Leaving the EU

[Steady rider]

From a cycling point of view leaving the EU may have long term benefits

England population 1971-79 period was about 46.4million to 46.7 million.
A net rise of about 0.3 million in 9 years roughly.

From 1980 to 1989, the net rise was about 0.765 million.

From 1990 to 1999, the net rise was about 1.157 million.

From 2000 to 2009, the net rise was about 2.746 million.

From 2010 to 2015, the net rise was about 2.144 million.

The main reason for requiring more houses and increased congestion stems from allowing millions of people to come to the UK. This detracts from the rural areas with added congestion, taking the green belt areas and spoiling the country. Extra houses if needed should be evenly spread, not forced onto selected areas. Road traffic has increased.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... c-2016.pdf
20.9% higher on rural minor roads compared with 1996

With hindsight the big mistake was joining the EU on terms that allowed free access. In the short term businesses benefit from the extra population buying houses, goods and services but in the long term the quality of life suffers with overcrowding and having to cater for millions of extra people in a relatively small country. The population density for Wales and Scotland is much lower than for England, so they are not directly affected to the same extent.

[mjr]

Shame that's all Brexit BS and you can tell it by the numbers of non EU immigrants over the years. Our economy is fuelled partly by immigration and I predict after a short blip, we'll be back up near current levels.

[Steady rider]

Of course with more people coming here, it may leave relatively fewer people in their own countries, and their own economy may suffer. Thus making the UK a more attractive place to find work. Leaving the EU should reduce the numbers, hopefully to less than 50,000 per year. This means other EU countries will have more people, requiring more houses, goods and services, so they will benefit. Any country in the EU doing quite well will gain more people coming to work. The 7+ million gain since 1970 is a major increase and has lowered the quality of the countryside with added vehicles and minor roads even having HGVs frequently taking short cuts.

In mid-2013 the population density of England was 413 people per sq km compared with 149 people per sq km in Wales and 135 people per sq km in Northern Ireland. Scotland has the lowest population density at 68 people per sq km.

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q= ... untry+uk&*
So it is little surprise to find England voting to leave and others seeing it another way.

[reohn2]

Of course with more people coming here, it may leave relatively fewer people in their own countries, and the their own economy may suffer. Thus making the UK a more attractive place to find work. Leaving the EU should reduce the numbers, hopefully to less than 50,000 per year. This means other EU countries will have more people, requiring more houses, goods and services, so they will benefit. Any country in the EU doing quite well will gain more people coming to work. The 7+ million gain since 1970 is a major increase and has lowered the quality of the countryside with added vehicles and minor roads even having HGVs frequently taking short cuts.

The logic behind what you claim is that the UK doesn't need all these people to work here,that being the case they all must be lounging around doing nothing and living on either fresh air,all the money they brought with them,or claiming benefits.
Either that or they're all busily doing the work UK citizens can't,don't or won't do.
I suspect it's the latter in which case the UK needs these immigrants for it to function.

[al_yrpal]

Steady Rider, spot on. Every day congestion is getting worse and the housing crisis for youngsters is terrible. My grandkids will never be able to live anywhere near here. How people cannot understand the car crash of uncontrolled immigration that is ruining Britain beats me?

My son in law's parents run a Christian charity in Bulgaria. They tell me that free movement has been a disaster for Bulgaria. Huge numbers of skilled people have left causing a crisis in Education and Health and bright youngsters are leaving in droves. Its an unmitigated disaster for the country leaving the old and sick in crisis.

Al

[geomannie]

Please drop politics from this forum. There is enough controversy about bicycles without starting on about immigrants.

[mjr]

According to the Chancellor, we've currently got full employment... so we need immigrants or the economy will have labour shortages and you know where the tories fear that will lead.

Also, getting back to cycling, many of the EU immigrants are coming from places where a higher proportion cycle than in the UK, which surely must help raise the cycling levels here?

[hufty]

It's going to be terrible for cycling if we leave. We'll have to stop using ETRTO classifications and in the resultant confusion all my tyres will fall off.

[roubaixtuesday]

Leaving the EU should reduce the numbers, hopefully to less than 50,000 per year.

I have considerable sympathy for the point of view that overcrowding is a problem in some parts of our islands but I fear your hopes that Brexit will solve it are misplaced.

Currently about half of net immigration, 150,000 is from outside the EU. Brexit will not impact these, other than potentially to increase numbers, as the likes of India have indicated they want increased movement of people to be part of any bilateral trade deal.

Our own government has stated it does not expect numbers coming here from the EU to drop significantly. Andrea Leadsom, for example, has stated that we need to ensure continued access for agricultural workers.

[hufty]

It's going to be brilliant for cycling if we leave. At the moment there is a 15% import duty on unicycles and tricycles manufactured outside the EU and that will surely be reduced.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

According to the Chancellor, we've currently got full employment... so we need immigrants or the economy will have labour shortages and you know where the tories fear that will lead.

Also, getting back to cycling, many of the EU immigrants are coming from places where a higher proportion cycle than in the UK, which surely must help raise the cycling levels here?

We got uncontrollable house prices, now you want us to spend more on cycles as the demand rises

[meic]

So it is little surprise to find England voting to leave and others seeing it another way.

Just so long as you ignore that sparsely populated Wales voted to leave by 53% and super densely populated areas of London voted to remain by 70%.

[gaz]

It's going to be terrible for cycling if we leave. We'll have to stop using ETRTO classifications and in the resultant confusion all my tyres will fall off.

Never mind that, we'll be plunged into the Dark Ages when have to go back to using BS lighting .

[landsurfer]

We must be aware of the "Drogheda Syndrome" .

For 3 years we worked at Drogheda Rail Depot.
Week after week we would drive from the ferry past the huge housing estates being built for the "new Irish".
I kept saying to my guys " who's going to buy these houses" .......

The Celtic Tigre died ... the Poles, Lithuanians etc ... went home ....

The ghost town estates lie empty ......
Slowly the land is taking over the housing .....

Our turn next ???

[Rob Archer]

Without rehashing all the tired brexit arguments either way it is worth looking at what the likely effect on cycling will be. Brexit is unlikely to affect overall population much at all. We will still need people to come in to work in the agricultural, health and hospitality industries. Will immigrants from South Asia be more or less likely to cycle than people from Europe? Also, the average age of the indigenous population is increasing and people are having less children. That in itself is bound to mean fewer people cycle.
Another thing cycle campaigners are already noticing is an antipathy to anything seen as 'European' such as improved cycle infrastructure. The UK is already shifting away from the European model of increasing environmental responsibility towards Trump's USA approach of 'industry first'. This is likely to put pressure on funding for anything seen as remotely 'green' like cycling.
The other side of the coin is that if us 'scaremongering remainers' are right, and we end up poorer, fewer people will be able to afford cars and may have no choice but to cycle!

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my GT-S7275R using hovercraft full of eels.