I think it was Voltaire who said that the odd thing about the “Holy Roman Empire” was that it was none of those three things. Much the same could have been said about New Labour’s 2003 “Sustainable Communities Plan” which began an ill-planned demolition of its own work on the urban renaissance and attempts to create sustainable communities. Much the […]
Hitting the green
Golf courses – those in prosperous parts of England anyway – have increasingly become a target for the house building and land speculation sector. Follow their “yimby” lobbyists on social media and you’ll be told green belts around London and other wealthier southern cities are mostly given over to rich people’s golf courses. It’s purely coincidental, of course, that such […]
More green belt blues
While the rest of the world looks on in horror at the gathering climate, nature, food, water, economic and security challenges, Britain’s house builders at least must be purring at their ability to sucker the nation’s senior politicians. Michael Gove has talked the talk about softening English national planning policies which basically promote car-dependent-sprawl at the expense of both the […]
Yes, It Maximises Builders’ Yields
It’s sometimes said the most effective conspiracies are those where all involved know what they need to do so well, they don’t actually need to conspire. I’m beginning to feel something of the sort is going on with the “yimby” movement, much of which has degenerated pretty much into a media campaign in support of the building and development industries […]
Crying all the way to the (land) bank
If the Government really was hoping the volume house builders would come to their aid, actually build-out the many homes for which they enjoy planning consent and deliver the promised 300,000 new-build homes a year, they are in for a nasty shock. It looks as if the approaching recession has forced builders back into land-banking mode. Much ink has been […]