Thoughts of a carer

  Much is made in the media that we’re ‘not building enough houses’. Politicians like saying they will build more. The problem with this approach - like with HGV drivers - is that there is a finite pool of competent resources with which to plan and build those homes (or drive those lorries). If you try to speed things up by allocating more resources you risk bringing in less competent individuals, reducing the quality of your final product (houses, or HGVs on the roads of the UK). I’ve lived in a new-build home for the last eight and a half years. It was built by Martin Grant Homes, a small builder who - according to its websit e - tries to focus on ‘quality and attention to detail’. If other builders are worse at attention to detail we are already building millions of substandard homes; building more, more quickly, will only make matters worse. I thought it might be helpful to record a TripAdvisor-type of review of my home and a customer’s view of Martin Grant Homes. So here it is...

On Friday 24th September there was a debate in Parliament on ‘Baby Loss Awareness’. Losing a child around the time of birth must be one of the most traumatic experiences humans undergo. It happened to some former next-door-but-one neighbours of mine,  perhaps fifteen years ago. I attended the funeral, and I’ll never forget the sight of the tiny, white coffin being carried into the service by the father. I’ll be honest, I haven’t read reports of the debate that Friday. I suspect it was the usual political nonsense, perhaps with a nod towards the seriousness of the topic. It's quite possible that ‘poverty’ was attributed by some as being a likely cause. Sadly, some years after that sad funeral, I learned a little as to why that may, and may not, have been the whole story.                                    ...