dwellings. You’re talking about pitch fees at mobile park home sites - there is separate legislation which deals with those. Looking at the government’s figures from 2022, around 159k people live in park homes - so around 0.3 per cent of the population. And the majority of those are retirement schemes. The reason I’m mentioning percentages is that the park home sector is tiny. If it was the case that developers were trying to “get round” the law change banning them from granting leases with a ground rent by building park homes on wheels instead, there’d be more park homes. The big house builders aren’t building park homes - and the example of a park home business you’ve provided must surely have been in business since before the ground rent law change if it has got 50 sites (so just continuing to expand its existing business, not changing its practices to try and get round the law change). I haven’t seen anything suggesting developers are trying to get round the ground rent law change in such a way (and worth also noting that a lot of the big house builders had already started moving away from ground rents before the law change given public perception of them). More generally on park homes - the occupant doesn’t own the land. You own the temporary structure on the land. You can’t get a mortgage. They don’t really increase in value so aren’t much of an investment. You also have to pay a chunky commission if you sell. I don’t see it as being a serious solution to the housing shortage more widely. Where it may have some significance is in the retirement sector. A lot of park home sites are already over-55 only - if you’re downsizing, have the spare cash, and don’t really need an investment as such, then they perhaps make some sense.

Strange but interesting! Google says cause unknown - any idea what might have triggered it?

Ah yes an article from 2019 proving your argument that developers are using this to get round a law which came in… after 2019. And your example of being in one park of 300 chalets is absolutely definite proof that modular homes do in fact make up more than <2 per cent of new homes each year. Good arguments.

I’m sure someone will find a graph showing UK avocado consumption during the same period….

Not really. Virtually none of the big house builders use modular (less than 2 per cent of all homes built each year still) and even fewer of those are on wheels…

That’s not really limited to leaseholds though - a freehold can have an estate service charge. Now you can’t charge ground rents on new leases, leasehold will start to go out of favour (except in apartment blocks where it’s necessary). I expect it won’t be too long before they ban ground rents from continuing to be charges on existing leases as well. The current bill is more about having to pay to extend your lease - if you e got a 999 year lease it’s not so much of a issue, but if only 99 then it could be especially as many lenders don’t like leases with less than c.70 years on them.

Snore. Has anyone on these threads ever said Israel shouldn’t exist at all?

I genuinely can’t remember the last time I’ve been on a train back from London that was as you’d expect. Every time for years either mine has been cancelled so I’ve had to get another one, or was crammed because another service had been cancelled and about three trains’ worth of people were cramming onto mine. And let’s not get started on anything going east/west instead of north / south… I only travel by train now if the company is paying and if it’s for a meeting I wouldn’t mind getting out of!

For a team from the last twenty five years or so that I can remember watching us, full backs are probably the weakest position. Drury the obvious shout at left back and probably Aarons at right back. Edworthy? Helveg mentioned above who I was excited about signing but only 20 games. Lappin? Russ Martin I suppose. Whereas up top you’re struggling to get Earnshaw even on the bench and in midfield you’re probably not starting Maddison.

I’d have Green and Ruddy above A. Gunn. A little too young to properly remember B.Gunn. Holt not in Ashton’s class in terms of ability, but I think would have to at least make the bench in an xi I can remember watching.