There is much to support in the Planning White Paper. I have long advocated a map based approach where each area designates which places are to be green space or farms, which can be developed for housing and which have general commercial use. Speedier decisions, Local Plans only one third of the current length and a simpler approach to an Infrastructure levy or contribution on developers are all welcome.
The present system is complex, expensive and frustrating to developers and local communities alike. It often does not allow a local community to protect areas from housing developmentĀ if they are not specially designated as Green belt or SSSIs. Whatever the Local Plan says, determined and well funded developers hire expensive lawyers and keep on with appeals and changed submissions until on national appeal they overturn the local Plan and get their way with a further planning permission. Developers have to allow forĀ many years of battles,Ā have toĀ pay Ā big fees to planning consultants and lawyers and enter a variable negotiation over developer contribution.
Local Councillors often are dragged from seeking to protect a piece of land from development which is not designated for development in their approved local plan, by the appeals process. They seek a deal with a determined developer on the advice of their planning officers. They are told if they do not do a deal the Council will lose out on a Section 106 Developer Contribution Agreement, as they will lose on appeal and one may not be awarded. They are also told they may land the Council with large planning and legal fees trying to defend their local plan, only to lose and have to explain why they wasted all that money.
The Councillors who give in then become very unpopular with the local community who sometimes suggest unreasonable collaboration with the developer, when in most cases it is the run of official advice and the likelihood of loss in the system that causes the about face. The local community wants the Council to defend green spaces and keep local communities apart from continuous urban sprawl.
The government wishes to hit high targets for future housebuilding. As the White Paper acknowledges, the problem is often poor build rates despite large numbers of outstanding planning permissions. Landowners and developers can game the current system by building slowly on land with approvals in order to persuade Planning Inspectors to allow more planning permissions where the local community wants to keep green space. The government should also as part of this policy exercise improve its control of our borders and set a sustainable figure for economic migrants as past Conservative governments did or promised to do, to ease some of the development pressures.
In future blogs I will look at more of the detail of the proposals in the White Paper in preparation for putting in my response to this consultation document. I look forward to hearing from constituents in particular about how this might affect us in Wokingham and West Berkshire.
August 7, 2020
The fault of the current system is population growth. Solve the problem at source instead of tinkering.
August 7, 2020
Record number crossed the channel yesterday. No one turned back or returned.
You really do have a death wish John when you can’t defend our borders.
We wouldn’t need endless new development if you stopped undesirables coming here.
August 7, 2020
‘After Brexit we’ll be taking back control of our borders…’
‘Dead in a ditch.’
‘Furious Priti Patel.’
All Tory lies.
August 7, 2020
Yes we are all furious with this useless government.
August 7, 2020
The UK always had the right to control its borders, whether in the European Un ion or not.
August 7, 2020
So no such thing as open borders for EU citizens then Martin.
August 7, 2020
That’s ridiculous. There is no means of us preventing EU citizens entering and settling whilst we were still in the EU, or indeed now.
August 8, 2020
But you didn’t control our borders.
And you lost membership of the EU because of it.
August 8, 2020
Europeans moving around Europe is not immigration.
But some people in Britain call it that.
August 8, 2020
That’s a new one.
Martin says no such thing as immigration or emigratoon.
It is just “moving around”
August 8, 2020
I don’t think that many under forty see a Dutch, Italian, French etc. person living in the UK as any more “immigration” than a Scot or a Welsh one living in England, no – and neither do I.
August 8, 2020
You may want freedom of movement for the planet but the vast majority of nations realise it won’t work.
I notice you mention only a few similar nations to the UK.
But that is not where the majority of new arrivals come from.
August 7, 2020
They arrived yesterday, today and will continue to arrive under current policy of putting them in 4*hotels…they’re telling all there mates ?
August 7, 2020
When the hotels are full, what next? English people made homeless while the “migrants” ( i.e. freeloaders ) are housed??? Oh wait – -Already happens !!!! Or can we assume that spare rooms will be commandeered and we will be forced – by a new law obviously – to take these people into our own homes – at our own expense – be careful not to offend them by way of speech or food??? Unreal? – are we that far off it?
August 7, 2020
It is not just undesirables. We are packed to the gunnels.
There are 200,000 unoccupied houses – take steps to seriously reduce that number. Examine deserted town centres for possible change of use to become homes – -Rose St in Wokingham a classic example.
Charity shops, Estate agency, another restaurant, small offices that ought to be elsewhere (incl the Conservative one).
August 7, 2020
Priti is reported as ‘thinking about’ getting the navy to tow them back. Thinking about it – my God what do they do all day for their money? What navy?- seems the illegals have more boats than the nation does.
August 7, 2020
The record number are those ‘intercepted’ (i.e. ferried). Local residents also report dinghies landing on beaches and migrants, perhaps disciples of ISIS, making off into the woods or openly walking through the town.
August 7, 2020
We have family members living in Kent.
Illegals have been roaming through the fields for years escaping capture.
Police have been informed so many times with no real action taken that no one bothers to report it any more
August 7, 2020
The police are far too busy to capture criminals ….they’ve fines to issue
August 7, 2020
I spoke to an ex work acquaintance yesterday who lives in Deal.
Scared of the arrivals and scared of expressing an opinion.
Shameful.
August 7, 2020
They will keep coming all the while those making money at facilitating the traffic can prove their worth. Send them back home and those doing the trafficking lose future business as the word gets out.
August 7, 2020
@Adam; No the problem not so much population growth but the fragmentation of the family unit, not just due to relationship break-up but also far to many families living in one location but one member of the family working beyond a commutable distance and thus owning/renting a second home to live in during the working week.
August 7, 2020
A smaller population would cause fewer squashing clashes and have better access to what exists.
August 7, 2020
Sorry Jerry your contrarian nature demands looking for an alternative explanation and it is right we should look at it but….
Population growth has more impact than fragmentation which has always happened.
Immigrant families also fragment.
August 8, 2020
@NS; It is not I who is contrariety, away from where the minority of the hard right gather, the majority do not share your opinions and wish to always find scapegoats to divert attention away from the real causes of our national problems.
August 8, 2020
Right / left post on here and some centre too. You regularly disagree with all Jerry. It’s amusing and you often argue against yourself on different days. Always polite and always interesting.
But don’t tell me you are not here for the debate for it’s own sake.
August 8, 2020
@NS; “Right / left post on here and some centre too. You regularly disagree with all Jerry”
But I very rarely disagree, if ever, with all three at the same time!
Unlike some, probably the majority, I do not hold any political affiliation, nor hold any candles.
“Itās amusing and you often argue against yourself on different days.”
Guilty as charged m’-lord… But in my defence, it’s called being devils advocate, replies have at times made me reconsider my own thinking.
“But donāt tell me you are not here for the debate for itās own sake.”
Of course I am! Just as I believable our host is, if he was simply preaching his beliefs why bother with, and spend so much time moderating, others comments?
But what any of that has to do with some intent on find scapegoats rather than the actual cause of a problem; As I said, migration has not caused the current problems with the planning system yet for two days running some have tried to hijack the debate.
August 11, 2020
@Jerry
One man’s hijack is another’s useful contribution.
One man’s scapegoat is another’s root cause.
Hiding from the issues exacerbated by immigration merely heightens the resentment.
Do you really think that importing a population the size of a small city does not cause issues. We should not have to build so many homes so the planning system should not be under so much stress.
Yes land banking should be addressed, yes land values should be addressed but the scarcity against demand does increase the returns from those practices.
August 7, 2020
Good morning.
Planning is indeed a long and complex system but government pressure on councils to build more and more does not help.
Many issues can be addressed when the demand and supply side are in balance. Currently the demand sid outstrips supply and, as others here have commented on, developers have a large portfolio of undeveloped land, with permission, just waiting to be built on. But they sit on it knowing that prices will rise and they can maximise their profits. Perhaps something can be done about this.
An alternative is to build more 4 Star Hotels as they seem to be in demand š
August 7, 2020
This is the point I wanted to make Mark B. There should be financial disadvantage to developers not making timely use og PP.
August 7, 2020
As land with panning permission has a value that value then increases by the type of community it is sighted in. The community at large are trapped into paying for infrastructure, roads, communications, schools and so on, which enhance this approved land. It would only seem right and proper as there is a synergy between the profit that can be made and what others have provided to create its value that even while vacant the owners of the land also pay local tax on it.
August 7, 2020
Indeed, developers should be paying far more to CREATE new, not just maintain, local infrastructure. This should be a payment of capital to provide, not just a bit of interest on a loan. If anything, the new infrastructure should also be usable by existing residents free of charge.
So a new schoo, leisure centre, hospital is built and staffed for the new housing, but also open to pre-existing residents to use as a social contract between new and existing. There has to be some give, not just take. Developers’ thirst for building might be tempered a little when new houses come with a huge infrastructure bill. I think any party doing this in Wokingham and the south east generally would be cheered into office.
August 7, 2020
Replacing elements of the current taxation system with a Land Value Tax would achieve just this.
It would also act an incentive to build faster as building and selling on quickly would reduce the amount of LVT a developer would pay on the land as they would own it for less time.
August 7, 2020
Much of the rural developement is occasioned by the peoples desire to escape urban and large city Britain which they now find totally alien. Government have talked the talk for decades on reducing immigration but even the advent of Covid 19 has failed to halt the daily stream of hundreds heading for our shores, or to remove the estimated two million plus illegal immigrants already here. It is a situation comprising a ride to hell in a hand cart with government waving on route. There are benefits and moral obligations to some immigration, East African Asians or pending Hongkong Chinese for instance but reality suggests it is totally out of control and government stands aside mouthing mantras while renaging on promises to Afghani interpreters.
I look forward to reading detail today on the pressures on rural Woking. Are they a desire to live within the orbit of their MP or are they escapees from Slough.
August 7, 2020
And it makes a mockery of our own sacrifices (of which there are now three studies saying that more people are dying of counter-Covid measures than Covid itself.)
Boris the Con Man.
August 7, 2020
It also makes a mockery of the sacrifices of our ancestors.
They suffered at the behest of the ruling classes on the promise of ājam tomorrowā.
āTomorrowā never came!
August 7, 2020
1918 Prime Minister, Lloyd George, promised that his government would āmake Britain a fit country for heroes to live inā.
100 years later…
August 7, 2020
Just hold out a little longer – defo jam tomorrow….just you wait and see
August 7, 2020
@agricola; “peoples desire to escape urban and large city Britain which they now find totally alien. Government have talked the talk for decades on reducing immigration”
I live in a semi rural areas, most of the agricultural workers were (before Brexit and now CV19) eastern European migrants, and I’m sure my areas is not untypical of general agriculture and horticultural areas. Your city dwellers might be in for a surprise if they move to the countryside to escape what you think is their displeasure!…
August 8, 2020
It would seem our host agrees with you as he chooses not to publish my reply to you.
August 7, 2020
It will not make any difference how planning permission is granted.
National or local decisions. Interested parties – builders and developers -will always seek out those who are in a position to look favourably on their plans. They will also join and contribute to any political parties that may be helpful – more than one political party too if it helps them.
August 7, 2020
The moral obligation belongs to those in charge.
To the leaders, the rulers, the ones who command us into battle.
Yet stay behind the lines.
And sweep up all the profit!
August 7, 2020
You know what the fundamental problem is and it isn’t the planning system. It’s the one issue that terrifies every Tory MP. It’s the issue that allows Labour to import a new bloc vote and it’s the one issue the Tory party cannot confront for fearing of slander from the left
Have the courage to stand on a platform and declare that the Tory party is now the party of mass immigration rather than embracing it in private in the most sneakily of fashions
It is the DECEIT we find offensive, abhorrent and utterly repugnant
August 7, 2020
+1
August 7, 2020
In news yesterday it was revealed that migrants held in Liverpool were given a tour of Anfield, home of the Premier League champions, and were later filmed tucking into pizza and fish and chips. Imagine what effect that had on their compatriots still undecided as to whether to set off for the Channel. Meanwhile in Dover an indigenous citizen was reportedly arrested by police for filming the arrival of boat migrants.
August 7, 2020
Indeed. It is said Priti useless is finally taking action. How long has this been going on and how much āstrong talkā albeit no action have we had for months.
Obviously the Government doesnāt care enough until the headlines make it politically uncomfortable.
August 7, 2020
one of those Freedoms talked about yesterday?
August 7, 2020
If France is removed from the travel corridor or if they say they have stopped in Belgium recently then it will be incumbent on the government to look after them for at least 2 weeks.
August 7, 2020
+1
The worst Prime Minister and government in living memory.
August 7, 2020
David Cameron was bad without a direction
Theresa May was bad in a single direction
Boris Johnson is bad in all directions
August 7, 2020
Soon to be four million unemployed.
This is not going to be tolerated and we all know the police are useless.
August 7, 2020
agree 4 million unemployed and 0.5 million illegal immigrants
August 7, 2020
+
August 7, 2020
As always, 100% Dominic.
Tories need to āscrew (their) courage to the sticking-placeā,
Assuming they have any that is!
August 7, 2020
+1
August 7, 2020
Absolutely right, Dominic. A government that treats voters as fools will reap the consequences ere long, and suspect that will apply to supporting Tory MPs as well.
August 7, 2020
Hear hear.
August 7, 2020
@Dominic; Yawn … the same simplistic argument, though different generations, ever since 1948…
August 7, 2020
House building is in the hands of the National Building Company’s, they have land banks to keep them going for the next ten years. Nothing wrong with that, they should have them. They will only build when the time is right, as in when the market is moving sufficiently to maximize profit at a rate to replenish their land banks.
Wokingham and West Berkshire suffers from planning of a different sort. The authorities have been building without thinking it through. Infrastructure is the flaw it is lacking in every way imaginable. A round about or a set of traffic lights are not road improvement, that is a failure of thought. It is also the bedrock of high pollution. The impression comes over of lets build house for incomers if there is a traffic hold up put in traffic lights. i.e. who ever is planning the future of the area is working backwards. A fully functioning infrastructure should be in place before building takes place. Not forgetting the majority of house building in the area for many years now has not to service local demand but to attract new incomers from other areas.
The other area of concern would be a simple thing such as water, what is served up is pretty disgusting, and as we know it has passed through a few humans before being chlorinated and let out of our taps. More people means more demands for this disgusting product.
August 7, 2020
The drive from Shinfield through Arborfield to Barkham is a portent of things to come. A former pleasant rural ride turned into churned up roads, half thought-through roundabouts, traffic lights and goodness knows about planned infrastructure. It just looks like a disorganised mess.
August 7, 2020
SJS
Remember we have already in Wokingham passed planning approval for just under another 1,000 new houses per year until 2036.
The problem with all of these approvals are the high density 0f the properties involved, the narrow street and pavement widths approved, and the complete lack of significant parking provision for visitors, tradesmen etc etc.
It goes without saying that many properties are 3 storey with small gardens, so outside space and amenity value is a low priority, with many gardens getting little in the way of clear light or any sort of viewing backdrop.
August 7, 2020
John
I see Wokingham Council have released a statement today saying they are disgusted at the new planning system proposals, suggesting it will mean a doubling of applications and approvals in this area, in which 95% of the people in a consultation process completed only recently, were against the existing level of development being sustained, let alone an increase.
Which side are you on ?
Reply It is a consultation and I will be proposing the Protection category for Wokingham green fields.
August 7, 2020
pretty much the same on all sides of the Reading /Wokingham /Maidenhead/Bracknell concrete spread.
We’ll all be saying ‘oh look a tree!’ before much longer.
August 7, 2020
Ian agree absolutely that infrastructure should come first, not last as an afterthought.
Just look at the farcical North and South distributor roads only now being constructed using housing estate roads which are narrow and have numerous bends and go under low bridges
When we first came to Wokingham 40 years ago the council had purchased hundreds of homes for a proposed ring road, after blighting such homes and the local area for 20 years they then gave up on the ring road idea and sold them all, hence the chaos we have now.
Massive housing estates of which we have had many over the years have now caused huge traffic disruption on very many secondary roads which now can simply not cope with such volume.
August 7, 2020
North and South distributor roads? What is it going to distribute other from moving the traffic jamb from one junction to the newly built one. Every new road that needs traffic light or roundabouts is a new road that wasn’t thought through. Stop the flow of traffic and you get pollution
August 7, 2020
Ian
Will be interesting to see how the junction works that has just started to be constructed either side of the M4 bridge over the A329 Reading Road at Winnersh.
Looks to me like a disaster waiting to happen, but hope I am proved wrong by the Councils experts.
August 7, 2020
The Conservatives have decided it’s easier to face down English people objecting to the destruction of their green spaces, who they can call Nimbys , than limit mass immigration, where they might be called racist by the BBC for doing so.
August 7, 2020
Iain,
Objectors have no powers when it comes to objecting to planning permission, the nearest they can get is to find some crested newts or bats in the area.
Other than that councils are running scared of developers taking a rejected plan to appeal, as they [the council] know the cost of losing at appeal š
Of course the term NIMBY is disrespectful to those that have invested their life saving in an area. Even though they may have been “new comers” at one stage…
August 7, 2020
Well…they have spent YEARS grinding us down!
And always with Marxist policies.
August 7, 2020
That’ll change when 4 million of us are unemployed and the rest are so broke it won’t make much difference if they’re working anyway.
August 7, 2020
Nub of the problem, Iain. Well said. We have a globalist supporting government meaning that the UN agenda (leading towards one world government) is the blueprint. Boris and his “Conservatives” fooled a lot of people, enough to get him into government. However, events over in the USA will come to a head soon, and the courage and conviction of President Trump will win the day, I believe. This will have enormous consequences globally, and Boris may be a thing of the past unless he switches horses. The speech by P Trump in Clyde, Ohio, to Whirlpool employees yesterday was very powerful, and he spells out the disastrous consequences of globalisation for the ordinary people of the USA:
“In defending your jobs here at Whirlpool, I was doing exactly what I promised in June 2016. As a candidate for President, I stood before an audience of hardworking patriots at a metals processing facility outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to outline my plan for a new America First trade policy. And it was even a better job than I told you. Iām one politician that says āIām going to do this,ā and then we do better. We produced more than I promised…….
In my speech, I warned that our politicians have aggressively pursued a policy of globalization ā moving our jobs, our wealth, and our factories overseas…….. Globalization has made the financial elites, who donate to politicians, very wealthy, but itās left millions and millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache, and our towns and cities with empty factories and plants.
Four years later, weāve made extraordinary progress in reversing the dangerous tide of globalism; over a period of four to five years, this took place. Think of it: four to five years. What weāve done is a miracle, and now itās getting even better because weāve taken additional steps….”
A transcript of the speech, including all the achievements of the Trump administration with regard to bringing back industry and employment i.e. promises kept, can be found on The Conservative Tree House website.
August 7, 2020
I see the despicable press and vested interests already subjecting it to a blizzard of criticism. They didnāt like the old system either so the usual dispiriting UK negativity. It says something about the industry that people are concerned it will lead to a race to the bottom in terms of quality.
Well done to HMG for giving a good go. My worry is that whatever is put in place there will be no rebalancing with the South East continuing to be built over and the opportunity to re generate elsewhere lost.
Traffic is ignored so the existing community can sod off as far as more jams are concerned, pressure on an already over loaded GP system, flood plains, water supply etc.
We see every street will have trees. They will be cheap, thrown in and not watered for the first year so will die and we will end up with a forest of plastic anti deer/rabbit tubes as we see all over.
I know nothing of planning but do want to take power from the big ābulliesā to go to the smaller regional developers.
The one aspect that must be insisted. on is fibre to each house or enough ducting so roads do not have to be dug up, photo voltaic panels, heat pump infrastructure and the latest energy saving insulation etc to make them as close to zero usage as possible.
Increase cost will be the whinge. Let the developers who have forced up the price of land, reduce their margins.
Of one thing I am certain, if this does not achieve the increase in numbers the government will crumble to the developers and bully and override local sentiment yet again.
August 7, 2020
Relaxation and simplification of planning law is hugely needed. My concern over these proposals is they will mainly benefit the larger building companies and with larger new sites or rabbit hutch new builds rather than the smaller developers who often/usually produce rather better houses.
Relaxation and simplification should, of course, also be extended to tax laws, employment laws, health and safely and endless other red tape that does so much to generate endless pointless & parasitic jobs in the state sector and the private sector. Thus dragging UK productivity down and damage our ability to compete. The foolish Hammond and Osborne were always complaining about low UK productivity but they and government were/are the main cause of it.
August 7, 2020
Head line. Councils will be given binding targets and face sanctions if they are not met. So all this local stuff is boleaux. Easy targets like the South East will continue. Why am I not surprised?
August 7, 2020
The White Paper appears to be a recipe for yet more corruption over the planning process and will obviously lead to further destruction of the green belts, the concreting of SSSI’s and even less social housing.
Property developers own sufficient land already to build ~ 1,000,000 homes. We already live in one of the most densely populated countries in Europe – why make it worse?
August 7, 2020
Yes, it absolutely does.
Not only that, but it multiplies, sometimes enormously, the wealth of many of the core of the British Establishment – Tory landowners that is.
Agricultural land is worth a few thousand a hectare, development land can be hundreds of times that. If this deregulation means that Change Of Use may not be needed, then that job has been done in those instances.
How widespread that will be may only emerge over time, but it’s one way of buying back the farming vote which would otherwise be lost through the disaster for that sector of brexit, I suppose.
I wonder what the King Designate and CPRE will make of it?
August 7, 2020
Immigration Sir John. Your Govt. is addicted to high levels and I doubt anything will change with the new bill. Without that, enough houses are being built.
August 7, 2020
Difficult to achieve a green economy with unlimited immigration.
August 7, 2020
Are the rules going to change to make it easier for individuals who own land to build their own homes?
August 7, 2020
Probably not. This is about big firms making even more money easily and never mind the brown field sites – just concrete over the farmland. Developers already have in excess of a million units planning approved, but still they hang on waiting for the ‘right time’ – i.e. when the fastest buck can be made. Far better to have a land bank tax and force them to get on with it, then look to see what else needs doing.
August 7, 2020
We in rural areas do not want endless housing developments, it should be done according to the local needs of the area and not what central government thinks. I see many people now wanting to flee the cities, thanks in part to uncontrolled immigration… and swell the rural population. Oh….let’s build more houses. Funnily enough if you do that, the much desired country landscape will vanish under bricks and mortar and will become the same as the very places they are fleeing.
We have probably eighty million people in Britain and are expected to just intake more and more ad infinitum; also provide for them at our expense, and to the detriment of our own kind. Why? it is utterly unsustainable.
August 7, 2020
Yet again you choose to look at the wrong side of the coin. Why not just say we’re full up? There is no more space. These plans appear to condemn the south east to be over run with yet more houses, people and traffic. The quicker you can build the more they will come here.
Why do your constituents need this?
Your mandate is to stand up for Wokingham voters, not possible future voters (who wouldn’t touch the Conservatives anyway) coming in from far flung parts of the world.
Stand up, stand out and be counted!
August 7, 2020
Spot on, Sir Joe Soap. Wokingham and immediately surrounding areas have had enough. 1000 houses here, 250 houses there, then another few hundred. All built and occupied with almost no consideration of the infrastructure needed to make living worthwhile. Perhaps Sir John will be able to explain why the infrastructure is a sent.
August 7, 2020
a sent = absent. Like the infrastructure, the b was absent. š
August 7, 2020
Getting tougher the Council is close to being a socialist dominated club
August 7, 2020
Stop illegal immigration, that will reduce a big pressure on demand and slow the transformation of our society and the demand for additional housing. Presently it is as if everyone has to swear an oath before taking office that they will faithfully encourage alien and illegal immigration, take no worthwhile steps to reduce or stop it and deceive the electorate that the opposite is the case if need be.
There was a debate yesterday on the question of why illegals come here and how. We know that. It ought to have been about means of stopping and returning them and immediate deporting of any who get here, so the debate was a diversion and in keeping with the oath.
August 7, 2020
Natalie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover, was interviewed yesterday on the subject and said that it was totally unacceptable. Her concern however was for the safety of the migrants and not for the cuckolded British people. I suspect that JR and his fellows have gritted their teeth and focused on Brexit as their line of ‘Non plus ultra’. Boris can’t bow down to the globalists on this issue without a Parliamentary rebellion.
Reply I have called for action to stop people trafficking and to reduce migration.
August 7, 2020
But the real problems are caused by more people arriving, not by their traffickers. Nip the problem in the bud by sending them back to France without their phones.
August 7, 2020
The reality is not the cartoon caricature which you imply by your simplistic comment.
August 8, 2020
You sacrificed membership of the EU with that attitude.
August 8, 2020
Well, if that were really the price of telling the truth, then that’s unfortunate, but unavoidable if so.
August 7, 2020
The problem warrants a recall of Parliament and emergency legislation. Until the recall, Patel should be made to give a daily press conference.
August 7, 2020
Totally agree
August 7, 2020
I agree. The People are not fooled, and its no good saying āBlair started itā. The Conservatives have been in power for over ten years now, and have gone along with high levels of immigration. This is losing them votes, big time.
Despite many vows and promises, nothing is ever really done about this, apart from saying āitās totally unacceptableā.
Does anyone really think, if the Royal Navy is deployed, they will tow the boats back to France? In my opinion, its just an attempt to buy some time, until peoples interest is diverted by some other problem.
August 7, 2020
+1
August 7, 2020
Quite clearly France is so civilised that people risk their lives and try to escape to Britain.
Contrast how the French treat migrants and then square that with what Martin in C, Newmania and Andy say about us being uncivilised.
August 7, 2020
France treats asylum seekers perfectly well. But there are a multitude of reasons why someone might choose to seek asylum here rather than in France. They might have family here, for example. Or they might speak English, but not French. They might have connections to the UK or come from a former British colony.
And, I have to say, I do find the response of the hard right on this completely uncivilised. You really should all hear yourselves. āSink the boatsā, ācall in the Navyā, āblow up the tunnelā. Iām afraid many of you have become really quite bonkers about what is a minor problem at best.
Nobody chooses to be a refugee. Nobody chooses to live in a warzone or a failed state. And people who find themselves trying to flee from these situations need our help and our support. Not our contempt and anger. You are only a natural disaster away from being a refugee yourself. Treat them as you hope they would treat you if you get unlucky.
I start from the basic position that trying to cross the Channel in a dinghy is a ridiculously dangerous thing to do. Even more so if you are old, or pregnant or have children with you. And you do not take that risk lightly. And you certainly do not take is so you can be dumped in a grubby bedsit in Grimsby with no money to live on, no legal right to work and hostile natives. The notion that they come here for benefits is – and always has been – vacuous nonsense. So my default position is to help them. And whilst this Brexit government is itself devoid of decency it rules a country in which most of us are still decent. I imagine most of you are probably still decent too – though, frankly, it is often becoming increasingly hard to tell beneath the increasingly unhinged anger.
August 7, 2020
They are safe in France.
They were safe in the several other countries they travelled through to get to the UK.
Asylum is designed to be temporary.
When it is safe they should then return to their home nation.
Or are they economic migrants looking to jump the usual process to come and live here?
August 7, 2020
Andy
Thank you for bringing a bit of balance and decency to this blog. Some of the views expressed here regarding asylum seekers are quite appalling.
What is so sad is that we come from a country that has spread itself across the globe like no other very often to escape hardship and persecution here from the Pilgrim fathers onwards.
Thankfully in my experience people with the views expressed here are still in a minority but it is nevertheless upsetting to read what they have to say about these unfortunate people.
August 8, 2020
The French force them to live in muddy squalor.
Yet you and Andy think the French are better than us.
August 7, 2020
Do we need people who are stupid enough to risk their lives rather than learn French? I think not.
August 7, 2020
Life as an immigrant is not supposed to be easy. They are supposed to adapt.
France will also never be the first country they arrived in they will have traveled across safe countries to get to France and then on to our country.
August 7, 2020
Indeed, and perhaps those who think that the Foreign Aid budget is a waste will take some time to think about how that budget could be used to support people in their own countries and look to improve things where the migrants come from originally so maybe, just maybe, they feel less of an incentive to attempt such journeys in the first place.
August 8, 2020
One minute Peter why is it Britains job to improve immigrants Countries, we were told to leave most of them and walk away!
We had been improving lots of Countries, civilising them, creating railways, work and improving farming, it is not little Britainās job, as Andy, Martin, Margaret and all the other anti-British posters remind us, to sort out the rest of the World. We have provided billions in aid over the year, literally billions, there are teenagers in England who believe that much of Africa is huts full of starving people and illness without any water – such is the State of our education and BBC programs that only report the negative.
If foreign aid immigrants are arriving on our shore then our foreign aid budget should be the means of supporting them not additional gdp.
August 8, 2020
The UK made profits by invading and imposing itself on many of those countries, and then taking their resources over many decades. Yes, we have a responsibility to those the UK had taken advantage of.
It is invariably cheaper to treat the root cause rather than the symptom. Illegal migrants turning up at the shore is the symptom and we would be better off spending money helping to treat the root cause so people don’t feel the need to make such journeys in the first place
We all share this planet together and the fact that I was born in the UK rather than somewhere like Yemen or Syria is down to nothing more than pure chance. I don’t have a problem in sharing some of my good luck with those less fortunate.
August 8, 2020
Andy
They’re coming to us for the freebies.
You’re beloved French don’t give them any.
August 8, 2020
‘trying to cross the Channel in a dinghy is a ridiculously dangerous thing to do. ‘
especially when you are safe in France.
August 7, 2020
The Mayor of Calais, who should know something about the migrants, said that they are desperate to get to Britain because they know they can find work in the black economy, whereas such opportunities are much more limited in France. The French position is that the British Government isn’t prepared to change things to shut down the black economy and the migrants want to go there so why should they stand inbetween?
August 7, 2020
I see Priti Patel has put out some words on Twatter to the effect that when the people voted for taking back control of our borders ‘that is exactly what they meant’.
Of course. But what we also meant is for you and the bungler to do something. That is action to stop illegal immigration and return them immediately,
We demand you do something, but you just talk and find excuses for doing nothing.
Send back immediately? Dear no. We can’t do that, it may upset them, and the French, and mustn’t offend the French.
Meanwhile they laugh in our faces. Priti – pretty useless.
August 7, 2020
Developers are already too powerful and the White Paper just makes them more powerful.
Presumably all the nice middle class areas will deem themselves to be in the “protection” category and so all new housing will be dumped in poor areas where the residents have no voice and are ignored by the ruling elite. I will certainly want my neighbourhood to be in this category, otherwise a developer could come in and do whatever they want.
As they say, follow the money. Who funds the Tory party? Developers (and Russian oligarchs) are high up on the list.
August 7, 2020
Too many people.
August 7, 2020
“The value of land in the UK has risen by 544 per cent whereas the value of the buildings sitting it has only risen by 219 per cent. And the value of land is largely determined by its location, not by any effort on the part of the landowner ā a point made by Winston Churchill, a proponent of LVT [Land Value Tax], in 1909:
āRoads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains ā and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.ā
When the state invests large sums of public money in a project like Crossrail, land values rise along the route. LVT would allow some of that rise in value to be recouped by the taxpayer.” (Tom Copley CityMetric)
August 7, 2020
Is your idea an additional tax or is it to replace existing taxes?
Let me guess….
August 7, 2020
A LVT can and should be used to replace existing taxes.
Have a read of the 2015 paper by Jerry Jones and Carol Wilcox. It outlines how a LVT could replace Council Tax, Business Rates, Stamp Duty, Section 106, Community Infrastructure Levy and the Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings, as well as reducing Income Tax and VAT in the long term
One tax which can replace 6 others and reducing 2 more. That should appeal even to Lifelogic.
August 8, 2020
The problem is when Governments in the UK introduce a new tax they almost never remove the old ones. So we would almost certainly end up with all 7 taxes!
Income tax, for example, was a “temporary” measure to fund the Napoleonic War.
August 8, 2020
Agreed Peter and thanks for an intelligent reply, quite rare on this site. Estonia is the European exemplar for a modern tax system, particularly with LVT and Corporation Tax.
August 8, 2020
There are many practical difficulties with trying to introduce LVT that the theoreticians who support it like to gloss over. Nowhere in the world has it been successfully implemented to replace other taxation.
August 8, 2020
Agree Mark.
And it is imposed by a state on theoretical value.
Then you have to pay cash sums just because you own an asset.
Despite deriving no income from that asset.
August 8, 2020
There are quite a few examples of where LVT has, or is, being used. Transitioning to LVT can be managed if there is the will.
August 9, 2020
Isnāt it what the Council Tax already is, at least partly. It includes obviously bits and bobs like money for Adult Social Care, the Fire Service, the Police and Crime Commissioner, … but it is essentially a form of property and personal tax. The āpropertyā part (the main bit of Council Tax) is based on evaluations 15 to 25 years old, which have not been updated following inflation, house-price index, or whatever because of the incapacity of politicians, both Labour and Conservatives to come up with something they could justify.
A Land Value Tax would not be so complicated to establish. It might even give an incentive to developers to build faster instead of keeping the equivalent of a million of future houses in their āland banksā.
As for countries having a LVT, a quick look to wikipedia will give the answer: Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, and parts of Australia, Mexico, USA have a LVT.
Furthermore the argument āone has to pay just because one owns an asset, despite deriving no income from that assetā is rather weak. Are you getting an income from your main abode?
August 7, 2020
Two items off topic Sir John.
We do not need a Select Committee enquiry into why so many immigrants are crossing to Dover as the reason is obvious. We have had many more days of calm weather this year and in fact the number may well have broken the record. Secondly stop putting them into 4 star hotels from which they escape and disappear. Put them into some of the many mothballed army camps which can be made secure for very little cost while their application for asylum is examined.
The French are making every effort to clear the migrant camps on their north coast by escorting them into UK waters.
Secondly shut down this continued attack on Cummings and the lock down. We all have a weakness and one of the chinks in the PM’s armour is he wants ”to be liked”. Cummings is his backbone and the Left know that if they can shift him out of No 10 the plans to disinfect the Civil Service will end up in the long grass
August 7, 2020
Why do so many people have the need to escape the EU. Isn’t it a safe haven for all, a bastion of human rights and a protector of the citizen.
August 7, 2020
+1
August 7, 2020
For goodness sake John, we live on a tiny island. We donāt need more houses. What we need is a tough Government to put an end to mass immigration and illegal immigration and to stop the perverse over generous benefits system which makes it more beneficial for a couple to live apart than together resulting in families now living in multiple houses. Why else are immigrants so desperate to travel through numerous safe countries to reach our shores?
Johnsonās Government has been a complete letdown on this as in so many other things. Priti Patel talks the talk but does NOTHING. Appeaser Boris needs to stop trying to steal Labourās clothing and grow a backbone.
August 8, 2020
Ā«Ā An end to mass migration Ā«Ā That dingies sailed Jools! Other Countries arenāt so generous and have language barriers they set up which we must set up too. We donāt have to give them free housing and high benefits though do we and if this government doesnāt get a grip weāll have to elect people who will.
August 7, 2020
The government wish to push through housing developments at all costs yet are still sitting on the application for Highthorn Colliery which was approved by local inspectors nearly five years ago. Are ministers (abetted by Carrie?) going to cave in to the Green Mafia, just as they did over fracking, leaving us dependant on Russian coal for cement and steel making? Have we learned nothing from Covid 19 of the dangers of relying on potentially hostile regimes for critical supplies?
August 7, 2020
Many people in this country don’t believe we need more housing. There is a growing belief that we would be better off with fewer people requiring a house.
August 7, 2020
I suggest abolishing all the silly change of use rules. Shops and offices need to be capable of being converted to homes. Likewise people need to be able to alter and develop their own properties with much less bureaucratic interference. Real historic buildings must be protected and people prevented from severely impacting neighboursā homes, but now we have far too many busy bodies on the public payroll stymieing development people want. As you say the only ones who can get around this are large housing developers who sit on plots of land and then put up hundreds of lookalike boxes on them.
Also time limit planning permission. If a house builder gets permission to build work needs to start and proceed at an acceptable pace or the permission should be revoked and penalties paid.
August 8, 2020
āpeople need to be able to alter and develop their own properties with much less bureaucratic interference.ā
I donāt agree Richard, youāve obviously not had a nightmare neighbour with no consideration to the times of morning and evening they build, drilling and banging away, wanting to put windows suddenly overlooking someoneās Main front window that had previously been build in a way to avoid this clash, change the style of the estate, moving walls to take out trees and other neighbours privacy, most people resident for 20 years or more then moving because they didnāt like the way this was going, knocking the value of their homes down, inferior products used to keep prices down.
Have you not seen the terraced streets where one inconsiderate person builds right on the property line taking all the light of their elderly neighbours main living room! Or the programs on tv that show people building a wall right on the boundary line unable to point the bricks and removing their neighbours home from being able to do cavity wall insulation or paint their eves or indeed just enjoy the light from the gap between the previous properties.
Or neighbours that pay no regard to the draining system running under properties and their plans cause blockages in the main drains and cause problems for other neighbours.
Building control needs to be done quick and efficiently and the neighbours allowed to object as now if their light and peace is going to be really affected by encroachment of canny shoddy home makeover up sellers.
August 7, 2020
Um
How can you do a blog post on housing without mention of mass and illegal immigration ?
August 7, 2020
A true Conservative conserves. They are against the needless and destructive transformation of our country through destroying its beauty and culture. I get the impression that “green spaces” will mean hemmed in places for “recreational activities”. When will we have enough economic migrants and enough economic growth? Presumably when the whole of the South looks like Singapore: crowded, orderly, planned, prosperous, and with designated “green spaces”.
When the countryside is gone, it is gone forever. Your own constituency used to be beautiful. Now it is a crowded sprawl with bureaucrats employed to make it work smoothly and alleviate delays and congestion. People need to discern the difference between a Conservative Government and a spivocracy.
August 7, 2020
Planning and the seeking of planning approval should only be undertaken if the planned structure interferes with a neighbour….otherwise its a building regs issue
August 7, 2020
glen – – and most ‘interference’ is ignored by the planning approval people.
August 7, 2020
It seems easy to me. When illegal migrants land in England, they are arrested and sent back to France within 24 hours.
August 7, 2020
if only.
August 7, 2020
Sans Natel.
August 7, 2020
They are arrested for stealing a boat
And both the culprit and the boat immediately returned to France for justice
As ‘Judge Judy’ says…you have to come into my court with clean hands
August 7, 2020
In these days of austerity some things still surprise.
I had a query for my local library and saw CHAT was available, even though it was well before 9am – so I sent my message.
“Hello,” said the automatic response, “I am Sarah from Hawaii How can I help?”
Hawaii???? Why on earth do we need to buy into a service like this – I’d have been perfectly happy to wait for a reply.
…..and yes, she did supply an appropriate link.
August 7, 2020
For years -we suffered loads of inappropriate development by certain Planning Firms and their builders which just went ahead because our Council was tardy in making a Local Development Plan and virtually every appeal was overturned by a government Inspector because the LDP wasn’t in place. Loads of prime arable land has been concreted over, no more infrastructure in place, doctors lists closed, no school places, but the Tories say this is still not enough. Now, our Local Development Plan, which took several years, 2 million pounds of our Council Tax to produce, which is accepted locally as being sensible and providing protection from the cowboys, now just chucked in the bin so that big developers can now have a free for all and make bigger profits. People here say there is no Conservative government. I’d say this is proof positive there is.
August 7, 2020
A better title ‘Planning Whitewash Paper’?
August 7, 2020
Town and Country Planning Act 1947
We built some great cities and roads etc before politicans got involved
August 7, 2020
Houses everywhere??? – -I remember a few years ago a large building company wanted to put up thousands of new houses in a certain area – it was rejected.
Nothing to do with it being in a certain Mr Cameron’s locality would it?
August 7, 2020
I think it’s still the case that no asylum seekers have been housed in Whitney, or Maidenhead either for that matter.
August 7, 2020
Tyr Beaconsfield. Andy is quite prepared to put a few up.
August 7, 2020
Most of the new housing stock in the Wokingham area is of cheap wooden frame construction.
The attic space is generally unusable as the roof tmbers are of thinner cut and therefore require many frames to support the roof tiles. The garden when there is one is of minimal size and not much of a space to grow food or for children to play in. No pathway on the streets either. Disgraceful!
August 7, 2020
Yes – welcome to sought-after Wokingham.
True some years ago – – I’d have thought young couples would run a mile now.
August 7, 2020
You noticed. If there are pedestrian footpaths they are used for parking cars or cyclists.
Wokingham is about giving you tomorrows slums today.
To be a little less harsh, Wokingham Council says they have no say, they say the builders take instruction from Central Government. That begs the question why the announcements this week when the Government already rides roughshod of local communities.
August 7, 2020
There is an article today in Conservative Woman on the navvies, who built the railways with stupendous and appalling labour. This is just the sort of work our politicians require. JR, you are exempted.
August 7, 2020
On second thoughts, cancel the exemption.
August 7, 2020
Net migration has been the driver of UK population since the early 1990s https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statistics-net-migration-statistics
Given 200 to 300k net immigrants per year the origin of demand for accommodation per year and the diluting of infrastructure is clear. Since there is no intention to turn net migration to zero or even negative (the cultural balance arguments) then prior to publishing a paper that is all about continually sprawling, I would prefer publication of an honest future vision of the U.K.
As I have said many times before, I supported the arguments for house ownership at the time of PM Thatcher’s right to buy – the population was essentially constant. Now, given the political classes intent on all sides to continue population growth then I don’t support this; high quality rental, vertical interconnected cities is the only sustainable route.
If the Conservative view of the future (of England) is one of culturally ghettoised, divided, non-innovative and inefficient sprawl, then fair enough, but tell people honestly what it is. Those who can take advantage of this in the higher echelons or some sections of the criminal world may well prefer it, others may not. I will repeat the alternatives to England’s ghettoised sprawl – (i) stop all immigration even for marriage etc., (ii) encourage all immigration to Scotland, (iii) the high quality rental model for vertical interconnected cities, (iv) ghettoised sprawl for as long as one can get away with it (i.e. until it breaks badly – societal pressure, service failure, resource short fall, environmental damage etc.)..I prefer (iii) with maybe some of (i) and (ii), but (iv) is what we have.
August 7, 2020
There are two issues that might break the Conservative Party: one is immigration and the other is the destruction of the countryside. The problems are related.
August 7, 2020
SW, I’ve never seen it expressed so well or so concisely.
August 7, 2020
How kind.
August 7, 2020
Indeed. It has already cost them my vote. I have terminated my Membership, after well over 38 years. I love my country, its history and heritage. I don’t wish to pay to watch its destruction.
August 7, 2020
what! — lots more issues.
False promises in the manifesto.
Boris – ‘get it done’
Boris – ‘Save Lives’
Economic meltdown.
Control of borders.
Trade deals easy, and ready to go.
HS2.
Scotland independence vote put off.
Lower taxes.
August 7, 2020
How is it that thing you write about your party does the opposite.
August 7, 2020
Travelling around the UK & also looking at property websites & sales websites it’s hard to comprehend the level of housing shortages we apparently face. I assume any land banking has perhaps already been reviewed and calculated but it seems we are taking the bull in a china shop / headless chicken route. I see the word deceit keeps cropping up and I have to agree with earlier comments by Dominic. & others. Why can our leaders not be honest and acknowledge what is quite apparent that the major part of our problem is population and immigration. The current and past illegal immigration is unacceptable. A makeshift camp in the Calais area was reportedly closed last month and on the 29th July a migrant campsite north of Paris at Aubervilliers was dismantled by French Police & reported as holding approx 1500 persons ( source MSN ) It’s not unreasonable to suppose that this has had an impact on what is happening in the Channel. What can the Navy do ? We do not need another costly & time consuming enquiry and talking shop this side of the channel. Let’s hope that the one to be held soon at the other side is meaningful. If those in power do not know by now what needs to be done then I despair. This cannot go on.
August 7, 2020
And yet the people in the camps are those too poor to pay the smugglers. They’re not taking a holiday there!. The people crossing the channel have bought a passage all the way from their own country and are flying into France or being driven there before the smugglers take them to the coast.
August 7, 2020
Diane,
To be ‘fair’ it is the legal immigration (a quarter million a year net) that has given rise to the popn growth. The illegal component us relatively small. The ONS clearly states that the major driver if population growth is immigration (added to that immigrants tend to have more children). Some people (like Andy somewhere here) will incorrectly argue that it is due to people living longer, but in the UK life expectancy has flat lined since the GFC, the current crash may actually drive it down a bit).
August 7, 2020
I have read reports in the press on what is proposed – no idea if they are correct. They seem to involve local zoning to be decided by local residents. If true that wonāt work – no local residents ever want any new developments at all, they will just zone their entire region as being protected against development – why wouldnāt they ? I would.
August 7, 2020
How are you redruming today John.
August 8, 2020
What does āredrummingā mean the urban dictionary suggestion canāt be what you intended to say?
August 7, 2020
It just looks like a another plan to ram in even more shoddy housing to keep pace with population levels that are totally out of control.
The whole infrastructure is overloaded, are there any plans for the future water supply for instance? Large areas have already ground to a halt in permanent traffic jams, thatās why working from home has been so popular.
We always get this ālocal community consultationā rubbish but objections are ignored when they get in the way of developer profits. Millions of pounds have been wasted by local authorities complying with the Localism Act, which was just a developerās charter anyway, and this new act will bring even more misery to local communities.
August 7, 2020
It looks like most of your contributors have dinghy-fever. A handful of people risk their lives to come here, fleeing mostly from warzones, and you all get your knickers in a twist.
The bottom line is that we have a shortage of housing because the Baby Boomer generation has, for decades, failed to build.
They all walked into their nice 4 bedroomed detached homes in the late 60s/early 70s – which they paid a few hundred quid for. āIt was a lot of money in those daysā. But then the Baby Boomers refused to build more homes for their children. They became NIMBYS – objecting to all local development and they have done so ever since. Worse, the Boomers have stayed in their big homes – not downsizing, forcing young families to miss out.
We had it here last month. An angry letter from an elderly neighbour – sent to the MP and local councillors, copied to all residents urging them to agree – opposing plans to build hikes nearby. Homes which would not disrupt our elderly neighbour in anyway. She just opposed them for oppositions sake. I immediately wrote in support of the plans.
As study after study shows, migration has a negligible impact on housing – whereas increased longevity, more old people living alone and NIMBYISM has a huge impact. But, as always, it is easier to blame foreigners than to blame granny.
August 7, 2020
Several thousand a year via this dingy method is hardly a handful.
They are being ruthlessly exploited by criminal gangs on both sides of the Channel.
PS
We have had the biggest increase in our population since 2000 in our history.
To claim that has no effect on demand for housing is ludicrous.
August 8, 2020
Are you sure theyāre ācriminal gangsā supplying the 100 and more large dingies and not the French government? it doesnāt appear to notice 100ās of dinghies on their controlled land that we pay them to billions police! Take that money back of the French for a start, they failed.
August 7, 2020
Andy – you really must live in cave. ‘nice 4 bedroomed detached homes in the late 60s/early 70s ā which they paid a few hundred quid’.
Factually nonsense, even in 1969 a modest end-terrace house was into several Ā£thousand (I know, I bought one) and in the 70s the prices rocketed.
If you were studying estate agent papers from a condemned derelict street in a Stoke on Trent suburb – you might be a fraction nearer.
August 7, 2020
Yet the country was going to grind to a halt without EU immigration wasn’t it? Now immigration levels are so low as to be irrelevant to housing?
Try exercising consistency as a life challenge.
August 7, 2020
It isn’t just the dinghy arrivals (actually more the fact that Priti is facilitating it. )
The lies you tell, Andy.
That France is so much more civilised that we are yet they leave refugees to fester in muddy camps. So bad they risk life to escape to Britain.
Never mind.
I believe that the view you express here is what a lot of Tory MPs think.
August 7, 2020
Yes…considering what they say is still happening in ācareā homes I think you are right!
Eugenics is it called? Or maybe to do with āuseless eatersā (same thing poss?).
Anyway…Andy and govt. hand in glove.
August 7, 2020
Or maybe he is our own personal ānudgerā?
August 7, 2020
You blame granny for everything. I take your point about immigration. 300,000 extra people a year will have no affect on the housing market. They donāt need houses to live in?
August 7, 2020
I didnāt refuse to allow building for my children. There is nothing I would like more than each of my children being able to buy a bit of land and build their own house.
A question you appear to be unwilling to answer. How many immigrants/asylum seekers do you think this country should take?
Why should we have an ever increasing population on this small island which does not produce enough food for the current population?
August 7, 2020
I’m very concerned that our NATO ally France is apparently involved in a war which is being hushed up by the UK media and we only know about it because of the poor refugees who are forced to flee France in dinghies. Or perhaps the dingy passengers are really economic migrants who are not in any danger in France, which is in reality a safe country in which to claim asylum, always assuming that they have a legitimate claim and that France is the first safe country they came to (which is rather unlikely).
August 7, 2020
The fundamental problem remains England communities are controlled by Westminster. This plan appears to rip up local planning, which has been vastly loosened in recent decades. Suburban development is now happening on a scale not remotely being granted only a few years ago. The next stage, which this plan embodies, is no local planning departments.
The devolution for England remains a pipe dream until Scotland becomes independent and N.Ireland inevitably drifts into the EU and unifies.
This government is becoming increasingly wrong headed week by week. Interesting article in yesterday’s Times about a new member of the Lords.
Genuine leaders do not need gurus, especially those who can flout rules.
August 7, 2020
That is what is so strange about the announcement, our local council and planning don’t have a say. Building is dictated by Central Government
August 7, 2020
+1
The devolution for England remains a pipe dream until Scotland becomes independent and N.Ireland inevitably drifts into the EU and unifies.
yessssssssssssssssssss
August 7, 2020
It’ll be a pipedream come true when Scotland go off alone to economic wilderness.
Bring it on!
August 7, 2020
No faults with the new planning system then, all good. No need to pay toward infrastructure if building under 51 homes and no affordable homes as well, just divide the building plots into blocks of 50 high end homes for people moving out of the cities before shops and office blocks are turn into more homes for immigrants to move into when your party open the flood gates.
August 7, 2020
Ian.
Open the flood gate?
They already have, witness the illegal channel crossings in last two month’s.
These andi quote the BBC news tonight “poor and desperate” Why do they treat us as idiots? Most of those in the boats have payed to get here and are therefore in the crutches of the gangs and their masters. Oops I forgot the government are also fighting modern day slavery. It is time for a night of the long knives. Too many are show boating and just operating on a wing and a prayer. Too many first rate experienced politicians are condemned to the back benches whilst the new generation commit political suicide and they don’t give a toss about the voters and supporters.
August 7, 2020
The elephant in the room is immigration. At present the rates are unsustainable. Your government refuses to acknowledge the nature of the problem, and the scale of it, so it cannot hope to tackle it effectively. Its answer is simply to bully people into accepting yet more concreting over the landscape, accompanied by the huge pressures on an infrastructure which cannot cope.
If the government truthfully acknowledges the cause of the problem, then it has a chance of solving it. Sticking plaster solutions and trying to hoodwink voters by means of political correctness about the causes of the problem does not work. We re not so dumb that we cannot see the real cause of the housing and related problems.
August 7, 2020
@CG; “We re not so dumb that we cannot see the real cause of the housing and related problems.”
So how many migrants are living in these scarce homes and how many UK born single parents, or for that matter single adults? Stop mistaking the brass elephant on the mantelpiece for the real elephants behind you…
August 7, 2020
It is estimated that there is a short fall of around 900,000 homes in the UK, this short fall can not be explained by even few thousand (illegal) migrants arriving in the UK and being allowed to ‘jump the housing queue’, even if there has been 200,000 migrant arrivals since the implementation of the Schengen Agreement it still means successive govts and private builders have failed to build 700,000+ homes over the last 25 years or so – for UK nationals…
The idea that migrants are causing the UK to be short of housing is Fake News, bovine by-product!
August 7, 2020
Is that 900k shortage your number, or perhaps Martin’s?
I don’t visit many town centres to witness the thousands of homeless, and recently long walks around the country have been advised against. So perhaps the tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of homeless sleep in the fields?
August 8, 2020
@Fred H; It’s a semi official figure, I did a web search and that mean number kept cropping up – of the relevant pages, most cited the figure as coming from data published by Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
“So perhaps the tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of homeless sleep in the fields?”
No you’ll not see overcrowding or the homelessness of those sleeping on a succession of their mates sofas (until the favour runs out), or those living in caravans, even vans, even sheds etc.
What next Fred, deign child exploitation exists simply because you do not see it happening?…
August 8, 2020
Fred, Covid allowed the government to count EXACTLY the number of homeless people as they were gathered up and told they had to stay in hotels. You donāt have to estimate or guess anymore the government could tell you.
August 8, 2020
@a-tracy; So the bloke sleeping in his mates garden shed or in a caravan some place, were rounded up and forced to stay in a hotel? Homelessness is not just rough sleepers…
August 8, 2020
How do you calculate that? There are 24.4 million homes in England, 2.6 million in Scotland, 1.4 million in Wales and 0.8m in Northern Ireland – a total of 29.2 million for a population said to be 66.5 million – so there are just 2.27 people per home on average. Not exactly overcrowding.
The problem is not the number of homes.
August 8, 2020
@Mark; “The problem is not the number of homes.”
No, but availability might be…
Have you factored in homes unfit for habitation, holiday homes, second and third homes, homes that are -for what ever reason- reserved (such as MOD property)?
August 8, 2020
Have you looked at the statistics on that? Nationally they are not a big factor. Besides, MOD homes are being lived in – or do you expect Army families to camp in tents?
August 9, 2020
@Mark; “Have you looked at the statistics?”
Yes I did, check my previous comments, on the other hand you appear to be plucking figures out of the ether.
August 7, 2020
Yet again Farage is ahead of the game. Somehow the Tory party will twist and turn to keep people from his clutches whilst clinging on to housebuilders and developers’ contributions. Eventually it’ll go into a death spiral and self combust.
August 7, 2020
Yes, and now Leo McKinstry sums up the latest problems with the Tories and immigration in his article in D Telegraph:
George Orwell once wrote that āpolitical language is designed to make lies sound truth and murder respectable, and to give an impression of solidity to pure wind.ā There could not be a better description of the yawning chasm between the Tory Governmentās stern rhetoric on immigration and their shameful record of laxity, feebleness and cowardice….
Link: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/07/heavy-handed-quarantine-hand-wringing-channel-crossings/
August 7, 2020
Government is the problem.
They need a constant flow of people to maintain GDP.
August 7, 2020
Local authorities need to determine how many home are required to meet the needs of local people then take action to supply them immediately when there is a shortfall and build infrastructure required to support the new builds. They donāt have to be council houses they can be attractive developments which are sold direct to the public. Deciding what bit of land can be built on and what canāt and ignoring the needs of the population is called nimbyism. Time lapsing planning consent would seem to be sensible way to prevent builders dragging their feet.
August 8, 2020
It already lapses after 3 years.
August 8, 2020
and re-presenting with a tweak usually goes through on the nod.
August 8, 2020
You only have to get a shovel and dig a trench to stop the clock permanently.
August 8, 2020
Not if development is “begun”.
That is, demolition is started, or an access way constructed.
It can then be abandoned indefinitely without loss of permission.
There must be a staggering number of such sites – there are two for thirty-odd homes in a small village where I have family, and have been for over fifteen years.
August 7, 2020
Is the inner circle of this govt. the commie coup we have all been fearing?
Certainly feels like it!
But they must have plenty of support I guess?
August 7, 2020
The globalists are basically pushing for a communist system aka one world government, and our government, led by Boris Johnson, is apparently made up of globalists. President Trump made an excellent speech yesterday about how globalisation has wrought havoc with countries like the USA. However, my comment, quoting President Trump, has not been posted. For the UK to actually survive, we do not need ostriches, but instead lions, like P Trump. Our fate is in Johnson’s hands, and his band of Tory MPs, and I am very greatly concerned.
August 7, 2020
Everhopeful, this may be your answer. It seems that Tobias Ellwood in this tweet has rather given the game away. Interesting that Woodward has very close links with China:
“Congrats to Dame Barbara Woodward – our new Ambassador to the UN.
She brings formidable experience to the role – not least from her recent appointment as our Ambassador to China.
This is a critical time for the UK to push the UN to urgently adapt to the NEW WORLD ORDER.” (My emphasis).
It is worth noting that the UN is apparently considered to be a key promoter and a major instrument of one world government in the “new world order”.
August 7, 2020
“The government should also as part of this policy exercise improve its control of our borders and set a sustainable figure for economic migrants as past Conservative governments did or promised to do, to ease some of the development pressures.”
Agreed, and let’s hope that ‘sustainable’ means less than 100,000 people per year rather than more than 200,000 as has been the case recently. Formally tasking the Royal Navy to deter people traffickers from attempting the channel crossing would be a fine start.
August 7, 2020
Priti Patel talking about the Navy is a load of rubbish, just something to make her sound tough, but in reality the Navy would be obliged to pick up the migrants and bring them ashore here. It would be an expensive addition to the Channel taxi service she is already running.
To get control of illegal migration needs changes to the UN Refugee convention and the Human Rights act , if not scrapping them. We are deluding ourselves to think we can get control of it while those two bits of virtue signalling law sit on the statue books
August 7, 2020
What is the Royal Navy supposed to do, shell Calais? Apparently Priti also said that the ‘refugees’ should apply for asylum in the EU. She should not be urging bogus asylum seekers to go to the EU, she should be putting our house in order and letting the EU make their own decision as to whether they want to do the same. ‘Returning them to France’ is a red herring, the French don’t want them and in any case we are about to enter a spat with the French over fishing rights. Deport them immediately to a Third World country outside of the EU that we have bribed to take them, and they will stop setting out rapidly.
August 7, 2020
Why do we NEED any immigration?
August 7, 2020
Is that not obvious, what would all the foreign Brickies have to do if they had No houses to build to keep the likes of Desmond in the lifestyle He thinks He deserves.
August 8, 2020
To subsidise the net drain on the taxpayer caused by non-productive, Leave-voting people.
Next?
August 8, 2020
Next?
You have no data to slur leave voters as non productive.
None
August 7, 2020
If it is as it reads, we could be getting there.
Former England Rugby Captain and 2003 World Cup Winner Mike Tindall MBE has backed a new Covid-19 rapid test kit and secure digital health passport that will help get sports fans from across the UK back into stadiums following Prime Minister Boris Johnsonās recent announcement to help the sports economy.
The Rapid test kit takes 1 minute to administer to a sports fan and gives test results within 10 minutes and a 98.7% accuracy testing for IgG, IgA, IgM. The test kit which comes with a GDPR compliant and secure digital health passport called VHealth Passportā¢ will be priced at Ā£15 making it a āgame changerā for sports fans across the UK.
āFANS ARE BACKā¢ā pilot programs will cover football, rugby and snooker initially working with DCMS, Public Health England, SGSA (Sports Ground Safety Authority) and the various bodies including the Premier League, RFU, RFL and World Snooker. Upon its successful trials other pilot programs will then be rolled out across music concerts, theatre and other entertainment venues.
August 8, 2020
Will they guarantee that spectators won’t be treated to an obedience to Marxists ritual at the start of proceedings?
August 7, 2020
Rishi Sunak seems to think that tax rises and spending to keep GDP rising is the way to go to keep austerity at bay, well maybe for the artificially economy were the robber barons live but I would suggest that tax increases on the real economy are the worst form of austerity where real people live, as one can see, all they worry about is GDP and investor who pay next to no tax.
August 7, 2020
We will need hundreds of new houses over the projected figures just for the channel illegals.
1100 which the authorities know about. The way we are operating at the moment you could quite easily multiply that by three.
Forget all this green crap and start governing with the best interest of the population now. Now point in trying to reduce pollution when you have so many being allowed to land. It would be cheaper to lift them from the sea and put them straight onto charter planes and fly them back from where they originated from. The county cannot afford to accommodate them.. The numbers this year are already double that of last year. The taxpayers are in for a big enough hit as it is with Cobid 19 especially with unemployment rocketing which will add to the misery. Time for push to go to shove or put people into cabinet who will get the priorities right . If they cannot or will not resign. Enough is enough.
August 7, 2020
1100 this month already. Then add their families at a later date.
August 7, 2020
Your government needs to get a grip on the illegal immigrants arriving on our shores every day now in their hundreds. These are just those we know about. You will never keep up with the demand for houses or jobs at this rate. This country is broke and people have enough to worry about without knowing all these immigrants are being housed fed and watwe’d at our expense. Boris had better pull up those Eton socks because people are getting fed p with the lax attitude of this government.
August 7, 2020
Sky News interviewed a naval expert about Priti’s suggestion of deploying the Royal Navy. He didn’t say anything about the damage done to our people and culture, perhaps for fear of being ‘cancelled’, but he DID say that 80% of the world want to come to Britain because their own country is a shambles. We can’t accommodate 80% of the world here and if we tried our country would become a shambles as well. That’s perhaps as close to the wind as you can sail these days.
Needless to say, these countries are not a shambles because of something in the air or soil but because of the customs and culture of the people themselves, which we are told they must be allowed to perpetuate here.
August 7, 2020
Beresford your last paragraph is of great concern. It’s a terrible truth which we are not allowed to talk about. There was a poll recently on Facebook and people were asked who they would like as PM of the UK now and tge overwhelming majority said Enoch Powell. Says it all.
August 7, 2020
FES, Boris is apparently carrying out UN requirements as designated in the UN Charter on Refugees which Theresa May signed us up to.
Bear in mind that the definition of refugees has apparently been completely altered to include illegal immigrants landing up on our shores. I suspect that is why Priti Patel is only “shocked”, but why she has not taken, and apparently does not plan to take, any truly effective action. It is just passed on to others in government to slacken planning laws in order to concrete over our country, and for Tory MPs to write, with apparent concern, about the problems of planning without being willing, apparently, to address the elephant in the room.
August 7, 2020
There is a petition to the government- Take action to stop illegal immigration and rapidly remove illegal immigrantsā the more people sign the better as the Government then has to respond – this is getting ridiculous now and urgent action is required by the Government. Where are these people placed and who is meeting the cost? I have said before happy to support anyone coming from a war torn country but many of these people are not! I would never expect to move to another country and have all my expenses paid – sort it out John please!
August 7, 2020
The populate will increase to 69 million by the end this Tory Gov in 2025 they now have no interest in winning another election, they know that they are doomed to lose already and will just do the bidding of people they know and go to dinner with as they hollow out what left of England to put in their pockets, by way of voting you have had your whole country and your children future was stolen from you by your own greed and gullibility, it is a pleasure to sit back and watch as your sleepless nights will increase with long waiting lists for treatments of any kind going forward, it checkmate to the robber barons and the political parties. If I were the Brexit party leader, I would touch this mess with a barge pole.
August 8, 2020
They are not doomed to lose quite yet – but they show little sign of doing the right things needed to win. Namely sensible far smaller government, cheap energy, a cull of greencrap, cancel HS2, freedom and choice in healthcare and education, tax cuts and tax simplification and a bonfire of red tape.
August 7, 2020
What was the Brexit slogan oh yes “We will take control of our borders” mmm well all except Kent.
Many Governments around the world have tried and failed at stopping immigration. Watch this space……..
August 7, 2020
Where there is a will, there is a way. Our government apparently has no intention of seriously addressing the huge problems of unsustainable immigration. Unless it acknowledges and identifies the root causes of the housing and infrastructure problems, it can never hope to solve those problems. They seem to be relying on “image” (i.e. the perception that they are doing something), and sticking plaster.
August 7, 2020
On the TV BBC weather today the presenter said that the unusual hot temperatures are a result of climate change ā I nearly fell off my chair
Thought the BBC was suppose to be balanced
Is this now the BBCs and de-facto the governments position ?
August 7, 2020
They are happy to play fast and loose with the definition of climate and weather when it suits them.
PS I doubt they could find a hotter place in the country than the concrete heat sink of Heathrow.
August 7, 2020
yeah you’re correct – and that you just the weather headlines today …its the hottest day ever, ever on record, it really is the hottest its ever been…for 17 years
August 8, 2020
A huge area of concrete with lots of air conditioned building pumping out heat and a lots of jet engines going past just for good measure.
August 8, 2020
The BBC balanced on climate alarmism? They have been a pure propaganda outfit on this for very many years They are entirely one sided and they think the climate realists are flat Earthers when in fact they are right. The BBC are clearly the flat Earthers on this issue. They agreed to be entirely one sided after a meeting in 2006. A meeting that they spent lots of money licence payers money trying to hide from the public.
All sensible physicists and scientists (Freeman Dyson, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen and thousands more) know that it is a huge exaggeration at best and a blatant fraud at worst.
August 8, 2020
They even had a programme everyday this week at 1.45pm saying that the same arguments that were made in the 60’s and 70’s that smoking did not cause cancer were being deployed on climate change. Not one opposing voice in 1.25 hours of broadcasting. They even stated categorically that 97 percent of scientists agreed that it was CO2 causing it, when we know that has been discredited many times.
August 8, 2020
Indeed that programme (How They Made Us Doubt Everything) was pure propaganda from beginning to end. Wrong headed and completely idiotic – like most of the BBC output currently.
No only are the BBC wrong with the whole CO2 devil gas/climate emergency religion (CO2 is not a serious problem) but the solutions they propose to reduce CO2 wind, solar, bikes, public transport, electric cars …… do not even work even in CO2 terms anyway.
August 7, 2020
Get to your promised Immigration numbers and there would be No need to turn England’s Green and Pleasant into Concrete Block and Tarmac. Why do all New builds have to have solar power?.
August 7, 2020
The only way to get control of immigration would be for us to adopt the highly successful Australian model.
All immigrants trying to get to Australia by sea are sent to offshore detention centres on Papua New Guinea and Christmas Island and have to apply for asylum from there. 90% are, of course economic migrants and they are rejected out of hand and are not allowed onto Australian soil. As a result, attempts to get to Australia illegally have now dropped to insignificant levels. Ironically these centres are managed by a British Company, Serco !
That is the only policy that will work.
August 7, 2020
In Australia and Belgium, Italy, all the old people who died recently had flu shots. They are trying to cover this up everywhere.
August 8, 2020
We don’t have a housing shortage…..just too many people.
August 8, 2020
The hint is in its name. The planning system. The inefficiencies and corruption that goes hand in hand with any system like this is a known. So any “answer” is only going to work if it is simple to enforce.
At an extreme you don’t get much development at sea because it is not a good enviromment to build in, coupled with the likely lack of demand. Ditto space, although the increased reliance on satellites has certainly created a lot of noise! And therein lies an answer. As you say, maps provide a simple means of creating an arbitrary barrier, in that you can build here but not here, and types of build in different areas also makes sense, although over time we have seen boundaries like this blur.
So why not keep it simple. Green belt = no build, apart from permitted agricultural development. Anywhere else – gloves off.
Of course the governments penchant for follies and vanity projects must also be curtailed, as in the disaster that is HS2 for example.