The Highland Housing Alliance has announced that the Highland Housing Fair is to be postponed pending market conditions. Private developers are now reluctant to take a risk with these buildings at a time when the future market is uncertain. It is very disappointing and brings into question why the fair was relying on private developers- the aim of the fair is to improve the standard of mass housing and demonstrate the benefits of creating sustainable, master planned communities so surely this should be a public funded project.
These houses have been designed using latest technologies and materials- will all these projects have to be redesigned when the fair finally goes ahead? Building Regulations are changing at such a rate that probably most of the houses will not comply. If that was to happen then what would be a terrible waste of money considering that most of the houses were either out or about to go out to tender.
Also, on another note- it was in the news the other day that the Housing Associations are going to bail out the developers, who cant shift their crappy houses, by buying them for affordable housing. While on the face of it this may seem a sensible idea, it is actually the developer that is winning here. They have spent the last 10 years holding onto land banks, controlling house sales to keep prices high, skimping on design for their developments so why when the going gets rough should we help them out? The housing associations should be focusing on well designed, economical development.
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