I do blame politicians for decisions they made which affect the volume of traffic on our roads. Allowing 650,000 net new people into the country each year has an effect on traffic numbers (and other things like schools, housing, the NHS etc). They evidently planned for this but didn't think it through properly and haven't invested in the infrastructure needed to support this level of growth in the population.
Quite right, especially when the hundreds of thousands who do emigrate here often do the work of British people who are mostly either loo lazy to bother (and who are supported by the state [us]) or who are priced out of the market by people willing to live in very poor conditions for the first 5 years until they've established themselves.
Infrastructure can never be built fast enough to keep up with the population growth we've seen in the last 20 years - a few tens of thousands (as it used to be) at best. All that happens (I saw this in Construction during the 'boom' years) is that any extra workload is covered by importing yet more foreign workers, who, of course, need housing and more infrastructure to live here. We've been trying (and failing badly) to catch up, making a hash of things (especially during the Blair years - dumbing down education [why more firms recruit abroad nowadays] and slurging on inefficient public services which we now are having to pay the piper big time).
|
|
I do blame politicians for decisions they made which affect the volume of traffic on our roads. Allowing 650,000 net new people into the country each year has an effect on traffic numbers .......
....especially when a large percentage are probably driving the hundreds of thousands of new vans which hit the road last year.
www.smmt.co.uk/2017/01/another-record-for-uks-new-.../
Roll on the delivery drone.
|
|
Allowing 650,000 net new people into the country each year has an effect on traffic numbers (and other things like schools, housing, the NHS etc). They evidently planned for this but didn't think it through properly and haven't invested in the infrastructure needed to support this level of growth in the population.
That number (if correct - I'm rather dubious) is about 1% of the whole population. As traffic will be roughly proportional, I suggest it is physically impossible to add 1% annually to the road mileage in this country. Certainly in the parts where congestion is worst.
The only cure might be for some of the travellers not to take their 10-cubic-metre metal boxes with them. Much easier said than done, but as long as people see their cars as their preferred means of transport things won't improve.
|
Allowing 650,000 net new people into the country each year has an effect on traffic numbers (and other things like schools, housing, the NHS etc). They evidently planned for this but didn't think it through properly and haven't invested in the infrastructure needed to support this level of growth in the population.
That number (if correct - I'm rather dubious) is about 1% of the whole population. As traffic will be roughly proportional, I suggest it is physically impossible to add 1% annually to the road mileage in this country. Certainly in the parts where congestion is worst.
The only cure might be for some of the travellers not to take their 10-cubic-metre metal boxes with them. Much easier said than done, but as long as people see their cars as their preferred means of transport things won't improve.
Even if it is a 1% increase each year, it is certainly not evenly spread about - immigrants go where the jobs and housing are, making congestion far worse (e.g. in the SE on England).
And don't forget, a 1% increase each year is a 16% increase after 15 years, not a small number, and that almost all immigrants are a) of working age, so require the full range of infrastructure everyone else does and b) onece established, will bring their immiediate families over, and its a known fact that most have larger families than UK ones - all those extra children need looking after at school and by the NHS, even worse if granny and grandad come over, who almost certainly have no money to pay for care and have never contributed to the UK exchequer.
Most infrastructure projects take a minimum of a decade to plan and implement, and probably decades to pay for. If huge numbers of people just suddenly 'turn up', never having previously contributed anything to this country, we wouldn't have the extra funds available (which we don't) to pay for all the extra infrastructure and services they will need in order to live.
That's why NuLab borrowed so much (paid for by the next generation) to pretend to the voting public that they were doing so much for the country, only it was spent so poorly that a lot was very poor value (PFI hospital and school buildings being the prime example, but not the only ones), as was the huge increase in staffing levels, much of which was poor quality middle and upper management and bureaucrats, and now the financial piper is having to be paid, meaning there's very little money left.
|
|
|
Allowing 650,000 net new people into the country each year has an effect on traffic numbers (and other things like schools, housing, the NHS etc).
Net migration to the UK was 327,000 from March 2015 to March 2016, and 246,000 to March 2017, according to ONS stats.
|
Allowing 650,000 net new people into the country each year has an effect on traffic numbers (and other things like schools, housing, the NHS etc).
Net migration to the UK was 327,000 from March 2015 to March 2016, and 246,000 to March 2017, according to ONS stats.
And you believe those figures?
|
<< And you believe those figures? >>
It doesn't matter whether you believe them or not, any published figure is probably a rough estimate, and as you imply, will not be believed. We all agree that our population grows steadily, most noticeably in certain parts of the country, where it causes resentment.
Perhaps one of the few likely advantages of Brexit will be to enable us to control the inflow (a bit).
|
|
Net migration to the UK was 327,000 from March 2015 to March 2016, and 246,000 to March 2017, according to ONS stats.
And you believe those figures?
Whether I believe them or not is immaterial. They are the UK's ONS statistics on net immigration, and they are substantially lower that the figure you quoted.
If you're going to base your argument on statistics, it's useful to know the source so we can take a view on the validity of that data.
|
325k and 250k approx. are still VERY large numbers, and don't forget that's NET migration - maybe they are quoting just the number of iimigrants, not your migure which includes those Brits emigrating elsewhere, who are much more likely to be either single wage earners (e.g. well-off professionals) or wealthy pensioners, both of whom do not consume as much government paid for services and don't have dependents that would require significant amounts of government spending (schooling, NHS, etc, etc), whereas (in my view) a large proportion of immigrants to the UK have dependents, particularly children of school age and sometimes (from the EU at least) coming with their older (poor) parents who aren't in the best of health. I would point out that illegal immigrants are likely to either be missed off deliberately or are seriously underestimated.
I've seen several instances of this working in construction - son comes over from Eastern Europe or Asia, send lots of his money back home for a year or so, then once established brings the rest of the family across. Suddenly you have the wife, three kids (or 1 or 2 and one on the way) and grandparents with only one income and lots of needs, with only one main earner. Nothing illegal about this, but it has been presenting the UK with very large and serious issues regarding public services and infrastructure, whose problems are now coming to a head as the REAL cost of the school and NHS PFIs and NULab's ourageous overspending come home to roost.
Having EVEN MORE NuLab no-hopers in charge of our infrastructure would be a serious mistake, though not as much as Corbyn's lot, which is saying something.
|
Having EVEN MORE NuLab no-hopers in charge of our infrastructure would be a serious mistake, though not as much as Corbyn's lot, which is saying something.
Because you can trust the Conservatives with money? The past seven years have proven otherwise. Austerity has not addressed any of the fundamental problems in the economy, much less the deficit.
PFI started under the Major government, and yes, it was to Labour's shame that they continued the sham.
The problem with Britain's roads started with the Beeching report being implemented in the early 60s, aided by the very vocal road lobby. Then privatisation of public transport networks. Immigration numbers are a tiny proportion of the problem.
|
Having EVEN MORE NuLab no-hopers in charge of our infrastructure would be a serious mistake, though not as much as Corbyn's lot, which is saying something.
Because you can trust the Conservatives with money? The past seven years have proven otherwise. Austerity has not addressed any of the fundamental problems in the economy, much less the deficit.
PFI started under the Major government, and yes, it was to Labour's shame that they continued the sham.
The problem with Britain's roads started with the Beeching report being implemented in the early 60s, aided by the very vocal road lobby. Then privatisation of public transport networks. Immigration numbers are a tiny proportion of the problem.
What austerty?
|
Having EVEN MORE NuLab no-hopers in charge of our infrastructure would be a serious mistake, though not as much as Corbyn's lot, which is saying something.
Because you can trust the Conservatives with money? The past seven years have proven otherwise. Austerity has not addressed any of the fundamental problems in the economy, much less the deficit.
PFI started under the Major government, and yes, it was to Labour's shame that they continued the sham.
The problem with Britain's roads started with the Beeching report being implemented in the early 60s, aided by the very vocal road lobby. Then privatisation of public transport networks. Immigration numbers are a tiny proportion of the problem.
What austerty?
We do still have austerity, which shows the real depth of problems highlighted by the banking crisis - but I dread to think how bad it would have been in PM Nero had remained in power in 2010.
|
What austerty?
We do still have austerity, which shows the real depth of problems highlighted by the banking crisis - but I dread to think how bad it would have been in PM Nero had remained in power in 2010.
Well, the austerty we've had hasn't worked - the debt we owe is still growing and doesn't look like we will ever be in surplus in my life time. Meanwhile the bankers got off pretty much scott free leaving the rest of us to pick up the tab.
|
|
|
|
|
|