Forum Topic

New Housing Ban Possible Due to Electricity Grid Capacity

The article on the continuing problems over the electricity supply to both Ealing and Hounslow is very interesting. We in Ealing have long thought that high rises, going up everywhere, have to be planned for and not just erected to satisfy the profits of the council's building giant mates. More noticeable in Ealing, try North Acton (aka Gotham City) to see how an area can be blighted. Don't know if Hounslow itself suffers the same problems but Chiswick has so far escaped relatively unscathed I'd suggest.

Peter King ● 1515d22 Comments

Sadly, this made me laugh. What's going on at the moment is uncontrolled sprawl. Squeeze in housing wherever, whenever, consequences be damned.Oops. Can't plug in the toaster.

David Lesniak ● 1515d

With the number of apartment blocks going up over the past few years I’ve often thought will all these extra people be able to find GPs, dentists or school places for children if they have them. But I didn’t think of electricity capacity.

Michael David Rowe ● 1515d

Plus the growth in the use of electric cars.

Keith Iddon ● 1515d

Keith, with respect, we're constantly told people in these developments will never drive (I don't believe that, but let's suppose). They can't afford a car let alone the over-priced housing they are now letting/buying. What will happen without question is increased delivery within the local grid by electric vehicles. So a stress upon the system no matter what.

David Lesniak ● 1515d

I hope this reduces the size of the ridiculous TFL Bollo Lane Plans.

Stephen Gould ● 1515d

This concern should be also extended to the supply of water, sewerage capacity, infrastructure such as medical/dental facilities, schools, transportation and so on.  Yes there is a need for housing but the density, capacity and quality are being over looked by Councils competing to fill every square inch with accommodation buildings.  Outdoor space is being sacrificed or overloaded and the finance to try to maintain these in a good ecological state is filched for other purposes.I am sure I am not alone in my concerns but I feel so frustrated when I hear of yet another raw sewage discharge into our rivers and the water companies doing absolutely nothing to change, enlarge or build new capacity or even publicly say no more development we can’t handle it.Ealing appears to be the worst with Hounslow awful too.

Elizabeth Ross ● 1515d

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/17/infuriating-building-of-cambridgeshire-new-town-threatens-wildlife-habitat

Philippa Bond ● 1515d

It was, the departments in sewage, recycling, Schools, transport made their objections known to the councillors regarding the Brentford stadium project. They were told it was a done deal and to go away and deal with it. That's what you need to know about the people you're dealing with. Politicians and grifters.

Basil Finnis ● 1515d

All of this seemingly doesn't matter to Ealing council, they have just approved a huge development at the Hanger Lane gyratory with the help of the quisling Liberals aka the Wishy Washies. Let's hope this unholy alliance isn't a taste of what is to come with the next general election!

Peter King ● 1514d

Yes, terrible that local councils are trying to tackle the housing shortage by building new homes.  What is your solution?

Christopher Shea ● 1514d

Enraged Liberal by any chance? The development is very near to another skyscraper behind Hanger Lane tube and a blight on the area. Possibly speak to the mayor, he has unused tfl land that could help out here. Ideal solution is to stop immigration as that drives the birthrate and demand for even more homes.

Peter King ● 1514d

There's a housing shortage because there are too many people in certain parts of the country.

Claire Moran ● 1514d

According to the article in the Times, the electricity grid problem is caused by the number of data centres setting up along the M4 corridor, which have a very heavy demand for electricity.

Richard Greenhough ● 1514d

Indeed, I’m waiting for someone to suggest a data pipe ban.

Russell Pearson ● 1514d

Yes, Christopher, it's all about 'affordable' housing isn't it? It's about time people called you lot up on this often spouted claptrap.

Basil Finnis ● 1514d

How about repurposing the millions of square feet of vacant office space. Build, build, build seems to be the mantra of thise without an ounce of imagination.

N V Brooks ● 1514d

With Russian gas pipes turned off to Europe there's palpable panic for more electricity which probably caused the Tories recently to proceed to give the go-ahead to Sizewell-C's nuke station building notwithstanding this has meant handing over the project lock-stock-and-barrel to the dodgy partnerships of China for design and construction along with finance from the French EDF company. Here we have yet again our vital infrastructure given over to foreign profiting interests. No doubt additional nuke station building will also be gifted to communists and EU profiteers. Using earthy online acronym parlance WTF?

Bobbie Carnegie ● 1513d

There is no evidence to support your claim that immigrants have caused a housing crisis. Blame chronic underinvestment, the right to buy, the increase in one person homes.Blaming immigrants is a shameful way to apportion responsibility and ignores the complete and utter failure of governments of different persuasions to create a fair and properly funded system.The fact is that immigrants will often suffer the worst effects of a housing shortage by having to live in privately rented accommodation which is sub standard.

Stewart Jones ● 1513d

We have a growing older population - what are you going to do about that?

Philippa Bond ● 1512d

Completely agree with the comments on immigrants, they are not the problem.  The problem has been inept policy by govt., of every political party for the last century in relation to property.  Although I would suggest that the right to buy was one of the most popular policies of any govt. of the last 50 years, the issue was limiting Council ability to replace housing stock sold off.Where I disagree with you is you label private rented accommodation as sub-standard.  Some is but the majority is not.  But not to worry govt. policy is your friend and this govt is slowly but surely driving private landlords out of the market - of course they have failed to realise that the landlords with the better quality homes are the ones who sell out first because those are the homes that sell easiest

Justin Stephenson ● 1512d

The fragmentation of the electricity system in the UK has been a problem for a long time.  There are so many different organisations involved in the chain (is it now seven?) before you get to your supplier.  I was told there were generators being used all over London because of this.  There isn't always any communication between them.

Philippa Bond ● 1511d

It is probably important to differentiate between generation and distribution. My knowledge of this is sketchy but my understanding is that nationally we have an excess of generation particular when the wind is blowing and we export quite a bit to the French.However, transmission efficiency is reduced by higher temperatures so at the moment more generation is required to deliver the same amount of power.West London seems to have hit the perfect storm of a massive densification of residential property (driven by government policy that doesn't want to build on green belt), a vibrant digital economy which is power intensive and high land prices which mean that expanding transmission capacity is expensive. It sounds like there has been chronic underinvestment for the long term and this will be difficult to solve.Although it will be bad news if the Empire House project stalls, someone at Great Marlborough Estates deserves a kick up the backside for not securing the electricity supply ration earlier.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1511d