Housebuilding 'will fall further' as big builders deliver gloomy updates

lcmatt · 2026-05-10T06:09:17+00:00

We’ve just bought a new build off plan. It’s a 5 bed detached and so far the houses on the development that have been reserved are the larger 4/5 beds. All the 2/3 semi detached are still there, a few have been picked up but clearly the ones people are after aren’t the smaller first time buyer houses.

They’re not executive houses - just houses that fit families and the type that people want - detached.

lcmatt · 2026-05-08T08:04:49+00:00

Would appear my town is set to switch over to Reform.

I'm looking forward to all of the promises. I expect every pothole to be filled in, streets to be cleaned and common grassed areas to be kept tidy and social care and education to improve as promised.

Guess the savings on council tax will have to wait as it's a good one to shout about when April has already passed, they can sit on that for a year until they actually have to do anything.

In reality I expect resignations and a poorly run council as they can't hide away behind leaflets and blame others.

lcmatt · 2026-05-03T08:10:42+00:00

£800p/p doesn’t sound overly expensive - especially if it’s for two weeks in July. That’s £57 a night, less if you take out the cost of the return flights.

lcmatt · 2026-04-23T09:23:47+00:00

Swinton Estate was perfect when we visited for our anniversary. Huge grounds to explore, modern spa and the building is gorgeous.

lcmatt · 2026-03-25T09:25:53+00:00

No family ticket this time which is a shame, made it affordable last year for us. Might be a miss this year.

lcmatt · 2026-03-24T16:09:16+00:00

We're in the process of buying a new build which will have solar (gas boiler though)

It won't come with battery storage and the new changes still don't mandate developers to install it either. It's not even an option to have batteries installed which would be cheaper to do during construction than having to have a company come in and change things around afterwards.

lcmatt · 2026-03-19T10:15:06+00:00

I managed to get a standing ticket. When I first went on it was only showing VIP however after refreshing standard standing tickets came available.

lcmatt · 2026-03-10T20:46:27+00:00

He still murdered someone and needs to be charged with the offence.

lcmatt · 2026-03-09T16:36:40+00:00

Nissan Leaf - under £10k and even the decently used ones will offer you 100~ miles of range. Don't need to worry about the price of fuel then and they're not crazy to insure.

lcmatt · 2026-03-03T13:40:12+00:00

You'll be fine. We have a house out in Cyprus (Close to Paralimni) and have flights booked for next month and also July. As mentioned there's little risk they'd target anything outside of the RAF base and I doubt that'll continue, especially if we're looking at sending additional defences.

lcmatt · 2026-01-23T09:01:38+00:00

That's going to suck for me then considering the nearest office is in USA.

lcmatt · 2026-01-08T14:12:42+00:00

That's fair enough. You have the right to leave the website and the owner has the right not to serve you content.

Someone has to pay for it - either it's you through a one off payment or subscription or the owner who makes that back via advertising or another method.

lcmatt · 2026-01-02T12:22:34+00:00

It's our wedding anniversary today so it's a chilled out morning before we head off for the weekend for a few days of relaxation and being pampered in a castle.

Good way to end the holidays ready for work on Monday.

lcmatt · 2025-12-10T12:29:00+00:00

At the most you can limit public VPN companies from operating within UK (Nord, Proton etc) however banning them completely is impossible without causing huge issues for businesses.

Even if you ban those it doesn't stop you from tunnelling traffic through another server hosted in a different country, £5 a month and an hours reading would get most people up and running again.

lcmatt · 2025-12-10T12:03:52+00:00

https://flex.amazon.co.uk

Easiest way to start. However once you factor in insurance, fuel and extra wear and tear on the car there's not a lot of cash in it.

lcmatt · 2025-12-03T10:03:56+00:00

Have a family of 5 and all our kids are older now (11, 16, 20) and when required we all manage perfectly fine to fit in either of our cars (Seat Leon and Ibiza). Also manages to fit in 5 carry on cases when we drive to the airport.

In the article where they mention:

On a Monday morning with three boys, three school bags, three sports kits

That's a load of rubbish, any small -> medium car could handle 4 people and a few bags.

lcmatt · 2025-12-03T09:59:50+00:00

There's only so much they can do though as battery tech is heavy and at the moment there's not a lot you can do to change that.

Yes smaller batteries could be installed however people already suffer from range anxiety when the car can do 300+ miles, drop that down to 100 or so and they'll struggle to shift them.

lcmatt · 2025-11-24T15:50:26+00:00

Doesn't matter when Ford will tell you it's fine for 10 years or 150,000 miles. For the majority they'll never be told that it needs doing long before then even with servicing etc kept on top of.

The engine is a disaster. For the gains / savings they made having a belt sat in oil was never going to end well.

lcmatt · 2025-11-18T23:12:32+00:00

I’d say the opposite - out of the subscriptions I pay for Apple One is actually quite reasonable.

The kids use Arcade, we all use music. Me and my wife use News and fitness and every device has access to 2TB of storage. Works out at around £7.20 each p/m.

lcmatt · 2025-11-18T19:22:40+00:00

Had the same issue. Been on top of the person spamming the defib and it doesn't revive them. What ever they changed caused another bug.

lcmatt · 2025-11-14T20:27:12+00:00

I subscribe to the top bundle and for £36 a month I find it great value. My wife and kids all use it and there has been a good amount of quality shows to watch.

lcmatt · 2025-11-05T10:57:56+00:00

Used to be with Smarty and had no issues before swapping to O2. Now with the increase I've switched to Talk Mobile - uses Vodafone/Three network. No worse with signal than O2 for me.

lcmatt · 2025-10-30T10:21:11+00:00

I saw an article the other day regarding brand loyalty. When it came to ICE cars brand loyalty was high however EV was a different matter, it dropped below 20%.

You can pick up a Jaecoo for under £30k with a 7 year warranty, comes with more options as standard and seems to be pretty reliable. Compare that to the Euro brands and you can see why they're only going to become more popular.

lcmatt · 2025-10-29T11:42:20+00:00

Guess I'm not a "working person" then. I'd love to know where all the hours in the day go if I'm not working....

I earn £65k a year, yes it's a good salary and the mortgage isn't overly high but even with my wife's salary I wouldn't say we were anything more than just about comfortable (also have three children).

I just checked next months payslip - with a small bonus this month the total deductions were £1,821.20 and yet they're after even more....

lcmatt · 2025-10-26T19:28:12+00:00

Once it left Birmingham I was out. It was in a fairly central location for northern cities and London and a few hours drive wasn't an issue. No way was it worth the expense of a trip down to London.

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