HOMES FIT TO LIVE IN

Building Regulations To Require Higher Building Standards For Sound-Proofing, Bathrooms, Space and Privacy.

People want and need a place and space in life where they can relax, free from interference from others. Yet the densely-packed estates, tiny room sizes and thin walls of most UK terraced and semi-detached housing do not provide hard-working home-owning people this basic necessity.

We will therefore ensure that new-build does not add to this stock of sub-standard housing and the needless human misery it creates, by amending building regulations to require :

• Walls with serious sound insulation (as in 3 feet of additional brickwork) — so that arguments, loud TVs, loo flushes, baths, bedroom activities and all the other noises that are part and parcel of basic human necessities and personal self-expression are not constantly inflicted upon, or intruded into, by neighbours. The sound-proofing in many homes — of both old, ancient and new construction — is so bad that many occupiers have to temporarily leave their 'home' just to make a phone call in private ! Appalling. Ridiculous. Unnecessary. And totally unacceptable.

[ This sound-proofing requirement will also be applied to hotels — a hotel break is supposed to be a relaxing change from ordinary life, not yet another miserable experience of cardboard walls, the self-suppression of 'silent living' and unwelcome noise intrusion from neighbours. ]

• A bathroom — for goodness' sake ! Incredibly, incomprehensibly, properties today increasingly come with just a shower and NO BATH. For millions, probably for the vast majority, a long leisurely soak in a bath is a different order of magnitude more relaxing than standing in a shower! Their increasing disappearance is a significant, stress-increasing, lifelong detriment to those tens of millions forced to permanently rely on rented accommodation. In light of this, their disappearance is inexplicable — except of course in terms of government that (cult-like) actually WANTS everyone to fell CONSTANTLY needlessly stressed.
• Garages that can actually accommodate a car with an open door — so people can get in and out of their car without being a contortionist !
• Driveways with parking room for 2 cars.
• Increased room sizes and door widths — so occupiers can actually get standard-sized furniture in and out of their homes without damaging doors and walls !
• Front-door hallways at least double the width of the front door, so people can receive guests into their homes without asking them to awkwardly squeeze past them and the coat rack in 2½ foot-wide hallways !
• A large purpose-built airing cupboard for easily drying wet clothes, whatever the weather is doing!
• All flats to have their own genuinely secure letterbox / parcel box — with the rise in popularity of home shopping and the need to take delivery of parcels, the postal arrangements for many people living in flats is now wholly unacceptable. Currently, there is often no way to take delivery in a secure manner, with post being accessible to other tenants in the building, and all parcels always having to be inconveniently collected from the delivery company's local depot.
• Blocks of flats will also be required to have adequate ventilation in stairwells, to avoid the common problem of stale (often almost unbreathable) air ruining the atmosphere in the communal areas.

A Rolling Home Improvement Programme

Sadly, for the existing massive stock of privacy-free dwellings — particularly on new estates — there is a limit to what can be done. Funds permitting however, we will make grants available towards the cost of private homeowners and local councils upgrading sound-insulation to the level required of new build — the funds being awarded transparently by linkage to the National Lottery draw.

The hope is however, that with a no-profit property market freed from its obsession with the number of rooms in a property, homeowners will be liberated to create a more human, liveable space within their homes — one with fewer, larger, more sound-proof rooms — benefitting both themselves and all future occupiers.

The Effective Enforcement of Tenancy Prohibitions On Noise-Nuisance and Smoking

Although most tenancy agreements in both the public and private housing sectors these days prohibit noise-nuisance and smoking in residential accommodation, it is a commonplace that these prohibitions are routinely ignored by many 'music lovers' and smokers and unenforced by both agents and landlords. The result being that — like other aspects of home-ruining, 'low level' anti-social behaviour — other tenants are just meant to 'put up with it' or move out. This is a monstrous injustice that makes a nonsense of all the valid reasons that led to the inclusion of the prohibitions in tenancy agreements in the first place.

As this issue is so widespread — affecting (probably) hundreds of thousands of properties across the country — and non-enforcement so significantly detracts from people's ability to enjoy their own home, we will pass legislation that places councils and landlords under a legal obligation to take effective action, or else themselves face prosecution.

PLANNING PERMISSIONS

All Planning Decisions Made By Local Councils

Planning decisions used to be decided by local councils, but have now been removed to remote regional bureaucracies, further undermining public confidence in this most important aspect of local affairs. We will return decision-making for all planning matters to local council offices.

More Planning Permissions For Residential Properties of Non-Standard Construction

A more flexible approach will also be taken in granting planning permission for non-standard homes. Each case would need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis and would depend on the nature of the immediate neighbourhood, but so long as the structure is built of brick, stone or wood, meets building regulations and is aesthetically pleasing (or screened from view by a high fence or shrubs), permission will become the norm not the exception for the construction of pre-fabricated 'kit houses', log cabins and even large sheds/summer houses, etc. to live in.

This relaxation of draconian and unnecessary construction rules will make it possible for those of meagre means to fulfil a dream of personally building their own home with their own hands in a matter of weeks, buy it outright within a few short years and then live the rest of their lives rent and mortgage-free — giving a massive boost in spending money that will last a lifetime. The gravy train for vested land and property interests will be well and truly over.

Holiday-Let and Amenity Occupancy Restrictions Lifted Where Possible

The whole area of obscure rules regarding 10-month-only occupation of many 'holiday-let' and 'amenity' properties will be reviewed to see whether any of the restrictions can be relaxed or abolished, at least in some parts of the country — it does seem an incredible waste that so many of these properties in beautiful surroundings lie empty and unused much of the time.

NEW RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES FOR HOMEOWNER

NEW RIGHTS

It is homeowners that own their homes, not the local council or their neighbours, homeowners should therefore be left alone to do what they like on their own property so long as no obvious annoyance is caused to neighbours. Therefore cutting down trees, removing bats from attics, parking caravans, motorhomes, boats and commercial vehicles on driveways will all be guaranteed rights. However, turning a garden into a rubbish tip or car dump or making alterations that infringe neighbours' right to not be overlooked will remain illegal.

Full Compensation For Any Loss From New Development

The present planning system allows new business development to occur in residential areas that whilst benefitting the developer or business concerned and suits the local councils' priorities, can seriously negatively impact the amenity and therefore market value of some local residents' properties — e.g. granting permission for a late-night takeaway in the middle of a quiet residential estate. This can mean tens of thousands of pounds wiped-off the value of an ordinary person's only significant asset in life, just so a newly arrived business can make money. Planning laws should therefore be amended so that if local people's property values are negatively impacted by council proposals they are fully compensated for their loss.

A Right To Rename A Town

'Stupid Name Blight' afflicts countless towns up and down the country, and whilst some locals no doubt view their towns absurd name with perhaps a sense of pride, many of their fellow residents may find it offensive or ridiculous — and many people are doubtless put-off an otherwise idyllic property due to an absurd town name. This doesn't have to be, a simple new town renaming right could be introduced, so that a town could be renamed if a majority of property owners within the town boundaries voted for a change.

A Major Review of Britain's Road Names and Numbering

Many of Britain's residential properties are very difficult to find, even with a full postal address. The problem is that many street names merge seamlessly into other street names part-way along their length, or contain little sub-named areas such as 'Place' or 'Court'. The numbering too, often makes matters worse with (for some reason) odd and even numbers on different sides of the road, missing numbers and with the numbering system employed on estates with large blocks of flats often so incomprehensible that residents are reduced to erecting their own little signs for visitors to follow just so they can be found! And with new properties increasingly being built in established neighbourhoods (to meet increased housing demand) and the truly massive increase in home delivery from online shopping, the need for a simple, sensible naming and numbering system for the nation's properties has become not merely desirable but essential.

Immediate Eviction of Squatters

Property owners, tenants and councils should be able to immediately evict squatters and suspected squatters from their properties — the fact that this right hasn't existed for decades is incomprehensible (its as though the other parties don't really believe in the basic notion of property rights at all!).

In the event of a dispute arising, the police officer on the scene will be empowered as a temporary measure to decide on-the-spot between competing claims and evict and detain people reasonably suspected of squatting. In the (very rare) event that it is impossible to immediately determine the likely true owner or tenant, legislation will simply be left entirely vacant until one side or the other can produce legal documentation in support of their right of occupation.

The present laws allowing long-term squatters to claim legal ownership encourage the illegal possession of property and will be abolished.

Guaranteed Parking

At present, many occupiers of residential accommodation in towns and cities are quite unable to park in the road immediately outside their own home. This significantly reduces the amenity of these properties for car owners who are reduced to a daily hunt up and down local streets to find a vacant spot.

Householders on normal quiet residential streets without on-site parking will therefore be guaranteed the free use of the parking space immediately outside their property. They will also be entitled to request an immediate tow of any vehicle parked in their space on production of either proof of property ownership or a valid tenancy agreement.

Clarification of Property Rights

Currently, the law on something as basic as pruning your neighbour's overhanging trees is vague and uncertain. This area, as well as boundary rights, rights of way, the right to light bonfires, play loud music, etc will all be codified and specified in a clear way and applied and enforced by local council officials without the need to go to court — saving thousands of people embroiled in relatively minor neighbour disputes months of quite unnecessary fact-finding, worry and expense.

NEW RESPONSIBILITIES

A Requirement To Maintain Shrubbery Adjacent To Public Highways/Footpaths

— Many properties adjacent to footpaths, cyclepaths and roads presently allow their garden trees and shrubbery (often with thorns and needles) to become seriously overgrown, presenting a very real danger to pedestrians, cyclists and drivers and obscuring important road signs. We will make it an additional responsibility of property owners that they prevent this from happening.

Local councils will therefore be charged with identifying properties where this problem has been allowed to develop and empowered to then :

- notify occupiers with one warning letter requesting immediate remedial action

- before then instructing council staff or private contractors to do the work and send the property owners the bill.

OTHER

Comprehensive Review of Policies and Personnel in Local Authority Housing and Homelessness Departments

Many local authority Housing and Homelessness departments seem to currently be systemically failing the customers who they are paid to, and exist to, serve:

HOUSING DEPARTMENTS

Many of the personnel working in council housing departments seem to inhabit a world where there is no such thing as widespread, crafty 'low level' campaigns of anti-social behaviour in social housing!! Unfortunately however, as countless tens of thousands of victims across the country can testify, this is NOT the real world.

In recent years, with the arrival of cheap and powerful digital video and audio equipment, this form of anti-social behaviour is not merely widespread, it seems to have become something of a 'go to' technique (and hobby, love and evil 'religion') for the asbo squad — to force people of whom they do not approve, from their homes, without themselves falling foul of council anti-asbo rules.

The appallingly intrusive antics employed, include :

• sleep-deprivation campaigns
• constantly making significant noises hatefully timed to coincide with moments of emotional vulnerability (e.g. when on the loo or taking a shower)
• constantly listening and (in some way, either verbally or by making odd noises) negatively 'commenting upon' the victim's every noise or word within their own 'home'
• constantly surveilling and stalking the victim's every movement as they enter or leave their property and as they move around both within and outside their own 'home'
• and frequently conspiring with similarly asbo-minded neighbours (and even local contractors maintaining nearby properties) to make the victim's home life a living hell.

Frequently digital surveillance equipment is used with video and two-way audio capability and a convenient mobile app — enabling the perpetrators to psychologically dismantle and torture their victims 24/7/365 whilst reclining comfortably in their favourite chair or 'laughing it up' down the pub with their f(r)iends.

As these crafty 'subtle' antics are very difficult to prove to the satisfaction of housing departments — who mostly seem to operate a policy of blanket denial in this area (conveniently making the working lives of housing personnel much easier) — after enduring the abuse for months or years, the victim is usually left with little choice but to incur the significant unjust expense and personal upheaval of moving out. Or risk going stark, staring bonkers!

Worse yet, housing personnel's default mindset of blanket denial, inevitably causes them to tend to blame the victim, who then come under suspicion of having made unfounded complaints! And if the victim has any history of mental illness, they may even be reported to their GP as experiencing psychotic delusions and pressured to accept some form of treatment!! Such pro-active, 'well-intentioned'(?) meddling by those who are themselves 'in denial', is both dangerous and damaging.

Anyone deemed by the asbo squad to be in non-compliance with their nasty, narrow concepts of acceptable behavioural or (im)moral 'norms', can expect to have to move on more than one occasion — whereupon housing personnel (having failed utterly to tackle the underlying anti-social behaviour) are highly likely to then flag the serial victim as a 'problem tenant', making it even more difficult, if not impossible, for them to then find anywhere at all even remotely suitable to live.

Unbelievable.

HOMELESSNESS DEPARTMENTS

Personnel in council homelessness departments currently have too little training and too little accountability. And many are fundamentally unsuitable for such a critical and sensitive role.

Housing personnel currently :

• operate within a convoluted incomprehensible legal homelessness framework
• offer mostly one-size-fits-all 'solutions' to homelessness, and do so with an inflexible, authoritarian approach
• believe themselves entitled to blatantly lie to homeless people to get them to do what the council wants them to do
• are ever-keen to play amateur psychologist, with staff regularly attempting reckless, crude, ill-informed 'interventions' in the lives of vulnerable people with complex emotional issues and even in the lives of those needing only housing assistance!!

The law, the policies and many of the personnel in this sector are so habitually and fundamentally toxic, that almost any contact with a homelessness department can usually be relied upon to make the miseries of vulnerable people already enduring the nightmare of homelessness, significantly and quite unnecessarily worse.

Unbelievable.

Flexibility In The Treatment of Tenants REQUIRED of ALL Providers of Sheltered Accommodation

The shortage of affordable housing in recent years has made it extremely difficult for anyone on Housing Benefit or Universal Credit to find suitable housing — so much so, that many over 55's who are not in the least bit frail and who need no assistance with a disability or their life find themselves having no choice but to take tenancies in sheltered accommodation provided either by a local authority or a housing association.

Whereupon they find themselves on the receiving end of a barrage of patronising, demeaning and infantilising procedures that INSIST (point-blank and utterly inflexibly) on treating them as though are either significantly mentally or physically frail — for e.g. through the requirement to provide full medical information, family and carer contacts, next of kin details, the need to engage with an in-flat personal emergency alarm system and be subject to the requirement of proving to scheme managers every week that they are 'OK'. Many residents in this position, experience this regime as a form of abuse, permanently ruining their enjoyment of their own home.

Also, whilst sheltered housing personnel (usually female) are usually well-suited to attending to the social and minor physical support needs of vulnerable tenants (i.e. harmless little old ladies 'wanting a chat'), they are often ill-equipped to tackle the crafty, ruthless, two-faced, troublesome asbo squad (almost invariably male) — who then get to ruin the lives of almost anyone (who is not themselves a true believer in the inverted anti-standards of 'the way asbo') who has the serious misfortune to live anywhere near them. And do so with near total impunity.

WE WILL THEREFORE REQUIRE ALL PROVIDERS OF SHELETERED ACCOMMODATION TO :

(1) Operate in a flexible way, adjusting their procedures to suit their individual tenants — rather than mindlessly adopting blanket procedures for mere administrative simplicity, to pander to (institutionalised) scheme managers' need to gratuitously assume the role of 'caring protector' to their captive tenants, or as a form of mere pre-emptive legal defence against OTT Health & Safety responsibilities, and

(2) Establish specialist anti-social behaviour departments — staffed by people who positively love to tackle the asbo crowd and who are aware of every latest little techniques, deception and device in the 'asbo handbook' of misery. These departments themselves will also liaise with, and receive information, equipment and support from, the newly-established specialist council anti-social behaviour teams.