tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91727667741379027662024-03-18T03:04:04.628+00:00The View from CullingworthCullingworth nestles in Yorkshire's wonderful South Pennines where I once was the local councillor. These are my views - on politics, food, beer and the stupidity of those who want to tell me what to think or do. And a little on mushrooms.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3885125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-79460409803347541352022-11-17T16:25:00.003+00:002022-11-17T16:25:46.970+00:00Parliamentary NIMBYs in action: report on a depressing debate<br /><a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-11-15/debates/56F1F576-719B-406F-8B5E-6F4121F25712/HousingTargetsPlanningSystem">Parliament held a 30-minute debate about housing targets </a>and the planning system moved by Gordon Henderson, MP for Sittingbourne & Sheppey. It will come as no surprise to find that Henderson’s argument was in support of more housing and better planning but rather the opposite:<br /><blockquote>This is not the first time I have raised the subject of overdevelopment in my constituency. In the last 12 years, I have done so on a number of occasions, so I will not repeat what I have said before, except to emphasise the problems that excessive housebuilding has caused my constituents.</blockquote>Henderson goes on to set out the complete set of NIMBY objections to new housing, you know those familiar lines about how people can’t get a GP appointment, the roads are congested and there aren’t enough school places. All because, we’re told, of the “top down target” imposed on Swale District Council (wherein sits Henderson’s constituency) by the government. Swale Council had, it seems, proposed new housing provision amounting to 776 homes a year for the plan period only to be told by the Planning Inspectorate that this wasn’t enough and they’d need to find land for 1,048 new homes.<br /><br />Having argued that the problem is “overdevelopment”, Henderson then - in gleeful irony - observes that developers haven’t managed to meet that 776 target any time in the last ten years. Any overdevelopment, it seems, is actually underdevelopment.<br /><br />At this point another MP, Dan Poulter pops up with a helpful interjection, one that every local councillor will have heard:<br /><blockquote>Will he join me in urging the Minister to consider that there should be a right of appeal for local communities against inappropriate housing applications? There is a right for the developer; there is not currently a right for communities.</blockquote>We are now in the deepest heart of NIMBYland with MPs proposing ideas that, given even a cursory examination, are simply dreadful. A community right of appeal would simply result in every second planning permission getting clogged up in a long-winded and probably under-resourced appeal system. Nothing would ever get built (not that much is being built at the moment).<br /><br />The debate continues, Henderson rightly points out the lack of planning resources in local councils and the assorted QUANGOs and agencies that have planning duties. But the main reason for this lack of resources is that trained and qualified planners spend too many of their days administering the development control system rather than any actual planning. Since England has a discretionary system for planning (every development requires a specific permission granted at the whim of the local planning authority) each and every development must be examined by a planner.<br /><br />One of the ways in which we could make the system work better would be to move to a rules-based approach. Once the local planning authority (LPA) has agreed its local plan and made allocations according to perceived local needs, there should be no further need for planning officer involvement beyond the enforcement of the rules agreed in the plan. Yet MPs like Dan Poulter opposed this idea because it takes away from politicians the power to march local objectors up the hill in opposition to a development already set out in the LPA’s local plan. This, not good accountable local government, is what the NIMBY-inclined MPs mean by ‘community involvement in planning’.<br /><br />The debate also witnessed the strange discussion of GPs and whether there are enough of them (there probably aren’t). Of course, the local health system is a consultee in the planning system and it is perfectly possible for the NHS to indicate that their provision cannot cope with increasing numbers as a result of new housing. And this would be a material planning consideration - grounds for the LPA refusing permission. In 24 years as a councillor I never saw this happen and I have not heard of it happening elsewhere. Moreover, the most likely response to the issue, just as with a lack of school places, has been to use planning gain (s106 now Community Infrastructure Levy) to provide the funding for new provision.<br /><br />We also witnessed the usual arguments from MPs - Labour and Conservative - representing suburban areas, about brownfield sites being prioritised over greenfield (or Green Belt) sites. Followed by Kelly Tolhurst, MP for Rochester arguing that a major brownfield site in her constituency should not be redeveloped. This is the madness of our system. All of these reasons - excuses really - for not building houses are wheeled out by campaign groups and rolled along by MPs who seem to have only a passing knowledge of just what a colossal mess we are in with planning and housing. But the winning observation comes in an intervention from Taiwo Owatemi, MP for Coventry NW, a glorious exposition of NIMBY:<br /><blockquote>We would all like the dream of home ownership to be a reality. In my constituency, one of the biggest concerns of residents is that, because the local authority is trying to meet the housing target that has been put on them, they are losing their green spaces, such as Coundon Wedge. This is having a considerable impact on the wellbeing of so many people who use green spaces like that. It would be great to hear whether the Minister would meet with me to look at Coventry’s figures, because currently the Office for National Statistics projections are completely off the mark.</blockquote>We want houses, just not here. Until government closes down this argument, we will not build the homes we need, young people will sit frustrated in Mum’s basement or a crowded HMO, and our economy and environment will suffer.<br /><br /><br /><br />…Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-14365399034683343732022-11-13T17:26:00.002+00:002022-11-14T16:04:58.120+00:00Beloved over all: how conservatism isn't like other politics<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLIKxbAtwYCZLRqASb4YS9HQmD2_iMW3N-YZkzASAFtVAa-P9dcb6PSBawKsLMa_ZPUeNIfhaJqEiaiFX05mwkNVj3gvcy4LHJEWQOnnvTevxg8bT2pdOxb71IKATQAhza8hyzR8-9j4Sh5Q0yJCJ8Cs_nBN-SN4G272I8LqrZiYa7HY_h_XWBWwe0ag/s3879/20221113_115946.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLIKxbAtwYCZLRqASb4YS9HQmD2_iMW3N-YZkzASAFtVAa-P9dcb6PSBawKsLMa_ZPUeNIfhaJqEiaiFX05mwkNVj3gvcy4LHJEWQOnnvTevxg8bT2pdOxb71IKATQAhza8hyzR8-9j4Sh5Q0yJCJ8Cs_nBN-SN4G272I8LqrZiYa7HY_h_XWBWwe0ag/w358-h400/20221113_115946.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><blockquote>God gave all men all earth to love,<div>But since our hearts are small,</div><div>Ordained for each one spot should prove
Belovèd over all;</div><div>That, as He watched Creation’s birth,</div><div>So we, in godlike mood,</div><div>May of our love create our earth</div><div>And see that it is good.</div></blockquote><div><div>Kipling knew when he wrote these words, that the world is a big place. Too big for us to truly love, too much of it is too far away, too foreign, just not home. It isn't that we don't care for people in Hue or Houston but that we care so much more about home, about family and about the spot we love the most.</div><div><br />When I set out recently to explore modern conservatism the result was confused - <a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2022/11/conservatism-if-it-means-anything-is.html">you can read the unfinished article here.</a> It wasn't that I'd failed to find important things to say about how modern conservatism lost its way but rather that, like many modern conservatives, I'd lost the essence of what we believe, an essence captured in Kipling's words.</div><div><br />I'd begun with a reminder that conservatism isn't an ideology - quoting American conservative writer Andrew Sullivan:<br /><blockquote>"Conservatism, if it means anything, is a resistance to ideology and the world of ideas ideology represents, whether that ideology is a function of the left or the right"</blockquote></div><div>But to appreciate what Sullivan is saying, I needed some inspiration, something that led me back to those words Kipling wrote about the Sussex he loved. And three things happened - the Ukrainians liberated Kherson, the Hookland email arrived and I went to the theatre. After this I remembered that conservatism is about our relationship with place, that this relationship is transcendent, and that it isn't only physical but emotional, it is the feeling of home.</div><div><br />You'll have seen the images of Kherson's liberation, the cheers and smiles, the literal relief on people's faces. One image sticks in my mind. It is the image of the middle aged woman lifting up a piece of paving under which she'd buried an Ukrainian flag. This woman was uncovering the symbol of nation that had been taken from her by invaders, she was reminding us that picture of Ukraine, capturing its sky and corn but also more than that, pride in a place forged in hiding and adversity.</div><div><br />Hookland is a real place. Not real in the sense that you can find its towns, hills and pubs in the AA Book of the Road, but real in the sense that the people who write about its ghosts, sea hags, witches and wise policemen reflect the place that birthed that imagined county - England. In the latest newsletter we are presented with an observation from Emily Banting, witch (taken, we're informed, from her postal correspondence course in witchery):<br /><blockquote>"When the witch walks a corpse road or lych way, she does it in communion with those that travelled before. A movement in which the intimate exchange of thoughts and feelings is possible. A travelling not of trespass, but shared journey. We must always have the manners to know that you do not poke those walking beside you."</blockquote></div><div>Here we encounter transcendence, the idea that our relationship with home isn't just about now or even tomorrow, that relationship is also about those Kipling evoked in his charm:<br /></div><blockquote><div>Take of English earth as much</div><div>As either hand may rightly clutch.</div><div>In the taking of it breathe</div><div>Prayer for all who lie beneath.</div><div>Not the great nor well-bespoke,</div><div>But the mere uncounted folk</div><div>Of whose life and death is none</div><div>Report or lamentation.</div></blockquote><div>Our idea of place and our identification with home is founded on the things that those mere uncounted folk did - the walls they built, the fields they tilled, the woods they planted and a thousand other things that shaped our environment, the work that made it possible for you to look out and say "wow, I love this place".<br /><br /></div><div>These thoughts were in my mind as I travelled to Leeds Grand Theatre to see "Fisherman's Friends, The Musical". Based on the true story of the Port Isaac fisherman's choir and the film that story inspired, this musical tells of that choir and why songs and shanties matter. The part when Jago dies drew together the thoughts in my head, the idea of why place matters and how that mattering is transcendent, about hundreds of years of history and tradition.</div><div><br />If we want to understand 'true conservatism' we can't start with the actions of government or the meanderings of philosophers. We should, to grasp conservatism's permanence, sit and look out at the place our small heart loves most.</div><div><br /></div><div>Giovanni Guareschi described the little world of Don Camillo and Peppone in Italy's Po valley. Guareschi's creations came to life far beyond Lombardy because we all instantly understood when he wrote:<br /><blockquote>"...in the Little World between the river and the mountains, many things can happen that cannot happen anywhere else. Here, the deep, eternal breathing of the river freshens the air, for both the living and the dead, and even the dogs have souls."</blockquote></div><div>Conservatism isn't about politics in the way that liberals and socialists think about politics. We don't have a prescription for the perfect society written down by a prophet in the 18th or 19th century. Nor are we the shouty, ignorant rant of nationalism where love of place is corrupted to "we are better than them".</div><div><br /></div><div>Conservatives know that Kipling was right about our small hearts and that we are mere stewards of the place we love. But, just because we love our home the most doesn't mean we cannot or should not love all the world or that we should dismiss those for whom somewhere else is belovèd over all.</div><div><br /></div><div>Conservatism is about us making the places we all love (and even the seemingly ugliest of places is loved by someone) a little bit better, about us being a little part of the legion of barely remembered people who loved the place too. The people whose wisdom the witch Emily Banting knows can help us make the right choices today. And when something breaks in our place we won't sit in despair but will dig up the flag, wave it proudly and set to fixing the broken. Not as an act of jingo but just because we love that place.</div><div><br />...<br /><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-75114784967652546652022-11-13T17:19:00.002+00:002022-11-13T17:19:17.387+00:00<p></p><blockquote>Conservatism, if it means anything, is a resistance to ideology and the
world of ideas ideology represents, whether that ideology is a function
of the left or the right</blockquote><p></p><p>So wrote American conservative writer, Andrew Sullivan. <a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2010/03/almost-coherent-look-at-urban-planning.html">I quoted this </a>in one of the first articles I wrote about conservatism and have returned frequently to the theme that being a conservative isn't really an ideological position but rather a sort of fructified anti-ideology, doubt as an action plan.</p><p><a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2017/07/it-starts-with-what-you-can-see-from.html"></a></p><blockquote><a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2017/07/it-starts-with-what-you-can-see-from.html">Conservatism is ill-defined</a> - it's felt rather than analysed, emotional
rather than intellectual. Unlike the left there is no ur-text, no
'Capital' that provides a bedrock of religious certainty to ideological
discussion. We have a set of populist aphorisms - 'hand up not a hand
out', 'people who do the right things', 'choice and opportunity' - but
these don't help except as a set of clues to what we believe. </blockquote><p></p><p>Every place has people who are, actively and passively, conservative. These are the people who look out of their front window and see a world where they can make a little difference but, somewhat contrarily, also want nothing to change about that view out front. It is this clash that sits at the heart of conservatism's confusion - we want a better place out there but we also want it to stay unchanged and unchanging.</p><p>Benjamin Disraeli, more than any other person the father of British conservatism (and Conservatism but we will get to that later), set out that the purpose of his party was to see the betterment of conditions for the working man. By conditions Disraeli didn't just mean those workers' rights the socialists always speak of but a broader sense of betterment. And, in seeking to improve the health, wealth and happiness of working men, Disraeli realised that Britain being healthier, wealthier and happier as a nation would serve to make, if done right, the lives of those working men better. So we got Empire, a wider franchise, a safer workplace and parks.</p><p>From the 1850s up to the 1960s, British conservatism steered its path between the preservation of society's institutions and the betterment of people's lives. Mostly these two missions didn't conflict since preserving institutions like marriage, parish and professions sat well along side the dynamism and creativity of industry. By the 1960s, however, conservatism was struggling to provide an economic rationale for preserving either the great industries or the carefully regulated City of London that had financed Empire but failed to finance the rejuventation of commerce and industry. Worse the social revolution brought about by the pill and the growing up of the post-war baby boomers seemed to place conservatism as the enemy of betterment not as its champion - we entered a liberal age.</p><p>Conservatives gave the post-war working man better housing, low crime, high employment and a route to personal betterment via grammar schools and technical colleges. But the party of institution and tradition crashed into gay love, abortion, mini skirts and middle class women who wanted a good job. And, after a brief moment of panic, the Conservative Party gave the good job - its leader - to a middle class woman. The problem was that, in economic terms, Margaret Thatcher wasn't a conservative and the party had let a liberal imp into the house.<br /></p><p>It may be an apocryphal story but the tale of Margaret Thatcher slamming a copy of Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" on the cabinet table and saying "this is what we believe" represented a huge change in the outlook of British conservatism. The change is often presented as a move away from noblesse oblige where the Conservative Party switched from a dirigiste, managerialist outlook to embrace classical liberalism with all <br />its creative destruction. The truth is that Thatcher's enthusiasm for Hayek was less about economics than it was about the need to confront socialism and communism.</p><p>“The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom.”</p><p>By placing opposition to socialism are the centre of the party's mission Thatcher probably did the right thing - socialism was, and still is, an existential threat to Britain's most important institutions - monarchy, church, marriage, property rights. This is what Thatcher meant by sharing a belief in freedom and is why her policies and actions sit within the conservative tradition. Our problem is that the secular canonisation (and demonisation) of Thatcher largely ignored her traditionalist conservatism choosing to focus on the idea that she championed unfettered free markets - something that is hard to square with the actual Thatcher legacy.</p><p>Since Thatcher's removal (something that would become a painful trend in British conservatism) the Conservative Party has struggled to find a comfortable place. A generation of enthusiastic free marketers clashed with careerists and latterly people who see the mission as one about society rather than economy. And against this background sits the debate about Europe. Indeed, whereas Thatcher's generation saw the enemy as socialism, conservatism in 21st century Britain increasingly sees itself as defined by being outside the European Union, by Brexit.</p><p>The Brexit referendum came about, at least in part, because of a divide within the right of British politics between those who wanted closer engagement with European countries and those who saw the European project as a threat (just as Thatcher saw socialism as a threat) to important British institutions. The importance of sovereignty (that our institutions (parliament and the courts) cannot be overruled by non-British institutions) pushed aside the main part of Disraeli's original mission, making the lives of ordinary families better. The economic impact of Brexit is a matter for debate (and an increasingly Laputian debate it is too) but the 2019 general election where what some called a 'new coalition' emerged based on an electorate that was 'economically left and socially conservative' - "fund the NHS, hang the paedos" as one wag put it.</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-75232035465610530952022-10-25T14:19:00.003+01:002022-10-25T15:45:14.987+01:00Without planning reform, building beautifully is just another barrier to development<p><i> </i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifvtSI6x84gZppS3zkaxWlNajvVwgNW8YN41qfpSU_1sGSSohus1CF7QLPjTbOxDoKsHpisleqFRzCWJMR9Q5PygalVmjfc30fSR6antUjd374CSvFDw53FxuCcXIMmPCzw1k0MhfNB03HfBlib1QvQUsr0Hu86WCkEmjb2k6VKjHmyREncitwLeN24g/s1285/Screenshot%202022-10-25%20at%2014-16-50%20South%20East%20Faversham.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="1285" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifvtSI6x84gZppS3zkaxWlNajvVwgNW8YN41qfpSU_1sGSSohus1CF7QLPjTbOxDoKsHpisleqFRzCWJMR9Q5PygalVmjfc30fSR6antUjd374CSvFDw53FxuCcXIMmPCzw1k0MhfNB03HfBlib1QvQUsr0Hu86WCkEmjb2k6VKjHmyREncitwLeN24g/w400-h206/Screenshot%202022-10-25%20at%2014-16-50%20South%20East%20Faversham.png" width="400" /></a></i></div><p></p><p><i>This is the fourth in a series of posts responding to
questions and issues raised at my recent Battle of Ideas debate about the
housing crisis. These posts will touch on how planning committees work (and
whether they are political), why we need council housing, but it won’t solve
the housing crisis and the old chestnuts of empty homes, brownfield sites and
food supply. I’ll also try to set out why beauty is a good idea but looking
good doesn’t stop NIMBYs and how urban sprawl is what people want.</i><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“We do not see beauty as a cost, to be negotiated away once
planning permission has been obtained. It is the benchmark that all new developments
should meet. It includes everything that promotes a healthy and happy life,
everything that makes a collection of buildings into a place, everything that
turns anywhere into somewhere, and nowhere into home. So understood beauty
should be an essential condition for the grant of planning permission”</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These are the opening words of ‘Living with Beauty’, the 2020
final report of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission chaired by
the later Roger Scruton. And they have become something of a mantra for those
who see the failure to meet housing need as a failure of will rather than a
systemic problem. If only, we are told, the houses, shops and offices we build
were more beautiful there would be fewer objections and the planning system,
newly empowered by demanding beauty, would deliver the millions of homes we
need.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is hard to argue against beauty, of course we want the
homes for future generations to echo the best in residential architecture down
the ages. We want these buildings to use the best materials and to respect the
topography of England. The problem is that a few seconds into any discussion
about beauty in housing people start talking about Bath, Belgravia, Barcelona
or Paris, usually accompanied by disparaging comments about American suburbia
and cars. We’re told that beauty is contained in a thing called ‘gentle density’
as its proponents show pictures of gorgeously fenestrated mansion blocks in
Kensington or reimagined suburbia free from such trashy and ugly things as
private gardens and garages.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I was brought up in suburbia. I’d say I was biased when I
say I love suburbs but, truth be told, a lot of people who grew up in suburbia
also absorbed the popularised aesthetic that such places are naff, dull places
filled with dull people living dull lives. The ‘Living with Beauty’ report is
filled with hints, little asides about the poor quality of homes built by the
big house-building companies and sly references to how cars spoil everything.
The problem for our advocates of beauty is that not only do those terrible ugly
homes built by Persimmon or Redrow sell but also the opponents of new homes don’t
give a fig about what they look like, they don’t want them built.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Duchy of Cornwall, previously under the stewardship of
our new King now led by his son and heir, has proposals for <a href="https://sefaversham.co.uk/">a major urban extension at Faversham in Kent</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>In accordance with the Swale Local Plan Review 2021
allocation, and guided by the local community through public engagement
workshops and consultation events, the Duchy is drafting plans to deliver a
high quality, sustainable, landscape-led, mixed use community that will become
a thriving new urban extension to the town. In broad terms this aspiration can
be summarised as a net zero carbon development of around 2,500 homes and 2,500
jobs across a range of commercial and community uses, with approximately one
third of the site designated as high quality green space with at least 10%
biodiversity net gains.</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Drawing on well-regarded developments by the Duchy at
Poundbury and Nansledan, the proposals are for a new community that is
walkable, mixed use, served by good local transport and designed to reflect the
historic vernacular of Faversham. It ticks, except on density, all the boxes
that the advocates of beauty advocate. And local NIMBYs are going to fight it
tooth and nail.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“While I recognise the need for new homes in and around
Faversham I am extremely concerned at the scale of development. The council is
proposing an unforgivable scale of development” <a href="https://www.kentonline.co.uk/faversham/news/towns-enormous-housing-expansion-is-unforgivable-258623/">(Helen
Whateley the local MP)</a></blockquote><a href="https://www.kentonline.co.uk/faversham/news/towns-enormous-housing-expansion-is-unforgivable-258623/"></a><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>"This isn't simply adding a couple of housing estates;
this will change the nature of Faversham…It's hugely significant. It is the
largest expansion of the town since the Victorian era.” (<a href="https://www.kentonline.co.uk/faversham/news/its-the-towns-biggest-expansion-since-the-victorian-era-239355/">Cllr
John Irwin, Faversham Town Council</a>)</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“The farmland is so rich in biodiversity and this scheme
will destroy habitats. So many protected species will be lost - there are bats,
lizards, butterflies and wild orchids. It's so sad. I have concerns about
losing such good farmland. In the current climate, we need food self-security.
Farmland should be kept in operation at all costs.” (<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11333103/Prince-Williams-Duchy-Cornwall-carry-Kings-plan-build-2-500-home-garden-city.html">local
resident, Mark Sewell</a>)</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The striking thing about this opposition is that there is no
discussion of beauty. The Duchy may have filled the proposals with the language
of responsible development, community and environment and the design standards
may be high, but the opposition is to the fact of the housing not what it looks
like or who will live there.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In my 24 years as a local councillor, the issue of what new
housing looked like was seldom a reason to oppose that housing. Residents
opposed housing because they thought it would lead to crowded roads, schools
and doctors, that it would change the character of the community, and that
something important (flowers, animals, heritage) would be harmed by new homes.
The ‘Living with Beauty’ report stresses, and this emphasis is present in the
Policy Exchange work on housing and planning, that the resolution is to move
planning upstream:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>Local councils need radically and profoundly to re-invent
the ambition, depth and breadth with which they engage with neighbourhoods as
they consult on their local plans. More democracy should take place at the local
plan phase, expanding from the current focus on consultation in the development control process to one of co-design.</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The abandoned white paper on planning reflected these ideas
seeking to shift local consultation away from responding to individual
applications by having more community consultation at the local plan stage. The
problem with both Policy Exchange and the Scruton Commission is that they don’t
make this leap of logic and want to retain the existing process for planning
applications. And therefore, nothing changes because community consultation
never reaches beyond the activist and the objective of those activists is not
to get a balance of beautiful new development that will meet community needs
but to stop any new development.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If we add a requirement to ask for beauty to the mix of
planning requirements, all we do is provide the NIMBYs – the opponents of
development – with another barricade to help them prevent new homes getting
built, another hurdle for developers and especially smaller developers to
clear, and another set of ugly words in turgid policy documents intended to
define ‘beauty’ in planning terms.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Like most people I’m with Robert Heinlein when he wrote that
“…by cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers…” but I
also appreciate that beauty is diverse. The slate roofs of Parkside Terrace in
Cullingworth or the half-mile of semi-detached homes that run up Village Way
from St Edmund’s Catholic Church in Beckenham are beautiful parts of our built
heritage as much as are those mansion blocks on Maida Vale or the Royal
Crescent in Bath. And the beauty of a place is as much defined by the people of
that place as it is by whether the architects’ profession think it a good
aesthetic.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Knight Foundation, a US charitable organisation that
supports research on local communities, media and neighbourhood, did a report
entitled “Soul of the Community” which asked individuals and community
organisations about what made for a successful place. <a href="https://www.pps.org/article/learning-from-knights-soul-of-the-community-leaning-toward-the-future-of-placemaking">Over
43,000 responses later the researchers were able to observe that:</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>We not only found out that resident attachment was related
to solid economic outcomes for places, but that the things that most drove
people to love where they live were not the local economy or even their
personal civic engagement in the place (as one might expect), but the “softer
sides” of place.</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yes, objective beauty matters but not as much as whether the
people think it is beautiful. When people moved out of Glasgow’s decaying tenements
into new gentle density in places like Easterhouse, it was exciting and
change-making. It didn’t stay that way. Too often broken communities have the
same attitude to beauty as the Vogons:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“They brought forth scintillating jewelled scuttling crabs,
which the Vogons ate, smashing their shells with iron mallets; tall aspiring
trees of breathtaking slenderness and colour which the Vogons cut down and
burnt the crab meat with; elegant gazelle-like creatures with silky coats and
dewy eyes which the Vogons would catch and sit on. They were no use as
transport because their backs would snap instantly, but the Vogons sat on them
anyway.”</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The argument that we should build more beautiful places is a
good one but, sadly, it doesn’t allow us to escape from the reality of planning
and housing in England – a system of permits that, at best, provides a slow and
inefficient development process and more commonly simply prevents any
development at all. If we want communities engaged, we need to start by telling
them that their engagement is not a means to stop housing but a way of securing
the fullest benefit for the place from much-needed development.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Cullingworth I stood as the local councillor in front of one
hundred or so residents crammed into the old village hall and told them that we
couldn’t stop the new housing development so instead we were going to get the
biggest benefit possible for the village from those new houses. Not everyone
agreed (including the Parish Council) but the houses were built, and we have a
great new village hall, café, and pre-school. I call that winning.</p>
<p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-13796625817501495522022-10-21T14:26:00.001+01:002022-10-21T14:26:16.963+01:00We have too few empty homes (we need ten times more than we have right now)<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99ylCOCvIH5M4xkJnmnQGtbq-xiIPavsA1GgTyU2mBwAtpJ6NhYSxiTlhB2yuBphESv_STxs3_9ux2tuY9eyxgsTWrK0KcrMLo9-KbofEdtLevqNafKMQ8vwKdk_AfSmubjmpu7GVPsI0RD2MEdJvb-fLVLjCKAYOjzAmwoaXbhTMydN3dwxg2OnMug/s452/Screenshot%202022-10-21%20at%2014-24-46%20empty%20home%20at%20DuckDuckGo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="452" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99ylCOCvIH5M4xkJnmnQGtbq-xiIPavsA1GgTyU2mBwAtpJ6NhYSxiTlhB2yuBphESv_STxs3_9ux2tuY9eyxgsTWrK0KcrMLo9-KbofEdtLevqNafKMQ8vwKdk_AfSmubjmpu7GVPsI0RD2MEdJvb-fLVLjCKAYOjzAmwoaXbhTMydN3dwxg2OnMug/w400-h285/Screenshot%202022-10-21%20at%2014-24-46%20empty%20home%20at%20DuckDuckGo.png" width="400" /></a></i></div><i>This is the third in a series of posts responding to
questions and issues raised at my recent Battle of Ideas debate about the
housing crisis. These posts will touch on how planning committees work (and
whether they are political), why we need council housing, but it won’t solve
the housing crisis and the old chestnuts of empty homes, brownfield sites and
food supply. I’ll also try to set out why beauty is a good idea but looking
good doesn’t stop NIMBYs and how urban sprawl is what people want.</i><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Conservative Home’s <a href="https://conservativehome.com/2022/10/21/there-are-over-30600-empty-council-homes-in-england-they-must-be-put-up-for-sale/">Harry
Phibbs writes about empty council houses</a> pointing out that there are
currently 30,600 long term empty council homes. Phibbs wants councils to sell
these homes (estimating they are worth £3.8 billion) but doesn’t ask why the homes
are, in the jargon, long-term voids. Sloppy housing management and the fact
that some properties are hard to let will be factors here but the most common
reason for long term voids in social housing is redevelopment. Put simply, if a
council decides to redevelop an estate (an example is the Carpenters Estate in
Stratford) normal housing management practice is not to relet homes that come
vacant – would be crazy to let a home and then decant the new tenant a few
months later. And those thirty thousand empty council houses represent less
that 2% of the council housing stock.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is a common argument – there’s even a far-left campaign group,
<a href="https://www.actiononemptyhomes.org/">Action on Empty Homes</a> – that there
are lots of homes sitting empty and unused that could be used to solve the housing
crisis. That campaign group says there are 238,000 homes that have been empty
for six month or longer (and then adds in every other currently empty home,
second homes and holiday lets, to magic up a figure of one million). Even if we
accept all of this, there aren’t enough empty homes to fix the crisis and, as
we see from the council houses, it is impossible to eliminate voids even when
your regulator treats void levels as a key performance indicator.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Britain has very low levels of empty property – the Netherlands,
for example, has as many empty homes as England despite having a population a
third the size. And, <a href="https://www.centreforcities.org/blog/why-we-need-more-empty-homes-to-end-the-housing-crisis/">as
Centre for Cities has observed</a>, empty properties are good for housing
affordability and the smooth operation of housing markets. Tom Forth who runs Datacities<a href="https://www.tomforth.co.uk/emptyhomesforgood/">, set out why more voids
are good for housing affordability</a>:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">When people in England get on a bus or a train, they are
happy to see a seat empty. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When people in England go to the shop to buy milk, they are
happy to see an unsold bottle rather than an empty shelf. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But when it comes to homes, many people in England think
about things differently. Empty homes, they say, are a bad thing, to be reduced
by policy, and to be filled before any new homes should be permitted. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Largely because of this, England has the lowest rate of
empty homes in the developed world</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, not only are there not remotely enough empty homes to
sort out the housing crisis, trying to use them as an excuse for not building
more new homes is entirely the wrong approach. Forth points out that planners
in Greater Paris want the void rate for all homes to be 8% or higher because
they believe this will help maintain housing affordability and assist the
housing market. By contrast the all-housing void rate in Greater London is
0.7%.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All of this points to a central issue in urban development -
Barcelona’s left-wing mayor has failed to deliver on housing affordability
preferring to blame tourism and AirBnB while the more conservative areas surrounding
the city resist new development. The same is true for London, San Francisco, Auckland,
and Sydney – indeed for a hundred other cities across the globe where an insistence
on urban containment and growth limits results in housing problems.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Attacks on AirBnB and holiday lets now feature strongly in
the campaigns of groups like Action on Empty Homes. We’ve seen tourist hotspots
like <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-61794348">Whitby</a>
and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-61794348">St
Ives</a> adopt planning policies designed to prevent new housing being sold for
holiday lets or second homes, and <a href="https://yorkmix.com/york-has-no-way-of-controlling-the-impact-of-airbnb-council-admits/">cities
like York</a> are considering how to reduce what they see as a problem with
AirBnb.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The problem is that these policies are all designed to avoid
confronting the real problem – there aren’t enough houses. When the LSE looked
at the St Ives second home ban, they found that the impact of the ban was to
reduce the price of new build property, so developers simply opted to develop elsewhere.
Housing affordability worsened – when the St Ives ban came in prices were
already 14 times median earnings for Cornwall, they are now pushing 20 times
those earnings.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Second homes and tourist rentals inevitably compete with
general needs housing, as does commercial, retail, and social development. But simply
banning some of these developments doesn’t, as the experience of St Ives shows,
will make the problem worse. The Barcelona experience – rent controls, eviction
bans, fines, and urban containment – demonstrates how not to resolve the
problem. <a href="https://yosohouse.com/americas-cup-will-make-barcelonas-rental-market-crisis-worse/">As
one local agent put it</a>:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“I see a very worrying trend…the slow, but constant movement
of properties away from the rental market to the sale market. At the same time,
we see a massive reduction in the purchase of new homes by small buy-to-let
investors. All together this is causing the opposite of what we need to happen:
A reduction in the number of homes for rent…”</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Barcelona’s mayor is now threatening to seize empty homes
(like London, the Catalan capital has very few of these) rather than accelerate
to the development of new homes. None of these actions will resolve the problem
and the mayor’s ambitious social housing plans have so far seen just one block
developed – indeed opposition to this development (locals saw it as gentrification)
means the city has downgraded future plans.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Housing supply is the problem not how much of the housing stock
is vacant at any one time. The comparison of London, Barcelona and Paris demonstrates
that you can have pro-housing policies and that higher void rates – more empty
homes – are an important part of such policies. After all, if the landlords are
chasing tenants, chances are the offer will be better and cheaper, than if
tenants are chasing landlords!</p><p class="MsoNormal">.... <br /></p>
<p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-84011203245119097882022-10-20T15:02:00.001+01:002022-10-20T15:02:27.294+01:00Yes we need more council houses. But fix the planning system first.<p><i> </i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigh725rij2lnmrpCocRb39dwFAeBvqeFnalKzV6QJ7v55BmpkcZYFdYwOgHrcztIyltzTEi53PBvOydCayQPqdiMLFzG1As_P1SGdlWv2N1uhqX4zAQry8tKIXTu0xnLXLRNgc6XQhdfpVz0ifp3EdguKlBU2vu_DT16ELVKz2jKAsxZwWHL30dYaZDw/s486/Screenshot%202022-10-20%20at%2014-50-53%20new%20council%20housin%20at%20DuckDuckGo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="304" data-original-width="486" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigh725rij2lnmrpCocRb39dwFAeBvqeFnalKzV6QJ7v55BmpkcZYFdYwOgHrcztIyltzTEi53PBvOydCayQPqdiMLFzG1As_P1SGdlWv2N1uhqX4zAQry8tKIXTu0xnLXLRNgc6XQhdfpVz0ifp3EdguKlBU2vu_DT16ELVKz2jKAsxZwWHL30dYaZDw/w400-h250/Screenshot%202022-10-20%20at%2014-50-53%20new%20council%20housin%20at%20DuckDuckGo.png" width="400" /></a></i></div><p></p><p><i>This is the second in a series of posts responding to
questions and issues raised at my recent Battle of Ideas debate about the
housing crisis. These posts will touch on how planning committees work (and
whether they are political), why we need council housing, but it won’t solve
the housing crisis and the old chestnuts of empty homes, brownfield sites and
food supply. I’ll also try to set out why beauty is a good idea but looking
good doesn’t stop NIMBYs and how urban sprawl is what people want.</i><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal">Council houses, we need lots of new council houses. So went
the mantra from two of my fellow panellists at a recent Battle of Idea debate
on the housing crisis. For one of these panellists the reasoning was that
building council housing between 1945 and 1975 created, for the first time, a
period when everyone was well-housed. There were no more slums, we were told –
which may be a surprise to the people in back-to-back terraces in Harehills and
tenements in Easterhouse.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The other panellist, from a right-of-centre think tank - saw
council housing as solving a different problem. Because the rents are cheaper,
we would be able to reduce a housing benefit bill that is pushing £70 billion
every year.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And this all sounds great but raises a whole load of
questions that say to me that saying “build lots of council houses” is different
from building those houses. People say that, of course, council houses are a
rent-producing asset so we will get the investment in building them back over
time, won’t we? Mostly, since three-quarters of social housing tenants are on
housing benefit, by the good offices of the benefits system. The logic of this
is sound until we ask some questions about the management and maintenance of
the assets.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A couple of years ago a young social housing resident called
Kwajo Tweneboa <a href="https://bigissue.com/news/housing/kwajo-tweneboa-untold-housing-crisis-channel-4/">started a campaign about housing conditions:</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">Kwajo’s own experiences with disrepair are still at the
heart of everything he does. He and his two sisters cared for his terminally
ill father Kwaku Robert Tweneboa in a squalid housing association flat infested
with files, cockroaches, and mice on the Eastfields estate in Mitcham, south
London, before his dad died in January 2020. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kwajo says he <a href="https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/five-ways-to-get-help-if-youre-in-a-dispute-with-your-landlord/" target="_blank">complained to landlord</a> Clarion about the disrepair for more
than a year with no success before he tried a different approach. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On May 21 last year Kwajo tweeted out pictures of his home
in a bid to <a href="https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/housing-campaigner-kwajo-tweneboa-calls-for-action-on-uks-biggest-housing-association-after-damning-watchdog-repor/" target="_blank">name and shame Clarion</a>. It went viral and Kwajo was able to
get his home fixed. </p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is social housing. The people running Clarion are
managing a social business, they don’t see themselves as capitalist landlords,
I’m sure that, like the social housing business I was a director of for several
years, Clarion will use terms like “profit for a purpose” to position the
business away from the private landlord. We should, perhaps, ask why it is that
a social enterprise was so bad at managing its precious assets? And provides such
lousy customer service?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are many reasons but, if you’ve ever looked at a large
social housing company’s budget, you’ll know how hard it is to maintain a surplus
(not go bust), deliver responsive repairs to thousands of houses, and make sure
over a reasonable period those homes are improved and modernised. All of this
assumes the housing business doesn’t have a development programme and there are
no sudden, expensive programmes driven by government or the regulator. Plus, of
course, lots of the council housing was thrown up in that 1960s and 1970s slum
clearance boom and doesn’t have good insulation, modern windows, or efficient
heating. When I was first elected in the 1990s, council houses on the
Cottingley estate in my ward still had the single-glazed metal frame windows
put in when the homes were built in the 1950s.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even assuming we can deal with the inherent shortfall in
income that comes with controlled rents, where we are going to build these
council houses? When it comes to land, the tenure of the homes is irrelevant.
When the Local Government Association or Shelter call for government to stump
up billions for new council houses, they never respond to the obvious next
question – where are you going to build those houses? Council houses are
subject to the same planning controls and constraints as market housing, NIMBYs
will make the same objections about cars, schools, doctors, and wildlife as
they make when the applicant is Barratts or Redrow. Councils in suburban areas
will still fail to allocate sufficient land to meet housing need, regardless of
that housing’s tenure. Building council housing might be a great idea but you
need to start by actually allocating some land on which to build that housing.
I recall an application for fifty new social houses in a little Yorkshire
village where one common objection was that we have too much affordable housing
and (not quite said this way) we don’t want any more of “those sort of people”.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Plus, of course, the cost of the land in London’s outer
suburbia is eye-watering. It’s crazy everywhere because government rations the
supply of development land, but the South-East is especially bad. There are
some who tell us government should simply repeal the Land Compensation Act 1961
(the act that stopped government and government agencies compulsory purchasing
land at agricultural land values and then benefitting from the additional value
as a housing or industrial development) but wouldn’t it be less inequitable to
simply move away from a planning system based on the rationing of development?
Furthermore, any change would require changes to compulsory purchase rules
because councils can’t simply seize land without good reason – and building
some houses isn’t in most circumstances a ‘good reason’.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">None of this makes it a bad idea to build new council
housing. But the tenure of housing is not the central contributor to the housing
crisis, the problem is we have about 4 million too few homes across every
tenure. And the lack of affordable market housing means that people who in
times past were able to move out of social rent into owner occupation are not now
able to do so. The UK still has, by European standards, a lot of social housing
(17% of homes in England), the big change has been the increase in private
rented housing, up from below 10% in 1995 to nearly 20% today. And this increase
is driven more by the decline in owner occupation than by a decline in social
renting (in the same way that the decline in social renting from 1980 to 1995
was largely down to increases in owner occupation, during that period private
renting levels fell).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Council houses are part of the answer just as new towns – a new
suburbia as I’d prefer – are part of the answer. But before we can agree on which tenure best meets people’s needs, we need to agree that building
millions of homes requires that we identify the land on which to build those
homes. And dismissing planning reform, even saying we don’t need it as
one of my fellow panellists argued, is the worst response to the housing
crisis. You don’t need to agree with me about scrapping the green belt to
appreciate that building 4 million homes needs a lot of land, that people don’t
all want to live in flats, and that the planning system currently prevents that
land being identified and allocated. If we built all the 4 million homes we need on
the English green belt – all of them – we would need about 5% of that green
belt (this assumes a density slightly higher than current preferred suburban
densities – 50/ha rather than 35/ha). If a fifth of these new homes were
council houses that would be 800,000 new social homes, close to the number that
organisations like Shelter tell us we will need.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A development market free from the current planning system
would, as we saw in the 1930s, build at the scale we need to resolve the
housing crisis – not instantly but over 15 to 20 years we’d begin to see price
stability within the housing system rather than the rampant inflation that
successive governments have fuelled. This stability would mean social rents
could reliably return the build costs while keeping up the quality of the homes
provided to the most vulnerable in society. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By all means call for more council houses. But fix the
planning system first.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> .... <br /></p>
<p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-43011412671612638632022-10-19T13:37:00.002+01:002022-10-19T13:37:50.755+01:00Planning committees are political. Don't let councillors tell you they aren't.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiziAZuMsQ06Gs1lZLipr1AGFtn5jhLvFlvUMXyCuROv1J26Ft0FP6Ac6dhmb9eeJh-hAAkp7fY_YD-TQ80R5RvaJRm77WMN_bJDjN0HpJ1p8qwtCo6sPfFiYa7GgcuuD2VdaB2QbTH6oF6mdYmdTkWaU4fWwQjd8q7JYd5hzrVG_fPiKj6PYZxGAGskg/s582/Screenshot%202022-10-19%20at%2013-31-29%20planning%20committee%20at%20DuckDuckGo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="582" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiziAZuMsQ06Gs1lZLipr1AGFtn5jhLvFlvUMXyCuROv1J26Ft0FP6Ac6dhmb9eeJh-hAAkp7fY_YD-TQ80R5RvaJRm77WMN_bJDjN0HpJ1p8qwtCo6sPfFiYa7GgcuuD2VdaB2QbTH6oF6mdYmdTkWaU4fWwQjd8q7JYd5hzrVG_fPiKj6PYZxGAGskg/w400-h229/Screenshot%202022-10-19%20at%2013-31-29%20planning%20committee%20at%20DuckDuckGo.png" width="400" /></a></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><i>This is the first in a series of posts responding to
questions and issues raised at my recent Battle of Ideas debate about the
housing crisis. These posts will touch on how planning committees work (and
whether they are political), why we need council housing, but it won’t solve
the housing crisis and the old chestnuts of empty homes, brownfield sites and
food supply. I’ll also try to set out why beauty is a good idea but looking
good doesn’t stop NIMBYs and how urban sprawl is what people want.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One person in the audience raised the issue of NIMBYs and
how politicians are too scared of organised opposition to housing. This person
made reference to a <a href="https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/politics/fight-to-save-shoreham-tree-from-being-chopped-down-as-part-of-housing-development-3398755">housing
development in Shoreham-on-sea</a> where hundreds of local protestors campaigned
against a development because one – just one – tree would be cut down. A fellow
panellist, Rabina Khan, leapt to the defence of planning committees because she’d sat
on the committee in Tower Hamlets that refused a major housing development to
save <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/london/2021-05-21/victory-in-court-bid-to-stop-historic-tree-being-moved-to-make-way-for-flats">a
single mulberry tree</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabina_Khan">Rabina
Khan</a>, the former councillor on the panel, set out to explain that, of
course, planning committees listened to objectors, but they weren’t political.
Khan explained that councillors sit on the committee in an impartial (she
managed to avoid the commonly used but misleading term “quasi-judicial”) role free from all that nasty
politics and guided only by planning rules. The inference we are supposed to
take from Khan’s description of the planning committee is that councillors aren’t
influenced by NIMBYs.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You will, when you’ve stopped laughing, have spotted the
flaws in Khan’s claims of councillor impartiality. It is true that Blair’s
local government reforms removed the political whip from planning and licensing
committees – we can no longer do what we did when I was first elected and have
a group meeting prior to the committee where we decided how we would vote. But
the idea that politicians stop being political just because they sit on a
committee in a personal capacity is obviously nonsense. And when several
hundred folk from a councillor’s ward turn up to object to new housing, please
don’t tell me that this doesn’t influence said councillor’s view on the
development.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The entire planning process, from the designing of the local
plan through to deciding what goes to committee and what doesn’t is entirely
under political direction. Even when the decision of the local planning
authority is appealed by the developer, the process is ultimately political –
it is the secretary-of-state who decides the appeal and they <a href="https://chiswickcalendar.co.uk/high-court-upholds-decision-not-to-build-the-curve/">can
(and do) ignore the recommendations of the planning inspector</a>. It is because
the process is political that people would come to me as a councillor to get
help with their planning – from trying (unsuccessfully) to get permission for a
hay store in a horse field to supporting a new bungalow on a farmyard in the
green belt, I’ve dealt with hundreds of planning applications where residents
faced initial rejection from the planners.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The de facto politicisation of individual planning decisions
created problems that the Blair local government reforms didn’t fix. These
problems ranged from the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3594421.stm">worst sort
of corruption</a> through to using planning and licensing to create a sort of
agency/client relationship between councillors and residents in urban inner
cities. At the heart of this is the idea, almost unique to the UK, that every
planning decision must go through this political process. Not only does this
invite abuse, fussbucketry and jobsworthiness but is creates uncertainty and
delay. Since, in theory, politicians must approve every dormer bedroom and
conservatory, the planning system acts to prevent people from meeting need,
from starting businesses and from improving their property especially in
communities where people are uncertain of the actual powers available to
councillors.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My father who was a councillor in London for 30-odd years
always argued that planning decisions should not be made by councillors but,
once the plan was agreed, by officers subject to the oversight of the courts.
While this wouldn’t eliminate the arbitrariness of the current discretionary system,
it would introduce a little more consistency and give applicants more
confidence. Rabina Khan was wrong, planning committees are political, political
considerations like votes influence planning decisions, and NIMBYs exploit
these facts to prevent new housing, new infrastructure and new facilities.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> .... <br /></p>
<p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-74131647240945321682022-07-03T17:16:00.000+01:002022-07-03T17:16:43.106+01:00New Suburbia 2: cities or families?<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOy5Jx9JLHeG8iCsaJyayWmHxyhiFSkItnmYdzqTTVzYJBBMF2DuiNq_UZSNUhSdelacuB2KbPANE4g5fhqV5XB_7gDxt7KeD4h4Bx6xHxSXJ9A9BJLmqwnsknZTV-zM_Ce8zsIk7SgcT2YfofBcNe6za8bz4DFNQeMXrvP4BnUWGLJsvdAy4uAEWQDQ/s4032/20210424_144229.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOy5Jx9JLHeG8iCsaJyayWmHxyhiFSkItnmYdzqTTVzYJBBMF2DuiNq_UZSNUhSdelacuB2KbPANE4g5fhqV5XB_7gDxt7KeD4h4Bx6xHxSXJ9A9BJLmqwnsknZTV-zM_Ce8zsIk7SgcT2YfofBcNe6za8bz4DFNQeMXrvP4BnUWGLJsvdAy4uAEWQDQ/w400-h322/20210424_144229.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>With the announcement of initial figures from the 2021
census there has been a little flurry of stories about housing policy plus, for
perhaps the first time in decades, the national media has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/28/england-and-wales-population-rises-to-record-59m">noticed
that we stopped having quite so many babies</a>.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">The population of England and Wales aged 65 and over has
finally surpassed the number of children aged under 15, according to the first
results of the 2021 census, which provided a snapshot of an increasingly
crowded island nation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a 20% surge in the number of people aged 65 and over in
the past decade drove the population of England and Wales to a historic high of
59,597,300, the Office for National Statistics recorded 11.1 million people
aged 65 and over compared with 10.4 million people aged under 15, tipping a
balance that has favoured the young for decades.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Cue a little policy panic as people start asking whether
this is a problem, why there are so many of us sixty-somethings, and how come
we have so few children? Some commentary is dull and short-term – are there too
many school places, what does this mean for the NHS and other technocratic
questions. Among this there are, however, some people asking about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/28/england-and-wales-population-rises-to-record-59m">this</a>:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>The number of infants aged four and under was one of the few
categories where the population fell but the over-90 population broke through
the half a million mark, rising to 527,900 people.</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not so much that, even with a pandemic, our over-90
population continues to grow (this is a good thing by the way) but how come we’ve
so few pre-school kids. The first comments on this inevitably point to the
obvious and proximate cause of low fertility rates – the cost of having a
child. Most commonly people frame this cost in terms of how expensive it is to
buy childcare. We’re told, for example, that Germany has lower childcare costs
than the UK (it doesn’t, it just has a bigger state subsidy) but this
observation is almost always made in the context of how the cost of childcare
acts as a barrier to women returning to work. As a result, we ask what is best
for the mother’s economic circumstances rather than what is best for the child.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But there’s little evidence that lower childcare costs
result in higher fertility rates. The UK has a higher fertility rate than
Germany (1.74 compared to 1.61) yet, as we have noted, German childcare costs
are (to the parent) close to zero whereas UK rates are among the highest in the
world. So, if we want a policy that leads to higher fertility rates, state-subsidised
childcare isn’t the solution because its sole purpose is to get the woman back
into the workforce in the shortest possible time.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Given this finding, people start looking for other factors
that lead to lower fertility – levels of female education and especially higher
education, delayed start to family formation, and the status of women within
the economy (if not within wider society). And all these things would feature
in a full analysis of declining fertility and its relationship to society being
more socially liberal and more economically successful. But, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545397/empty-planet-by-darrell-bricker-and-john-ibbitson/">as
Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson wrote in “Empty Planet”</a>, the biggest
reason for fertility decline is urbanisation. The best way to get reductions in
fertility is to increase the numbers living in dense urban environments.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We have urbanised for the obvious and sensible reason that
cities are, in proximate terms, very good for the economy. Even if you don’t
accept the certainties urbanists apply to agglomeration theory, there’s no
doubt that cities drive a great deal of the international economy. The problem
is that, as I wrote a while ago, cities are also <a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2016/11/welcome-to-great-city-of-west-mankinds.html">mankind’s
dead end:</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">And who would - without necessity or accident - have
children in a high-rise environment featuring fug-filled air that causes
asthma, streets filled with rushing vehicles, public spaces designed for
adults, and places dominated by strangers. In San Francisco and Berkeley over
70% of households are childless. And we're supposed to see dense urban living
as a better model than the sprawl or the suburbs, the comfort of the small town
or the community of the village?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The problem isn't just that the rural and small-town West
has rebelled against the city but that the city is a failing model - at least
the idea of the concentrated, centralised, mayor-led city. These things are
parasites, sucking away all the good from small towns with the promise of
riches, opportunities and better bars while giving little back when it comes to
the long-term quality of our lives. Urbanists talk about 'liveability' and
'walkability', about public spaces, even about play - yet the reality of the
city is selfish, focused on the here and now rather than on creating places to
which people can relate, where they might want to spend their whole lives.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Cities may be an economic success, but they are a
sociological disaster. Higher rates of crime, poorer health, more road accidents,
higher rates of mental distress, more loneliness and, as we’ve seen, lots fewer
children. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, what to do? One hundred and fifty years ago, people who
lived in cities sought out a solution. Not through academic study but by, as
their economic circumstances improved, moving a mile or two out of the city to
live in a place more suited to family, good health, relaxation and family life.
As the railways spread their fingers out from cites like London and New York,
communities grew up filled with the families of workers in those cities. Later,
as the car arrived, these places spread a little further. Just so long as the
worker to get to his - we are talking about a man here - work within a
reasonable time (and get home to see his family). Even for places built on
industry, as those industrial wages grew, the same journey away from the
cramped tenement or terrace took place. This was helped by the building of
council houses and by the fact that, with few constraints on development,
housing was affordable.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The suburb wasn’t the invention of a planner or some grand
thinker. For all that people like Ebenezer Howard tried to picture a sort of
utopian suburban place, all they really did was polish what had already been
done by builders and the families who bought the homes they built. This
laissez-faire development may explain why it is that planners, architect and
the cultural elite dislike suburbia. As something that wasn’t designed by the
great and good or funded by government spending other folks’ money, suburbia
represented the triumph of the middle-class, a place built in their image and
containing the things that made their lives good.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Today those suburbs are, in many places, dying. The families
that once formed these places don’t exist. And, in large part, they don’t exist
because why would anyone set out to have a family and a family life when there’s
no prospect of being able to have the things that make that life good? The
suburbs of big cities like London, New York, Sydney or Auckland are now filled
with people who had a family once. All those fifty-, sixty- and
seventy-somethings who once had growing families now live in suburban homes
unaffordable for all but the most fortunate twenty- or thirty-something. These
older folk like that the house they bought for less than thirty grand is now
worth half-a-million or more, they like the golf course even if they don’t play
golf, they enjoy the paddock with the horses but don’t ride, and they like that
it is a moment’s drive out into a countryside of yellow rapeseed and wheat or
barley making patterns as the wind blows. It doesn’t seem to them that it is
their fault or their problem that so many people can no longer afford to do
what they did – buy a suburban home and raise a family.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is an urgent need to do something about the housing
crisis, but we shouldn’t do this at the expense of family life. Record low
numbers of young children should be a wake-up call for those who argue for ever
more crowed cities, for technocratic fixes like subsidised childcare, who want
to sustain the sociological disaster of a world directed entirely towards
economic productivity. A world that gave us depressed adults, stressed children
and now, a generation of people who have no real stake in the society that
demands their productivity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What we need to do is build that new suburbia, to provide
places that aren’t focused on productivity and the momentary pleasure that
makes this grind bearable. We need places that work for children, who can be
afforded off one middle-class salary, and which provide an environment that
tells us work isn’t everything. We need to compromise again with the Taylorist world
of the technocrats by saying that we don’t work to make money for the sake of
money or, god forbid, to pay the taxes so we can get cheaper childcare and
thereby earn more money to pay more taxes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A new suburbia is about a family being able to sit in their
own garden, surrounded by good comfortable things and looking at the home they
own. And as the sun shines, that family knows that the efforts they made was
worthwhile. Mum and Dad can look at the kids larking about n a paddling pool or
bouncing on a trampoline and take pleasure in knowing that life’s not all about
work.</p>
<p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-59058595141524043872022-04-15T15:51:00.001+01:002022-04-15T15:51:17.599+01:00New Suburbia: 1. What is a suburb?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1qbOsfx_JJYzpzCeBlM3xey1zo6J3O4_P9kDogfeA9I3QFB7C6diJTrnyw-Hytr33ZYLIPPD43zmu6FO2LHpyrNSt6RbhSHTJMmL_90DW1f1vxywGAoUqkMLG0_4-TrDTE5F5DQZcpgZr-eZoqGpJ4kSmw8zEVoElnQ5JT4i95amZ5pElUmKVkfTtLw/s547/Screenshot%202022-04-15%20at%2015-42-27%20english%20suburb%20images%20at%20DuckDuckGo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="547" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1qbOsfx_JJYzpzCeBlM3xey1zo6J3O4_P9kDogfeA9I3QFB7C6diJTrnyw-Hytr33ZYLIPPD43zmu6FO2LHpyrNSt6RbhSHTJMmL_90DW1f1vxywGAoUqkMLG0_4-TrDTE5F5DQZcpgZr-eZoqGpJ4kSmw8zEVoElnQ5JT4i95amZ5pElUmKVkfTtLw/w400-h256/Screenshot%202022-04-15%20at%2015-42-27%20english%20suburb%20images%20at%20DuckDuckGo.png" width="400" /></a></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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<p></p><p class="MsoNormal">There are, it seems, two sides to the housing debate –
NIMBYs and YIMBYs. Yet these groups agree on one thing – that the answer to the
housing crisis is to cram more and more people into our existing urban
footprint. NIMBYs do this because otherwise, <a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2020/02/five-ways-to-make-our-housing-problems.html">in
the words of Levelling Up Minister and Tory MP, Neil O’Brien</a> "...it
means building right next to people. And specifically, to people who chose to
live on the edge to get a nice view." YIMBYs do it because they see dense,
busy cities as a wonder, “humankind’s greatest invention” to <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51708831-metropolis">quote Ben Wilson</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The thing that YIMBYs and NIMBYs agree on is that suburbs
are naff. For sure most don’t use that precise word. But between the wealthy
inhabitants of places like the Cotswolds and the similarly wealthy inhabitants
of posh inner London (often the same people of course) there is an accord that suburbia
is boring, filled with dull people doing dull things and raising dull children
who will go on to be similarly dull. Suzannah Lezzard, in an essay entitled <a href="https://lithub.com/why-do-we-hate-the-suburbs/?single=true">“Why Do We
Hate the Suburbs?”</a> described this outlook:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“Off they went, the two of them, both with their beautiful
old houses and even more soulful gardens, on the emptiness of the suburban
dream. All about what a crime the destruction of the countryside was, and not
one word about what those houses, those small plots of land, might mean to
those who owned them, let alone the fairness of distributing a little to many
rather than sticking with a lot for a few.”</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/15/why-suburbia-snobs-are-wrong">Meanwhile</a>
in the big city people like “celebrated urbanist and Fairfax architecture
critic Elizabeth Farrelly” have no doubt that suburbia is not only dullsville
but a dullsville which is destroying the planet:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“The suburbs are about boredom, and obviously some people
like being bored and plain and predictable, I'm happy for them … even if their
suburbs are destroying the world.”</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The thing is that, despite a hundred years and more of urbanists
and cultural critics sneering at suburbia, people still flock to live in those
dull and boring suburbs. People still tell pollsters that they prefer a proper
family home over a flat. Suburbia is popular. People want to live in suburbs.
Or at least it seems that way. To appreciate why this is so, we need to get
away from the pleasant city life of the wealthy and look instead at the
unpleasant urban life of the poor.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“Suburbia in England is more than just a functional concept:
it was about an escape from the squalor of the Victorian city, about
well-being, aspiration, decent, plentiful and affordable housing, and the
freedom of good transport, initially rail (Metroland etc), then also the car.”</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This, from urban policy writer<a href="https://twitter.com/bridges_tom/status/1514934291658121218">, Tom Bridges</a>
takes us away from the usual characterisation of suburbia as a sort of social
dead end and towards an appreciation that living in a suburb is aspirational for
someone brought up in a cramped, crowded inner city tenement. For all that we
are much richer than in the Victorian slums people got on a train to escape,
the life of an immigrant family in an East London council flat is still made
better when that family might aspire to escape to a three or four bed house in
one of those reviled suburbs.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What do we mean by a suburb? My generation in Britain have
our suburban image set by popular culture. We watched Reggie Perrin walk to the
station reciting the names of the streets. We laughed along with Tom and
Barbara Good. We saw in ourselves a little bit of Mrs Bucket’s snobbishness and revelled in the lives of Brookside residents. Of
course, most of us were growing up in these places, we were laughing at
ourselves just as The Simpsons, Rosanne and The Fresh Prince allowed Americans
to laugh at their suburban lives. Suburbia became a mindset, a set of values rather than just a location sort of adjacent to a big city.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Suburbia became something other than its inception as an
extension of the city. A commuter village like Cullingworth where I now live is
just as much a suburb as Shirley where I grew up, a land of semi-detached
houses squeezed between Croydon and Beckenham. Most people’s aspirations are
realistic, we’d like a huge house in Oxfordshire or a beachside villa in
Southern California, but our real aspirations are for a decent family home in a
good neighbourhood where we can live that boring life the urbanists peer at
down their noses.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Suburban aspiration is a compromise between the pokey bedsit
with a good view of a brick wall and that stately home. Quite how far along
that path we travel is down to our own fortune and effort but for most people
the place we finish is in a suburb, somewhere that isn’t the city. A compromise
between the city’s bright lights and the comforting peace of the countryside. Suburbia,
however, is more than this, it isn’t a mere compromise but a physical manifestation
of our values and a reflection of what matters most to us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">City boosters always point to amenities as proof of how
inner urban density is best: more restaurants, more museums, more fancy
shopping, more “culture.” Yet we don’t spend our actual lives flitting from restaurant
to museum to art gallery, we spend most of our lives working and at home. There
may be a few people for whom that bewildering amenity is a daily blessing, but
most people don’t have the time, money, or inclination to live such a life. When
people in cities do go out, it is to the same narrow selection of places
because these are the places we like, where we meet our friends, and where we
are comfortable. Suburbia offers all of this and more – you have those places
and amenities plus a healthier space, safer streets, less pollution, and better
schools.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Most people’s values are distinctly conservative, and suburbia
reflects this because people built such places in the teeth of opposition from
radicals, liberals, and reactionaries. The sort of people who think we will
live happily in tiny flats if those flats are in stylish mock-Georgian terraces
do not share the values that make suburbia work. Worse these slightly fogeyish
advocates of the city want to destroy the suburbia of family homes and gardens
tand replace it with communal living, manicured boulevards and tightly regulated
public gardens. <a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2020/11/why-street-trees-are-problem.html">Oh and trees, lots of slowly dying trees</a>.<br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is not people’s preference even when such environments
are designed by award-winning architects and built from traditional materials.
When we ask them (and, history shows, when they have the opportunity) people
opt for suburb over city: in repeated surveys for the US Association of
Realtors over two-thirds of respondents say their preference is for what us
Brits would call a detached house and, in the most recent survey, we can see <a href="http://www.newgeography.com/content/002740-smart-growth-and-the-new-newspeak">the
basis for a good suburb</a>:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“Ideally, most Americans would like to live in walkable
communities where shops, restaurants, and local businesses are within an easy
stroll from their homes and their jobs are a short commute away; as long as
those communities can also provide privacy from neighbors and detached,
single-family homes. If this ideal is not possible, most prioritize shorter
commutes and single-family homes above other considerations.”</blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Things aren’t so very different in Britain. We are less
attached to the idea of a detached home, but the main findings of these
American surveys apply. It is still true that “an Englishman’s home is his
castle” and the balance between community and privacy is a critical function of
the suburb. We want good schools, parks, trails and social activities but we
don’t want to compromise on the space where will spend most time – our home.</p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-58259689725805825072022-03-16T16:52:00.002+00:002022-03-16T16:52:21.791+00:00Sam Gamgee and the scouring of The Shire: an evocation of conservatism<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIBe0MWpWFXdwtdw4DEGpU9oT6ZTP6D-MoVo8CRlNnMxp4r0BgyPiFnOY6TM3wRVgEm2HlZy0Om6TXmEmz3ONA-T2-pi_PLTgvHq0f3Z4adEC1z3tA86rHg2Xel0Un5AMh-IcZwN0tCBvmRAuGBrU4I_-84xVJnb663DsuVn85TMe0sE8hp06glbvP0A=s1131" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1131" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIBe0MWpWFXdwtdw4DEGpU9oT6ZTP6D-MoVo8CRlNnMxp4r0BgyPiFnOY6TM3wRVgEm2HlZy0Om6TXmEmz3ONA-T2-pi_PLTgvHq0f3Z4adEC1z3tA86rHg2Xel0Un5AMh-IcZwN0tCBvmRAuGBrU4I_-84xVJnb663DsuVn85TMe0sE8hp06glbvP0A=w400-h268" width="400" /></a></div><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
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<p></p><p class="MsoNormal">It is a truth universally acknowledged that The Lord of the
Rings is the finest novel in the English language. It is also the best
evocation of conservative ideas in literature. By this I don’t mean the kings
and things that dominate a shallow reading of the book but the central theme:
that ordinary people can and do perform incredible acts of heroism to achieve
noble ends, and in doing these remarkable things, save their world.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The tragedy of Peter Jackson’s wonderful film adaptation is
that its climax is the collapse of Barad Dur not the Scouring of the Shire.
I understand how, at first, this coda seems incongruous – the war was won, the
ring destroyed, and the King returned, why do we finish with a petty little
battle in The Shire against a diminished Saruman? We end here because that is
the whole point of the book, Frodo didn’t destroy the ring so Aragorn could be
King, he destroyed the ring because its presence threatened The Shire – even if
most people living in Hobbiton and Bywater were unaware of the danger.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The four hobbits (Merry and Pippin get such a trite
treatment in many readings and adaptations including the film) after the
killing of Saruman, see The Shire as a restoration project. Sam travels the
length and breadth of The Shire making the most of Galadriel’s gift, not to
craft anything new but to improve what is there already. The ordinary is good
and conserving it for the benefit of everyone is the job of all those with
power and will. What the films did was exclude this essential conservative
message from the narrative while keeping the central imperative of defeating
evil.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But we still need to understand what Tolkien means by evil
and the infectiousness of evil. The ring’s evil is infectious but, as we see
with Ted Sandyman or with Bill Ferny, evil intent is there without the ring
being necessary. Most importantly, the defeat of evil leads to the restoration
of previous order. The Shire isn’t turned into a buzzing metropolis but is
carefully restored and conserved as a prosperous, contented place based on
family, tradition and community. Sam becomes mayor not king and his choices are
conservative – preserve what is best, live a good life, help my neighbours.
This is the message of the book, that the person who walked into the heart of
evil and returned becomes someone respected more for their community activity
as for saving the world.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now you know that The Lord of the Rings is a conservative
(and catholic, although that’s another story) novel, we can gently move into a better
understanding of conservatism. To do this we need to get away from the assorted
caricatures of conservatism that its opponents present. The most common
criticism from the left is really a criticism of liberalism – we’re told that
conservatives are selfish and individualistic rather than, as socialists see
themselves, focused on the common good. Yet when you read that chapter in The
Lord of the Rings, you don’t see Sam Gamgee acting selfishly or as an
individual focused on his own interest, his desire is to see the place he
lived, his community, preserved, protected, and enhanced.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Liberals and socialists will tell you that it is progress to
pull down the old mill in Hobbiton and replace it with a new, smoke-belching
behemoth. Words like ‘productivity’ and ‘efficiency’ will trip from their
liberal or socialist tongues while conservatives say something like ‘I rather
liked the old mill and we didn’t lack for flour, why change it all?’ Wiser
conservatives will consider how we can gently and carefully make the mill a
little better without the drastic, wholesale destruction of the heritage it
represents. Progress isn’t wrong but we must shape it to fit place and people
rather than, as liberals and socialists demand, people having to change to fit
the progress.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We see this concept reflected in, for example, gay marriage
(and, yes, I know many conservatives opposed its introduction). We still have
marriage, something conservatives consider important, but it has broadened its
remit a little. We have lost nothing, but some people have gained – the old
mill has a new stone or a more reliable power source, but it is still
recognisably the old mill. Applying this approach to marginal and small acts of
betterment sees a place improve without the need for the old to be smashed up
in the name of progress.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another conservative feature of Sam Gamgee’s mayoralty is
good administration. The libertarian economist and blogger, Tyler Cowan
invented a concept he called ‘State Capacity Libertarianism’ which observed
that “(m)any of the failures of today’s America are failures of excess
regulation, but many others are failures of state capacity.” Cowan notes
decaying infrastructure, immigration controls and climate change all require
‘state capacity’ – or good administration as conservatives might phrase it.
Although it doesn’t often feel this way in our liberal age, conservatives are,
or should be, more interested in improving the managing of what we’ve got than
changing things. Too often the excitement of the new sweeps us away, we prefer
spending billions on a new railway to stopping our ageing water
infrastructure polluting rivers. I’m sure Sam would have pointed, like good
councillors everywhere, to an unfilled pothole or a broken fence and said,
‘let’s get this fixed before we talk about a new road or a fancy wall.’</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The final feature of Sam Gamgee’s life (apart from the bit
where he went to Mount Doom with Frodo) is the centrality of family. Sam
married Rosie Cotton and they had thirteen children, perhaps a tad more than par
these days but a reminder that Tolkien made family a central feature of hobbit
society. Bilbo’s party at the start of The Lord of the Rings features his extended
family (a gross of them) and Tolkien stresses how hobbits were keen, to the
point of obsession, on the niceties of genealogy. Your average hobbit didn’t
get in a jumble over what was meant by first and second cousin and once or
twice removed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Alongside community, heritage and good administration,
conservatives value family. Unlike the socialists whose collective focuses on
work or liberals who find any collective distasteful, conservatives consider
that the basic human unit is the family. Conservatives recognise the damage done
by the corrupting liberal idea of the paramount individual; a corruption made
worse by the socialist predilection for insisting that mothers do paid work. If
the only measure that matters is what comes from work, then family suffers. A utilitarian focus on productivity results in the fragmentation of society, a
fragmentation that wealth can smooth over but which collapses the communities
of ordinary people. We see women urged, bribed even, to dump their children on
low paid nursery workers or childminders to return to work. Worse, liberalism’s
individualism results in another collapsing institution, marriage. And just as
the obsession with paid work is cruel to families, the belief that marriage is
an unnecessary anachronism creates the dysfunction where nearly a quarter of
families are headed by a single parent, usually a working-class woman.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We talk a great deal about the consequences of rejecting marriage
and family, most notably the problem of child poverty and the impact of single
parenthood on child development. But liberals don’t admit error and refuse to
promote marriage and family preferring to borrow the socialist idea of taxing
people to subsidise children and childcare (meaning that the poor mothers can
go back into the workforce, the only place where what they do is valued). We
cannot see our way to a different answer because so much that is important – rent,
travel, heat, light and home – is now dependent on two incomes. It’s no wonder
that the UK and USA with such high rates of single parenthood, have such high
rates of child poverty.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There you have it, the essence of conservatism from one chapter
in The Lord of the Rings – home, family, community, heritage, care and good
administration. It’s true that governments that call themselves conservative haven’t
always kept to these ideas and that many who call themselves conservatives
prefer power, domination and control, the traits of Tolkien’s evil. But we still
hold to these ideas and quiet voices echo them. More importantly, millions of
people live a conservative life – valuing their family, cherishing their
community, taking responsibility for what they see out their front door. These
good people, maligned by liberals and socialists as dullards who lack great
qualifications and who prefer to talk about the car parking on main street or
the village fete than some high-falutin’ philosophy that promises but never
delivers the perfect human society. These good people are Sam Gamgee. And the
world needs more of them.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">.... <br /></p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-54738406563365474062021-11-30T14:32:00.000+00:002021-11-30T14:32:06.220+00:00Returning to Faerie<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGqJYxH-hx5sotR6kBTCIJZWQsjd7HiVcz8rbhq2PBzNNGKlN9DTatxou-DExXyKdy1p9EVFXR6o0cp3rYfPX2hPCeQxh-HpezA4dvvLwwx4NUWu7qSa2lAqGC7INKghihGBgd-gzmxk9t/s808/Screenshot+2021-11-30+at+14-29-09+Faerie+at+DuckDuckGo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="808" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGqJYxH-hx5sotR6kBTCIJZWQsjd7HiVcz8rbhq2PBzNNGKlN9DTatxou-DExXyKdy1p9EVFXR6o0cp3rYfPX2hPCeQxh-HpezA4dvvLwwx4NUWu7qSa2lAqGC7INKghihGBgd-gzmxk9t/w640-h382/Screenshot+2021-11-30+at+14-29-09+Faerie+at+DuckDuckGo.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX2 SCXW123662907" style="direction: ltr;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW123662907 BCX2" lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2"></span></span></p><blockquote><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">“</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">Faerie</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">
contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs,
witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the
moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and
bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">ourselves</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">, mortal men, when we are enchanted.”</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"> (JRR Tolkien "On Fairy Stories")<br /></span></blockquote><span class="EOP SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"></span><p></p></div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX2 SCXW123662907" style="direction: ltr;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW123662907 BCX2" lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">Faerie
is a place where that direction is North if you want it to be North.
Where time is not merely relative but could be random and or even a
choice. Faerie is a place where you are what you say you are, where
magic is </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">needed</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2"> to navigate. And where peril lurks in every </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">seemingly innocent</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2"> corner, where your words hold more than mere communication but shape you and the world around you. </span></span><a class="Hyperlink SCXW123662907 BCX2" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanth" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="none" lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; text-decoration: underline;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-charstyle="Hyperlink">This is Xanth</span></span></a><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"> </span></p></div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX2 SCXW123662907" style="direction: ltr;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW123662907 BCX2" lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">In
this world, something’s name matters beyond mere identification. And
while there is a true name to everything, those mundane names we choose
for ourselves, or have thrust on us, still have power. If I call you a
pig, and I have power, then you become more hog-like. And if you adopt
the name Wolf, you must be ready when the pack leader arrives. Faerie is
not a place where magic exists, Faerie is a place that is magic. It is
not shaped by physics and geology (or even economics and sociology) but
by the intersection of our magics, of the things we call ourselves, the
names we give to others, our beliefs, loves and rages. There is truth
but it is your truth, my truth, the tree’s truth. And power lies in
understanding these truths.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"> </span></p></div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX2 SCXW123662907" style="direction: ltr;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW123662907 BCX2" lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">If
you find yourself in Faerie, and we all do in the end, you are in a
place where nothing much makes sense, where like the White Queen, you
can believe impossible things, where sitting on a rock without its
consent offends the rock. In Faerie, streams might run uphill because
that is what their spirit desires. Tomorrow that same stream might sit
motionless as if in a grand sulk, </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">maybe a</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2"> creature upset it by saying it should run downhill. In Faerie most of us are lost.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"> </span></p></div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX2 SCXW123662907" style="direction: ltr;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW123662907 BCX2" lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">Not just lost because you </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">don’t</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">
know the way – after all if I say that way is North, it is North – but
lost because there is no anchor for your being. Everything you say is
contrary, everything you do has a consequence, you have no right to
truth or science or heavenly guidance. Navigation requires a negotiation
with every path (you may say it is headed North but you need also to
persuade the Eastward-heading path of this truth), each encounter
demands an accommodation with </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">another’s</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">
understand of the real. Open that door and walk through without
agreeing first that it will take you into the inn? You may end up in a
tea shop. Or worse, a prison cell.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"> </span></p></div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX2 SCXW123662907" style="direction: ltr;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW123662907 BCX2" lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">Once upon a time humans understood this magic. We looked at a wood and </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">didn’t</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2"> see just trees, birds, </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">moss</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2"> and mushrooms. We saw the whole wood, we saw its spirit and the spirits of the trees, </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">birds</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">
and mushrooms. And the wisest among us saw still further, they saw the
weave of the world, the way in which all things are interconnected, how
the intersection of these things, their actions, their choices, creates
events. We better understand love, pain, anger, even death as part of a
universe than as specific events that happen to individual things.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"> </span></p></div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX2 SCXW123662907" style="direction: ltr;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW123662907 BCX2" lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">At
some point, perhaps that time we foolishly call The Enlightenment,
humans walked away from magic and walked towards a world of certainty. A
world where truth is given to us in the pages of a science book, a
world where directions are definite, and where rocks </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">don’t</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2"> get upset if you sit on them. Now a glimpse into tomorrow tells us that uncertainty is returned. Not </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">that rocks</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2"> are upset, but </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">we’ve</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">
discovered that what we call things, and what things call themselves,
matter more than we thought. Our passage through life is shaped again by
the way in which different truths intersect rather than by a proscribed
set of precise names.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"> </span></p></div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX2 SCXW123662907" style="direction: ltr;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW123662907 BCX2" lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="TextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW123662907 BCX2">The
result is that we have taken a step into Faerie. Nothing is certain,
nobody can be trusted, things aren’t what they seem. It is again a world
of peril where each direction, each event and every encounter must be
negotiated. We have, however, forgotten how to navigate in Faerie
resulting in lost folk, angry folk and a dangerous spirit. To move on we
need to relearn the old ways. Or turn away from magic again.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW123662907 BCX2" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="font-family: Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px;"> <br /></span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-59367650765476491162021-11-17T15:06:00.003+00:002021-11-17T15:06:43.920+00:00If we want a better Parliament we need more MPs with second jobs<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-_h5-rYj0yEIKRuUIQLB5yvz75vXqtaUZm5dOP_xfRcnQ-TZ0lAS0fVhKpwSxPc_bnS6oynoHmJlXjHgLBGDQbdHP2xtS9a7J4cOqd5-ye_XrwhtERDv0qwHGYH1wYwQ5vYTuoBhNZD9F/s591/Screenshot+2021-11-17+at+15-02-33+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+2121+%25C3%2597+1414+pixels%2529+%25E2%2580%2593+Scaled+%252852%2525%2529.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="591" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-_h5-rYj0yEIKRuUIQLB5yvz75vXqtaUZm5dOP_xfRcnQ-TZ0lAS0fVhKpwSxPc_bnS6oynoHmJlXjHgLBGDQbdHP2xtS9a7J4cOqd5-ye_XrwhtERDv0qwHGYH1wYwQ5vYTuoBhNZD9F/w400-h295/Screenshot+2021-11-17+at+15-02-33+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+2121+%25C3%2597+1414+pixels%2529+%25E2%2580%2593+Scaled+%252852%2525%2529.png" width="400" /></a><br /><br />I was, at the start of my working life, a Conservative Party agent. This began with a training posting in Old Bexley & Sidcup then election agent in North Luton for John Carlisle and finishing in York where the profession and I parted company. During this period I worked in the constituencies of three different MPs - the first a former prime minister with all the pomp we assume goes with that honour, the second a backbencher noted for trenchant right wing opinions, and the last a non-entity who I didn't get along with at all. But my story isn't the point here, the point is how these three MPs worked.<br /><br />None of these MPs had their own constituency office. Maybe this will come as a shock to those involved in today's politics who see MPs with generously staffed constituency offices as well as a Westminster office. The three MPs had a London office. In Ted Heath's case a fine corner suite in the old Norman Shaw building, in John Carlisle's case little more than a desk in an alcove in Westminster Palace. Heath had a secretary, a full time resercher and, usually, an intern whereas the other two MPs made do with just a London secretary.<br /><br />Today, according to a review by UCL, there are over 3,500 people employed by MPs which amounts to five each. Add the costs of high street constituency offices to house some of these people and there's a huge investment of taxpayers' cash in supporting MPs in doing their 'vital work'. Are we better governed as a result of this huge increase in staffing and support for MPs? Do MPs perform better? Do these employees allow the MP to focus more on their primary role? Or are these offices and workers mostly directed to the vital and essential priority of getting the MP re-elected?<br /><br />As an ageing cynic, I lean largely to the view that most of this support is unnecessary and that its existence distracts MPs from their main function rather than allowing them to focus on that role. The fine office encourages the MP to spend time in the constituency - a place where other than being its representative that MP has no function. And this is the biggest problem, MPs have become glorified caseworkers chasing round after those who arrive in their surgeries or who contact their office. You'll hear MPs bragging about how much casework they do, how their advice surgeries are cramming with the desparate and deprived, and how they are worn thin by the endlessness of their job.<br /><br />In my jaundiced opinion all of this is because MPs aren't doing their job, they are doing the jobs of others - local councillors, council officers, the CAB, advice workers in the benefits service and a host of others whose role is to deal with the public. The role of an MP is really very simple - because all the people can't (and won't) cram into one place to make the decisions necessary to direct government, we choose, by election, a representative to do that job for us. So the MP's job isn't to swan around Basingstoke or Barnsley being "the MP" but to be in London when Parliament is sitting so as to represent those people in Basingstoke or Barnsley. The MPs I worked for in the 1980s, for all that they fussed about the place they represented, understood this role. I am not sure that today's members do.<br /><br />It is for this reason that the latet iteration in the 'sleaze' debacle is important. We're being told that MPs should "prioritise" Westminster but this doesn't mean getting rid of the constituency offce but rather that an MP shouldn't have any outside interest or activity that might be called a "job". I think this is nonsense and that doesn't make me an apologist for sleaze but rather someone who thinks that the job of representing Barnsley or Basingstoke isn't a full time job.<br /><br />Parliament sits for about 150 days in a typical session (which isn't exactly a year but we're going to treat it as such). So in any given year MPs have to make themselves available in London so as to take part in debates and votes for three weeks out of five during the year (although typically the de facto Parliamentary week is three days plus two half days alowing MPs to "spend time in their constituencies"). Even with the current structure of the parliamentary day, it is clear that MPs have ample time to engage in outside activities, paid or unpaid. And being able to do this allows for people to carry on other important work while serving as an MP. I consider that this would make for a better parliament that one filled with people who spent more than half their time chasing casework and campaigning to get elected again.<br /><br />I am tempted to propose we go even further - reducing the number of weeks sitting to 14 but using the full five days (so 70 days rather than the current 150) and paying MPs an honorarium rather than a salary. This would encourage MPs to have a main job rather than seeing being an MP as a career instead of a noble piece of public service. I consider that MPs continuing a job as a doctor, accountant, lawyer, academic or bus driver would grant parliament a greater degree of depth and understanding than is the case today. And MPs would have less time to waste on gossiping to lobby journalists or plotting assorted political coups and other nonsense.<br /><br />I don't consider it wrong that Geoffrey Cox and David Lammy earn good money for a few hours a week lawyering or radio presenting, I consider that this activity probably makes them better representatives than the MP who spends every hours god sends fussing over why the Council got Mrs Jones' housing benefit wrong. I like that Dougas Ross, injury allowing, runs the line at Scotish Premier League games and that Ian Blackford maintains his links to City of London financiers - this makes them better MPs. And it is great that Ben Bradley and Dan Jarvis stayed on as MPs while being respectively a councty council leader and a regional mayor - again this makes them better MPs.<br /><br />We moved a long way from "did Owen Paterson break the rules on parliamentary interests and influence" to saying this is because some MPs with highly valued skills continue to profit from those skills. Of course we need rules (and MPs who break them should face sanctions) but that doesn't make it remotely sleazy for an MP to carry on as a director of his family's business, write books, sing in a choir, keep pedigree angora or any other of the myriad of interesting activities - some paid some not - that make for a more interesting and rounded person. Better still, these activities bring new, interesting and informed perspectives into the actual job of an MP - representing us by discussing, debating and deciding on the laws, regulations and activities of our government.<br /><br />....<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-82617418026403892072021-11-04T16:51:00.004+00:002021-11-04T17:03:46.420+00:00Pitchforks and torches - thoughts on public meetings (and the need for more public debate)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhgD505ft3Otm5V-1YDNShy9UBGKKaqrwIAknGWKhyphenhyphenF9Ag3YaJ0QbT1NLHmj1sSYmHdp_oqy0_qRq4fmCOur9UjE6n1I9RB3YTY3L29I2RM0BzJyFT8G9cBhNqfTLXKx-majdmEbo0MHLi/s909/Screenshot+2021-11-04+at+16-48-18+marching+on+the+castle+with+torches+at+DuckDuckGo.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="909" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhgD505ft3Otm5V-1YDNShy9UBGKKaqrwIAknGWKhyphenhyphenF9Ag3YaJ0QbT1NLHmj1sSYmHdp_oqy0_qRq4fmCOur9UjE6n1I9RB3YTY3L29I2RM0BzJyFT8G9cBhNqfTLXKx-majdmEbo0MHLi/w400-h228/Screenshot+2021-11-04+at+16-48-18+marching+on+the+castle+with+torches+at+DuckDuckGo.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Over there, that's where they are..."<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Simon Evans, comedian and thought leader, <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/04/we-need-to-revive-public-debate/">writes in Spiked</a> about the need for more public debate.<br /></p><blockquote>A good public meeting is electric. You listen, throughout, not only to get informed, affirmed or provoked, but also to be able to coherently respond when the ball comes your way. To not make a fool of yourself, and hoof it over the bar, or repeat points already nailed. To identify a leaping-off point to launch your chosen attack. A public-meeting audience may not always be woke, but it will certainly be awake.</blockquote>The public meeting used to be the central feature of political debate, the idea that elections are about "the hustings" persists even though elections have now become a sort of passionless operation driven by print-outs produced by data analysts staring at glowing screens in the campaign office. The public meeting died. It didn't die because candidates stopped holding them but because the public stopped going - the prospect of an evening in a draughty village hall required a real commitment to the cause when there was a nice warm living room, telly and comfort back home.<br /><br />In 1983, I acted as election agent to John Carlisle, then MP for Luton West and soon to be MP for North Luton (a consequence of boundary changes rather than carpet bagging). There's a sort of formula to an election campaign, a set of things that you do that, back then, included an introductory leaflet, an election address, a canvassing schedule and some public meetings. We booked those meetings, one at the Beech Hill Conservative Club in central Luton and the remainder at suitable venues in Flitwick, Westoning, Pulloxhill and Barton-le-Clay. About twenty hardy folk turned out to the meeting in Luton while the other venues struggled to attract double figures even if you included me as agent, the constituency chairman and John's driver.<br /><br />These events were supplemented by the hustings debate organised by a local church or community organisation. When I stood for election in Keighley, the biggest of these was at Christchurch on The Grove in Ilkley. Us candidates dutifully turned out to face questions from the public, perhaps 50 or so folk including, of course, our supporters all prompted with questions and interjections. The first question was about disability and Anne Cryer responded with a detailed, informed answer. I waffled through some sort of response because (shocking I know) I hadn't rehearsed the manifesto position about the subject. It wasn't until the count that I discovered the questioner was Anne's campaign organiser.<br /><br />As an agent or candidate these events were something to be endured. They probably, unless your candidate does something really stupid, have little impact on the outcome of the election and they occupy the candidate for a day or two during the campaign. As every election agent knows, the main thing to do with a candidate is to keep them busy while you do the important job of getting them elected. Public meetings fill that gap: until the public stops turning out at which point the candidate looks at the agent and says "there's no point in doing this" and orders a stall on the high street or some sort of daft stunt involving balloons and nurses.<br /><br />When you get elected, you get to do another sort of public meeting, the sort of meeting the public does turn out for, the sort of meeting that meant I couldn't find a space to park my car after a day driving to Milton Keynes and back. The meeting organised by the Parish Council to oppose something (the cause of my parking problem was such a meeting - opposing proposals for a landfill in Cullingworth). It won't surprise you to know that, as a local councillor, I've been to a lot of these meetings, they are a great way to stir the voters' passions and to look, as a politician, like you're on their side and, even better, leading the charge against the evil developers, planners or council (sometimes all of these things).<br /><br />For a period I was an important councillor and this meant being, in part, responsible for those evil decisions that the Council has to make. One of these decisions involved the demolition and redevelopment of some council housing in a place called Ravenscliffe. If you were to hear me say "I'm going to a public meeting in Ravenscliffe", you might shrug and think nothing. Saying such a thing in Bradford would get you responses like "do you have a police escort" or "when is the funeral?". Ravenscliffe is the sort of abandoned peripheral estate where bored youth start fires, ring 999, and then throw stones at the fire engine. We were going there to tell them we were knocking their houses down.<br /><br />Along with the Assistant Chief Executive, David Kennedy and a couple of brave housing officers, we attended the meeting. The event was lively. We stood in a tatty community room inside a sort of semi-circle of local residents and gently explained how knocking down some of their houses to create a new development site on which to put replacement homes was absolutely the only - and right - thing to do. There were shouts of protest and the semi-circle appeared to close in a little. We explained they'd be rehoused locally, that they'd get first dibs on the new houses, yes, the removal expense would be covered, no the council wasn't profiteering. After what felt like ten hours of grilling (but was, in truth, only an hour) we concluded promising more information and meetings as the project progressed.<br /><br />In his article Simon Evans tells us a little about the stand-up comedian's relationship with his or her audience:<br /><blockquote>As a stand-up, one of the great tricks of the craft is to give the impression that your listeners are indeed in a two-way street, enjoying a chat – albeit one that it just so happens you are currently dominating. This keeps audiences much more alert than anything resembling a sermon would. And while hecklers are often treated as little better than vandals, often all they have failed to decode is this flattering deception, the lie that the performer is chatting with, not at, them and might give way at any time. </blockquote><p>This made me smile because, even as a mere local councillor, I knew that I wanted a public meeting about the library closure or the housing development because I could manipulate the public meeting in a somewhat similar manner to the stand-up comedian (albeit without anything resembling a joke). Sensible developers and councils want to do a consultation, to set up boards and spend a whole afternoon in the village hall responding directly to any member of the oublic who drops in. Sensible councillors want a public meeting because that way you can stir people up, announce the intention to march on the town hall with pitchforks and torches.<br /><br />Public meetings - all the trappings of participatory democracy - are wonderful things but are also entirely open to manipulation by the loud, informed and organised. This is the milieu beloved of the far left (and where those rare beasts still exist, the far right), the land populated by Saul Alinky's community organisers. It is a world just as reverential to sacred cows and filled with received wisdom as any staged debate. And it is a world where people like me can press the right buttons, get a cheer and walk off into the sunset with a well-slapped back knowing you've farmed a few more votes.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong, Simon Evans is right to call for lots more public debate and for lots more spaces where regular folk get to say something, to contribute. But let's not get too wrapped up in the idea that participation should somehow replace representation or that public forums aren't readily shaped by those with either authority or oratory on their side. Once we understand this limitation and recognise that the purpose of public debate isn't to answer the question but to shine light on and give air to an issue, to escape from the careful positionings of those data analysts and comms advisors. You don't want people to end the meeting pitchfork in hand heading for Westminster but in the 'Rose & Crown' with friends old and new saying "I enjoyed that".</p><p>... <br /></p><p></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-59017886921100345142021-10-13T14:58:00.002+01:002021-10-13T14:58:26.072+01:00Government of the NIMBY, for the NIMBY, by the NIMBY<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj266PlphVlz0WPj2YUPNhzzop5teqMtU-y3W4IMtuqtzCP_ftZyzMcHEqF8jYziRmy6WV158N2qqrwWpVWuwppyQMvxNFbDQaHXSZ_BWKzx7dyi67bJ15vtMSo3H_zHL1MgUE-DBgSyB9z/s1113/Screenshot+2021-10-13+at+14-54-00+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+1000+%25C3%2597+779+pixels%2529+%25E2%2580%2593+Scaled+%252894%2525%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="878" data-original-width="1113" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj266PlphVlz0WPj2YUPNhzzop5teqMtU-y3W4IMtuqtzCP_ftZyzMcHEqF8jYziRmy6WV158N2qqrwWpVWuwppyQMvxNFbDQaHXSZ_BWKzx7dyi67bJ15vtMSo3H_zHL1MgUE-DBgSyB9z/w400-h315/Screenshot+2021-10-13+at+14-54-00+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+1000+%25C3%2597+779+pixels%2529+%25E2%2580%2593+Scaled+%252894%2525%2529.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>We have a housing crisis, an energy crisis, a social care crisis, a spluttering economy and an inefficient health service. Our transport system creaks, cities clog up with cars and attempts to make them more pleasant quickly fade away. We can't sort out our prison system, provide better care for looked after children and make the UK a genuinely fair and supportive place for refugees. Our rubbish piles up in the wrong places and we dump it overseas on poorer communities. Small businesses struggle with recruitment, tourist places can't find the staff and businesses can't expand.</p><p></p><p>There's a simple reason explaining all this - the NIMBY. We live in a society where any form of personal inconvenience or reponsibility has to be removed by government. No you can't build those new houses there - build them somewhere else. No I won't let you drill for gas near our village - there might be lorries and smell, we don't want that. No we won't pay for our own care from the 100s of 1000s in property assets we own because we've stopped new housing - get workers to pay with their taxes. No you can't pedestrianise the high street - I want to park right next to the shop. I won't let you build a cycle way or a bus lane, it might add 90 seconds to my journey. What do you mean, you want to allow people to use the street to eat dinner when I might want to drive my car down it twice a year?</p><p>Don't build that new prison to replace the overcrowded, violent mess of a jail in the city - it might disturb some birds that we're told live there. And we won't let you build a bail hostel or a children's home near us - think of all the burglary, the anti-social behaviour. This is a nice community - this sort of thing won't fit it. Asylum seekers? We're going to march and petition to stop them you know, we don't want dark skinned foreigners round here - no to a refugee centre!</p><p>I don't care what happens to the rubbish that I put in my bin, the bin the council empty every fortnight. Except that you can't build an incinerator that will put that rubbish to good use by generating electricity. And I don't want a wind farm on the hill up there either. Or a nuclear power station. Or any kind of generation. That can go somewhere else. What do you mean, of course I expect the lights to go on when I flick the switch.</p><p>This is a nice market town you know. Building some old people's flats in the town centre is wrong. That's where we want to park our cars so we don't have to walk more than 50 yards to do our shopping and meet our friends over a cup of coffee. Dump the old people on the council estate. And we don't want other sorts of flat either, especially not affordable ones for the sort of workers who serve us coffee. Now I'm here we should pull the ladder up and ban second homes rather than build new houses for our growing workforce.</p><p>I know that the brewery and the clothing people want to expand. But that means more ugly sheds and that will spoil the view from the fish wharf where we sit with our glass of pinot gris and a crab salad. So stop it. There's an industrial area ten miles inland, they can go there, much more fitting. What do you mean, where are the jobs for the kids growing up? We didn't start here you know, we worked hard, didn't buy expensive coffee and avacado on toast - kids of today expect everything on a plate.</p><p>A new road? Absolutely, I'll be able to get through town a minute quicker. But just a minute? Where are you putting the road, it can't go there, that'll mean more houses and more traffic, it'll spoil some "Grade One" farmland, upset a couple of badgers and annoy an owl. Plus my house value might drop, not having that. A railway station? Think of the traffic, more congestion. Can't people drive into the town to get the train. And we don't want one of those bus schemes - make my journey to the farm shop a minute longer...</p><p>On and on it goes and the crises get worse. We have a housing crisis because you won't let people build houses near you. We have an energy crisis because you opposed fracking, campaigned against waste-to-energy, fought wind farms and stopped new nuclear. We have a social care crisis because you think your housing assets are sacrosanct. We have sluggish economy because you won't allow cities and towns to grow. And we dump our rubbish in poor countries because you think using waste as fuel is smelly and unpleasant. We can't reset our health system because you'll oppose closing hospitals and oppose building new hospitals to replace them.</p><p>We truly are a nation of NIMBYs. A nation convinced that everything can be sorted out - just somewhere else. </p><p>.....<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-3989587334186546192021-10-06T17:32:00.005+01:002021-10-06T17:33:15.447+01:00Online or face-to-face? (This is about D&D not work, silly)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaJdATLGiQYfDiuraVBLNY6psVl07Ph-BplrXl6xUfb-AkyEtkLxjz4OMJc7_J7F1_j90Y-QhBRp1SybtAPDp8FcqBjJkR0SlXMPyZVa5p74g7c93nQkRn-yTC7N3sbOWvVECPIVrT86Z0/s915/Screenshot+2021-10-06+at+17-30-29+dragon+playing+D+D+at+DuckDuckGo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="313" data-original-width="915" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaJdATLGiQYfDiuraVBLNY6psVl07Ph-BplrXl6xUfb-AkyEtkLxjz4OMJc7_J7F1_j90Y-QhBRp1SybtAPDp8FcqBjJkR0SlXMPyZVa5p74g7c93nQkRn-yTC7N3sbOWvVECPIVrT86Z0/w400-h136/Screenshot+2021-10-06+at+17-30-29+dragon+playing+D+D+at+DuckDuckGo.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>In the real world, the one where I play Dungeons & Dragons, there is a debate going on about returning to playing in person. Prior to the Great Plague, we would meet up at Geek Retreat or in the back room of a pub to roll dice and explore the stranger recesses of our minds through the medium of a role playing game. All that stopped when the plague struck - the pubs were shut and Geek Retreat retreated into its shell (there to pray that, soon - please gods soon - they could reopen and hopefully not go bust).</p><p>The playing of Dungeons & Dragons migrated online. There were already plenty of tools and resources available for playing games online, the Discord platform provided a text, video and audio space for gaming, and various *virtual table tops* (VTTs) came into their own. D&D had already seen the creation of D&D Beyond as an online resource and all the game resources - books, modules, character creation and dice - could be found there. We began playing, then playing and chatting, then playing some more using these online spaces and resources (indeed folk also made use of Zoom and Teams and Google to play games). It worked fine, especially as a lot of gamers were literally cooped up at home on furlough.</p><p>But now the pubs are open, Geek Retreat is again filled with people playing games of all sorts and there's no need to carry on playing online is there? Just as everyone is going to go back to working in the office, we'll all be wandering down to the local games space there to play D&D (or indeed other games that had also migrated online). Thing is it's just not so simple.</p><p>Firstly there are people who remain concerned about the risk of catching the virus (not everyone is super healthy) and such people want to make absolutely sure everything is OK out there - you and I considering things to be safe probably isn't a good enough argument. Slowly such folk are returning to the world outside the house but if you've spent best part of 18 months fretting about catching a virus that might kill you a bit of hesitancy is understandable.</p><p>Next there are those who find online to be a better place all round. This isn't about being anti-social but rather that gaming online benefits from the development of online tools for game creation, the ability to make use of the vast resource of the worldwide web in creating your games, and the chance to be more flexible about location and time. It may seem a bit *teenage basement dweller* but there's a lot to be said for online systems when some folk are less comfortable with the "Theatre of the Mind" or with building real world game spaces Blue Peter-style from cardboard, sticky tape and washing up liquid bottles (or in the enthusiastic embracing of technology that gaming always features, using 3D printers). There's also the whole parallel hobby of making and painting *minis* that a lot of players, pre-plague shied away from.</p><p>I get the sense, however, that most players want to get back to playing in person. There's something different about the rolling of dice, the chat has a different dynamic, and the occasion is somehow more friendly and engaging when you're sat together round a table. Just as some argue how a meeting face-to-face gives a richer and more granular outcome than one on Zoom, so an in-person D&D game feels to have more nuance, engagement and variation than one held online. And this is despite the creative advantages we've gained from playing online.</p><p>Just as we'll see new ways of working emerging from the work-from-home experiment forced on us by the Great Plague, so we'll see new practices emerge in role playing games. The first of these will be, given the ubiquity of phones and tablets, the use of online tools during in person games. The resources of D&D Beyond don't exclude rolling real dice but they do make for tidier (and probably more accurate) character sheets and a swifter access to rules, items and spells. Alongside this there's no reason why, especially if you're playing at home rather than in a pub or gaming cafe, you can't use aspects of the VTT using a TV monitor.</p><p>In campaign settings the game is enhanced by having on-line and in-person melded - chat (text or audio), moderated by a DM, can help develop player characters and move the game forward more smoothly than in the pre-pandemic world of every downtime action by players being roleplayed in real time during game sessions.</p><p>To be serious for a minute, this exploration of how my D&D campaign might evolve is important to the debate about whether we should go back to the office or stay working from home. Truth be told, framing the issue as a simple binary choice - you play in person or you play online - doesn't make sense. Both environments add to the game experience so we want both to continue. The same goes for the work environment. Dragging everyone back to the office because you think they're all skiving (perhaps by playing D&D, who knows) sounds like the smack of firm management but, in doing this, you might well be throwing valuable babies out the window with the bath water.</p><p>Anyway, I'll be playing online on Friday, in person on Monday and who knows on Wednesday. There's also an in person alternate Sunday game to enjoy. And I can log into a Discord channel to share jokes, banter and interminable debates about what the RAW means for polymorph (or similar). This sort of melded gaming is where we're headed and I hoping it will add even more fun to a game that was already great fun.</p><p>...<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-33492360704209178572021-07-05T15:37:00.004+01:002021-07-06T16:14:12.001+01:00NIMBYs gonna NIMBY: How opponents of housing operate<p> <br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7yQwrnFvuvkCnnxqOQh4-NWumVOwLdYMvR010obdntR3QK7_nu0HfAh0PyK_WLBZ82mBGMTVnpduRxXbZ6fGReBEwWKlQI_okbuyzTJX2A3dYe6F08snNgVC7_NcyfArkcI-hH8O2xJF/s718/Screenshot+2021-07-05+at+15-35-01+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+590+%25C3%2597+350+pixels%2529.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="718" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7yQwrnFvuvkCnnxqOQh4-NWumVOwLdYMvR010obdntR3QK7_nu0HfAh0PyK_WLBZ82mBGMTVnpduRxXbZ6fGReBEwWKlQI_okbuyzTJX2A3dYe6F08snNgVC7_NcyfArkcI-hH8O2xJF/w400-h216/Screenshot+2021-07-05+at+15-35-01+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+590+%25C3%2597+350+pixels%2529.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Arguments against new development, especially housing
development, are usually entirely selfish. This isn’t to say that concern for
our self-interest isn’t entirely normal but rather that NIMBY arguments are seldom
presented in terms of selfish interest but rather use
conservative emotion around heritage, environment and ecology mixed with assumptions
that the business of building things is driven entirely by greed and speculation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the last 70 years we have constructed a planning system prioritising reasons to stop development while, as with the current
National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), proclaiming a presumption in favour
of development. If you peek inside the lid of the planning system, what you’ll
find is thousands – yes thousands – of specific policy reasons why development
should be stopped. These range from broadly sensible ideas about protecting
flood plains and sustaining historic rights of way through to policies that
make almost no sense at all such as the one preventing the use of a <a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-planning-permissions-lapse-and-how.html">former
velvet mill site in Denholme</a> for a development of homes for social rent.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We have policies designating land as important in dozens of
ways – heritage, ecology, special landscape, archaeology. We fuss about trees,
orchids, badgers, butterflies and bats – let’s not overlook assorted
amphibians. Anyone who has lived in (or in my case adjacent to) a listed building
will have had the joy of dealing with planners - made even more fun when your
listed building is surrounded by protected trees and located next to a conservation
area.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If you want to oppose development, all of these policies can
be brought to bear (one of my favourites is the one about being near a World
Heritage Site – in Saltaire this is preventing the <a href="https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/17420146.homes-planned-derelict-canalside-site-edge-saltaire/">replacement
of long derelict greenhouses with some new homes</a>). And, as you arrive at
the planning committee, you can be assured that the members are keen to find
reasons to prevent development – after all politicians are in the business of
votes and developers don’t have votes, future residents don’t have votes,
NIMBYs do.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We are in the middle of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/planning-for-the-future">first
real national debate about planning and its purpose since the current system
was introduced in the 1940s</a>. And this had meant that NIMBYs, instead of
organising locally to oppose development, have attempted to define their position
(other than we want to preserve the value of our homes and stopping new homes
is the surest way to achieve this end). There are four aspects to the NIMBY
position:</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The housing crisis is not the result of the
planning system.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>NIMBYism is about protecting nature.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>There is enough housing and land for housing already.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Reformed planning will mean the “wrong houses in
the wrong places”.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NIMBYs are aided in each of these objectives by people who
are not NIMBYs. Planners, or at least the bodies that represent
planners like the <a href="https://www.rtpi.org.uk/policy/2020/april/priorities-for-planning-reform-in-england/">Royal
Town Planning Institute (RTPI)</a> and the <a href="https://www.tcpa.org.uk/news/press-release-the-tcpa-responds-to-prime-ministers-build-build-build-announcements">Town
& Country Planning Association (TCPA)</a>, repeatedly say the problem doesn’t
lie with their members or the planning system but with the land market and
especially development behaviour around <a href="https://www.centreforcities.org/blog/no-landbanking-does-not-cause-the-housing-crisis-heres-why/">land
banking</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-build-out-final-report">build
out rates</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Local councils and their national body the <a href="https://www.local.gov.uk/local-planning-authorities-proposed-changes-planning-system">Local
Government Association (LGA)</a> have also argued strongly that they are
granting lots of permissions that don’t get developed showing, they claim, that
the problem doesn’t lie with councils and planners but with developers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NIMBYs have latched onto these arguments using them as the
basis for their support of a planning system that, most of the time, favours
existing homeowners. They go further by arguing that the objective assessment
of housing need is unnecessary and that local authorities should determining
planning applications purely based on local considerations. To move away from
planning committees making essentially arbitrary decisions based on short term
local political considerations would, they argue (and the LGA and RTPI support
them in this argument) represent the undermining of local democracy. It is
every homeowner’s right to be able to prevent development by lobbying a local
planning committee.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The problem is that only 2% of the public ever engage with
the planning system. This 2% generate headlines in the local paper with their
carefully painted protest signs and marches by school children roped in to
oppose developing housing in which they might live some time. Photographs of
stern looking residents perhaps accompanied by a local councillor or an MP seem
common enough (I’ve posed for a few) but the reality is that the planning
system works well for the few organised opponents and badly for the thousands
of people looking for housing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the argument here is a false one. Nobody is saying that
the planning system is the sole cause of our housing crisis (low interest
rates, rising wages and immigration all, for example, have an effect) but to
say, in the face <a href="http://www.newgeography.com/content/006620-a-look-demographias-latest-housing-affordability-survey">of
evidence to the contrary</a>, that the lack of housing supply isn’t substantially
down to planning is wrong. Everything about the system is sclerotic, from how
it’s resourced through to how long local plans take to draw up (Bradford started
with its plan in 2008 and still doesn’t have a plan with agreed housing
allocations in 2021).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The LGA point to the number of permissions granted and tell
us that over a million homes haven’t been built despite getting those precious
permissions. As plenty of <a href="https://lichfields.uk/content/insights/stock-and-flow/">people have
pointed out</a>, this misrepresents the idea of a planning permission. There’s
a site, old railway sidings, in Cullingworth that is now on its third
permission in the last 20 years. It remains undeveloped – perhaps because the
permission granted is unviable, maybe because the landowner wants too much
money. In Bradford alone there are hundreds of acres of brownfield sites that,
at some point or another, have had a permission granted for development only to
sit there undeveloped.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then we’re told that this is because the owners are sitting
on the land as a speculation, knowing that its value will rise because, you
know, that’s what happens to land. Developers are greedy we’re told again and
again. But these sites are not owned by developers, indeed their owners are often
actively looking for developers (at least for a year or so after getting the
permission). The problem is that the developers also know that people (their
customers) don’t want houses in run down inner cities so development of, for
example, the former Drummond Mills site on Lumb Lane in Manningham doesn’t
happen because it is impossible to build homes there for less than the local
selling price. If it costs £100,000 to build a house and a house the same size
round the corner is selling for £75,000, you’ll probably not bother developing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Planning permissions are a necessary but, in many cases, not
sufficient reason for development to happen. Big housing
developers bank land to maintain a pipeline of work for the business, but they
are not applying for permissions then sitting on that permission until it
lapses, to do so would be a waste of that business’s limited resource (time and
money). A much bigger problem is how determined opposition (often surprisingly
well funded) can delay a development <a href="https://www.planoraks.com/posts-1/notes-from-the-green-belt-whats-so-very-special-about-burley-in-wharfedale">for
literally decades.</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, out in the leafy suburbs, a different alliance is
formed between NIMBYs and green activists. As one, <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/04/nimbys-nature-destruction-wildlife-developers?__twitter_impression=true">Ros
Coward from The Rainforest Alliance proclaims</a> “<span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">Nimby
should no longer stand for “not in my back yard” but “nature in my back yard”. <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/04/nimbys-nature-destruction-wildlife-developers?__twitter_impression=true">In
a Guardian article</a>, Coward sets out how she is opposing new housing in
Wandsworth because there’s a poplar tree she likes. And she goes on to describe
how all the NIMBY campaigns up and down the country, far from being the actions
of selfish homeowners, are run by people whose main concern is nature. We’re
told about the <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?ll=53.43502260766069%2C3.0572545922591976&z=6&mid=13yu348GgZojatUt3lc5FG6krn3MhcNyD">Community
Planning Alliance</a> an umbrella group for 460 local campaign groups. Each one
probably has a story to tell about some trees, or bats or badgers. There will
be talk about chalk streams, ancient woodland, flowers, butterflies and
orchids. The word biodiversity will be littered across hundreds of letters to
planning officers, MPs and councillors.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">According to the Ministry of
Housing, Communities and Local Government residential property accounts for
1.1% of England’s land use. Add in garden and suburban marginalia and we reach
5.9% of the land as housing. Nearly 85% of England is, in planning terms,
undeveloped – agriculture, forest, heath, moor and marsh. To build 3 million
houses at suburban densities (35/ha) would need about 75 square km. Sounds like
a lot until you realise that this is 0.06% of England’s land area.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">Even if all those 3 million homes
were built on green belt, we would need less than 5% of that precious land. And
nobody at all is proposing that all of England’s housing need could or should
be met on green belt. If, for arguments sake, we assume that the use of green
belt is double the use of other land (meaning roughly a third of the new homes
would be on former green belt land) the amount of the green belt needed to build
those homes represents just 1.5% of the total green belt.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">It is true that building houses
affects local environments (which is why we have all those rules about
drainage, trees, bats, badgers, birds, beetles and flowers) but <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169204603002779">suburban
development doesn’t have to be net negative for biodiversity.</a> We can <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-suburbs-could-help-save-biodiversity/">deliver
better environmental outcomes from suburban development</a> without
compromising on the need for those new suburbs. The truth, however, is that no
forecasts of housing demand, no OANs system, no <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/16/jenrick-mutant-algorithm-win-localism-centralised-planning-u-turn">“mutant
algorithm”,</a> results in the concreting over of the green belt. The absolute
worst outcome suggests 5% of that green belt being *lost* and the reality would
be around 1%.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">Opposition to new housing on environmental
grounds is entirely specious, there is no quantifiable environmental impact
from housing development. And, if the local planning is done right, important
things like ancient woodland, chalk streams and ancient archaeology can be
protected. Those delightful old villages and towns can benefit from
conservation areas, important scenery and vital ecology will get guarded by
plans, all without the need to stop a single house being built.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">“Well, if we don’t need much land
to build the houses, let’s use the brownfield land”. So goes the response to
all this explanation about how we can deliver on housing demand without
concreting over England. The problem is that a lot of that brownfield land is
in places people don’t want to live (those essentially valueless sites in inner
city Bradford) and, even when the reuse of land is proposed, the NIMBYs are
there with arguments about urban open space, ‘green lungs’ and so forth.
Whether it’s underused former garage sites, old bus stations or the remnants of
post-WWII slum clearance, local NIMBYs are there with there banners campaigning
to stop new housing on brownfield sites because of a mulberry bush or a poplar
tree. There’s even one campaign based on the apparent environmental and
historical significance of some <a href="http://saveseethingwells.org/">old
sewage works</a>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">So given that what NIMBYs like
Ros Coward want is BANANAs (*build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone*),
the campaigners need a different argument. And, once again there are some convenient
folk who will tell you that the <a href="https://medium.com/@ian.mulheirn/part-1-is-there-really-a-housing-shortage-89fdc6bac4d2">housing crisis isn’t about lack of housing </a>but
about the distribution of housing assets. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/14/great-housing-disaster-danny-dorling-review">Others</a> will engage in complicated and
convoluted arguments to show how if we forced people who only use one bedroom
in a three-bedroom house to downsize then there’d be plenty. Another set of
experts will tell us that the problem is empty homes, foreigners buying luxury flats or rich
Londoners buying second homes. And then there are housing charities <a href="https://england.shelter.org.uk/support_us/campaigns/a_vision_for_social_housing">like
Shelter</a> and the housing professionals’ association, the Chartered Institute
of Housing who say that the problem isn’t planning but rather that government
isn’t giving councils and housing associations enough money to build new social
homes. Of course, the NIMBYs will oppose those social homes too if they’re
proposed for one of those brownfield sites with a tree.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">The commonest argument from
NIMBYs now is that suburban development (or luxury flats if you’re in the city)
is the wrong housing in the wrong place. How can building three- and
four-bedroom detached houses in Surbiton or Sutton Coldfield solve the housing
crisis? Look at those housing waiting lists, those people can’t afford the
prices for that suburban housing, it’s just developers being greedy. What we
need is new council houses to replace the right-to-buy and these will, of
course, be built on those brownfield sites in poor inner-city areas (so as not
to risk smelly oiks arriving in our nice semi-rural suburb with their crime and
their noise).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">Meanwhile, the people who really
do need better housing – tens of thousands of renters in London, Birmingham,
Brighton, Oxford, and Bristol – don’t get what they want. If Shelter and the
CIH had their way those renters would still be renters, just renting from the
council rather than a private landlord. I’m sure that, while some would be
happy with this (not least because the rent would be subsidised), it isn’t the
home ownership that most aspire to. That will only come if you build a lot more
suburban housing, places where they can do what their parents and grandparents
did – settle down in a decent house with a garage and a garden to raise a
family.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">Britain’s housing crisis is a
huge challenge and planning reform is one way to meet that challenge. We
probably need to build 3 million new homes across all tenures to catch up with five
decades of not building enough new homes and to meet emerging demand from new
household formation and immigration. This is not a small order, and it cannot
be done without making changes – painful ones for some people – to the planning
system. Alongside planning change, we also need leasehold reform, better
protection for private renters, stronger environment health enforcement, and
new investment in social housing. But getting the land supply for at least 3
million homes should be the priority. If we do this in a way that meets
suburban expectations, family formation and new working practices as well as
economic development then one of the biggest drags on our economy and society
is removed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">There is no good argument at the
national level for the NIMBY position that meeting this need for homes can be
met without increasing land availability in places people can access the jobs, schools,
and leisure they demand. Getting that land allocation agreed needs a strategic
national view and the willingness of local neighbourhoods to engage with the
process of making plans for housing and associated infrastructure. Instead of
simply defending a failed system, perhaps we should be talking about how to balance
the interests of local communities and the urgent need to provide the homes for
current and emerging generations. NIMBYs argue that the planning system works,
that new housing is an environmental threat, that there is sufficient land supply,
and that reform means the wrong homes in the wrong places. They are wrong in
each case but too few people are saying that we can deliver for local
communities – schools, health, businesses, active travel, public transport –
and plan for the 3 million new homes we need to resolve our housing crisis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">Planning reform is not a threat
to the environment, does not undermine community cohesion or infrastructure,
and does not reduce local democracy. Done right it allows a more sustainable
system involving more people and more communities in the planning process. Instead
of just objecting to reform, let’s work to get the best possible system given
competing priorities and demands.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">I fear though that, in the end,
NIMBYs gonna NIMBY.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Addendum: I've been asked what we should do with those value-free inner city sites in Bradford. If we are taking green space elsewhere the answer is to green them. I did a blog post setting out how this might work a while back -<a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2019/02/rewilding-city-greening-bradfords.html"> link here</a><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="dcr-amp-ubchvo">.... <br /></span></p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-74786795205169353712021-02-07T12:37:00.001+00:002021-02-07T12:38:02.199+00:00"Facebook, Google and Amazon are a bad thing and must be smashed up". When did Tory MPs get to be this stupid?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50585mGU7oiSVdCBKw_nODl566wMcTzaFJ3t72S2DljGLCuFL8GXqFOx3GRDlvD0696ZIiSC41ibFBNsovCjDJ_CaxP65nKiIf77vF-YClKdm3pwO8FGgidsoTXjMDu5g7f7OlVQL4b36/s446/Screenshot_2021-02-07+facebook+evil+at+DuckDuckGo.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="246" data-original-width="446" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50585mGU7oiSVdCBKw_nODl566wMcTzaFJ3t72S2DljGLCuFL8GXqFOx3GRDlvD0696ZIiSC41ibFBNsovCjDJ_CaxP65nKiIf77vF-YClKdm3pwO8FGgidsoTXjMDu5g7f7OlVQL4b36/w400-h222/Screenshot_2021-02-07+facebook+evil+at+DuckDuckGo.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Face of Evil<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /><br /><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9232557/amp/TOBIAS-ELLWOOD-world-better-place-without-Facebook-Google-Amazon.html?__twitter_impression=true">Well I suppose it is popular.</a> But there was a time when Conservative Chairmen of Select Committees didn't indulge in such populism: <br /><blockquote>It is a lesson today’s great monopolists – Bezos, Zuckerberg, Brin and Page – should heed.<br /><br />For their businesses exert ever more control over our everyday lives. They believe their power is unlimited. And, what’s more, the authorities, in the main, are letting them get away with it.<br /><br />These tech giants give the impression that democratically elected governments can be ignored, that they can use the most private information about millions of us for profit, without our knowledge and all the while treating the obligation of paying tax as optional. </blockquote>Literally nothing in this quotation is accurate and a good deal of it isn't true. Yet Tobias Ellwood can get a whole column to present us with a populist diatrabe of spectacular an dmonumental ignorance, one that will have the Daily Mail's readership waving tiny Union Flags and nodding along in agreement that we should stick it to these evil (*checks lists of evils*) Californians.<br /><blockquote>Never underestimate them. The power of these big tech companies is almost limitless. They know everything about us: not just our name, age, date of birth and spending habits but also the identity of our friends, our private online search interests and our political and sexual orientation.</blockquote>We could, of course, point out that they know these things because you gave them that information freely in exchange for access to services that add value to your lives. Just as you pay a mortgage to a big, anonymous multinational bank, and heat the home it funds with energy produced by a distant company owned by a foreign government. The power of those tech businesses is limited by their continuing ability to sell advertising not by an essentially mythical belief that Facebook and Amazon thrive on the back of their users being "the product".<br /><br />For Tobias Ellwood, the solution is a different sort of monopoly, a national one:<br /><blockquote>Why couldn’t Britain have a search engine of its own, or a British Facebook? The case is overwhelming: it is time to tame the Wild West of the World Wide Web.</blockquote>The fireworks explode, the flags wave - a British Facebook! <br /><br />It should worry us that a senior member of parliament, from the party that claims to understand business and markets, can put forward an argument that is little different from those peddled by the loopier supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. Mr Ellwood tells us his ideas (quite how Britain 'breaks up' companies owned and managed in a different country isn't explained) are needed to save democracy, protect newspapers and make a better world where wise men like Tobias oversee the international regulation of the Internet.<br /><br />There are a lot of things a Conservative government could be doing post-Covid such as supporting families and marriage, reforming the planning system, investing in schools, improving further education, building more houses, planting lots of trees, fixing local roads - a hundred or more simple practical actions to make for a better country. And none of them involve arbitrary decisions by government to smash up successful, value-adding businesses like Facebook and Amazon. None of the good things a Conservative government could do involve slapping taxes on business for having the audacity to make it easier for us to find things online. None of the good things we could do are about attacks on free markets simply because Twitter banned Donald Trump and lots of (largely self-interested) newspaper publishers believe all news was true prior to Facebook.<br /><br />...<p> <br /></p><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-62507736313760457122021-01-15T13:22:00.000+00:002021-01-15T13:22:07.701+00:00Stopping somebody else having a decent home somewhere nice isn't democracy, it's selfishness<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4nFy2n-xct6x50xlL7dXMWKYTvwZeEUfycv0TEbEWQ5WwExX-hnDg8lJ2mBxyq5gpfZOzCBgAithqlD5tFsVii1WYKIfI3UoPZIB2Zv2jhCdxlUCD2xxaezh47WLXVtKTGO7ymJFKcpSr/s771/Screenshot_2021-01-15+homelessness+at+DuckDuckGo.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="771" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4nFy2n-xct6x50xlL7dXMWKYTvwZeEUfycv0TEbEWQ5WwExX-hnDg8lJ2mBxyq5gpfZOzCBgAithqlD5tFsVii1WYKIfI3UoPZIB2Zv2jhCdxlUCD2xxaezh47WLXVtKTGO7ymJFKcpSr/w400-h180/Screenshot_2021-01-15+homelessness+at+DuckDuckGo.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But CPRE won't let you have one<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/01/13/ministers-should-scrap-plans-build-300000-homes-year-say-countryside/">We're off again.</a><br /><blockquote>A campaign backed by 18 British countryside and environmental groups has called on Robert Jenrick, the Housing Secretary, to abandon the Government's controversial proposals to build the new homes under a reformed planning system<a>. </a><br /><br />The RSPB, Woodland Trust and the Ramblers walking charity are among those saying the plans would be disastrous for Britain's green spaces. The CPRE, a countryside charity leading the campaign, warned that the proposals would see a "halving" of local democracy, with little option for local people to object to developments.</blockquote>It doesn't come as a surprise to see this coalition of organisations that have been, to put it mildly, at the forefront of the UK's NIMBY Movement. A movement that has resulted in the housing crisis that, on days when the media aren't complaining about new homes spoiling their nice view, we hear about so often. The crisis of rising rough sleeping, escalating waiting lists, sky-high rents, housing costs sucking up ever larger parts of people's incomes, and a wrold for some where the choice between paying the rent and feeding the kids is real. It is an act of callous selfishness to think keeping your view is more important than housing the poor, the young and the homeless - yet that is precisely what CPRE is about, what NIMBYism gives us, the ultimate 'we're alright Jack' outlook.<br /><br />It is striking that, despite their utter selfishness, the positioning of this CPRE objection to building any houses anywhere at all is now couched in terms of democracy. As if my 'right' to object to somebody building houses is more important than people having affordable homes to live in? And, as if the objections of a few hundred people should be allowed to trample over the needs and desires of people who'd like to buy or rent a home somewhere nice where they can reach their job?<br /><br />This is the reality of the CPRE campaign. It's a celebration of the loud. A championing of government by aggressive lobbying. The view that being able to stop your neighbour building in his or her field is the acme of democracy, that removing (in truth reforming) that degree of interference will "halve" local democracy.<br /><br />Put simply this is nonsense - unless you think that the entire purpose of local governmen tis as a conduit for objections to things. The government's proposed move from the current system to a zoning system doesn't remove local choice or local control, it shifts it away from the ridiculous situation where developments that local planning policy says are appropriate for housing development get blocked by the discretionary planning system. Choices about that local planning policy will still be subject to democratic control, they just won't be as conveniently exploitable as CPRE and its friends would like.<br /><br />Our planning system is the single biggest reason we have a housing crissis. Not just that but it's a huge drain on our economic growth and development, slowing down social mobility, reducing choice and adding huge unneeded costs. Reforming it would be the single best thing we could do to meet the needs of rising generation, many who see no prospect of doing what my generation did and buying their own home. The proposed reforms - and the need, denied by CPRE, for at least 300,000 new homes per year - represent a small step towards a planning system that protects the best of our countryside while allowing the development of homes for all.<br /><br /><br /> ....<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-43602426716712970862021-01-08T12:55:00.000+00:002021-01-08T12:55:09.358+00:00Housing developers are not greedy.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitqu5O_xrIocq6k6-35iYGO_APZq69THHx76Yqp26bGFGR9ZzcsnAutzxAtdihSfznx3i-srBi-3_luBTi87SQIMVPbKk_MKk-9cmJhE2Bzmd9nUM5AnpUSl2YWE_j0-gPqS2JTA33G8hS/s474/edgelands.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="474" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitqu5O_xrIocq6k6-35iYGO_APZq69THHx76Yqp26bGFGR9ZzcsnAutzxAtdihSfznx3i-srBi-3_luBTi87SQIMVPbKk_MKk-9cmJhE2Bzmd9nUM5AnpUSl2YWE_j0-gPqS2JTA33G8hS/w400-h266/edgelands.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><br />"Greedy developers!" How many times have we heard this from people opposing new housing? When the planning application for new homes lands, it is a matter of seconds before somebody is muttering about how it's all about profit and the developers don't care about the community. At times this seems to be the Labour Party's national policy - their opposition to planning reform gets framed as "the reforms are a developers charter", "this is just about helping the Tories' developer friends and funders". And Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens - every variation of politician - aren't any better, all of them find it easy to shout "greedy developer" while mopping up crocodile tears about young people not being able to afford the rent, let alone buy a home.<br /><br />The reality, as any councillor who has stayed awake while sitting on a planning committee know, isn't anything like this - indeed, while the greedy developer remains a popular planning committee caricature, those councillors will see more of developers saying they can't build because the development isn't viable than they will developers greedily exploiting the chance to build houses for people to live in.<br /><br />I hear you when you say "but housing is so expensive" and assume that this is because those greedy developers are making millions. And I'm here to say that, while such sentiment is understandable, it really isn't the house builder making the greedy profits, it's the landowner. The developer is lumbered with the high land costs that make up the largest part of the house price. Remember too that these high land prices are a direct consequence of the planning system - by limiting the available development land, the planners hand a huge windfall to the landowner. The developer then buys the land at the planning-inflated price.<br /><br />The planning system then imposes, often with good reason, a load of additional costs and charges on development. This starts with the cost of getting permission to build the homes at all (even when the planners have already allocated the land as suitable for housing). For a large developmnet this can run to millions as we require pre-application consultations, a series of environmental impact studies, heritage assessments, tree studies, bird counts, bat and badger searches all followed by more developer funded consultation. Then the planners, often at the request of statutory consultees like the health service, education, environment agency, highways and water companies, add further requirements, each of them adding costs to the development. Finally, there's a 'Section 106' agreement (or Community Infrastructure Levy requirement) so as to fund school places, affordable housing, parks, playgrounds and anything else the planners can crowbar into the developer's costs. Not a single footing has been dug and the planners have added millions to the cost of development.<br /><br />Unless that is, the developer can demonstrate that some of these community infrastructure costs simply make the whole development non-viable. To check this the planning authority usually employs an independent valuer to see whether the developer is pulling the wool over the planning committee's eyes. In my experience, nearly every one of these council-commissioned viability studies verify what the developer is saying. There's an argument that this extra cost ought to come off the land value but, in most cases, that ship has already sailed (probably in the former landowner's new yacht).<br /><br />Viability studies use industry gross margins as their test - usually 15-20% depending on land values (the higher the land value the lower the margin). And this gross margin isn't 'profit' but covers a lot of other costs for the developer - borrowing costs, options on land so as to maintain a development pipeline, up-front costs of future development, design and architects costs, valuation consultants, and the central administration required by any business. I don't expect you to weep beef tea over the plight of house builders but they are not any more greedy than any other business and are probably less profitable than lots of those businesses.<br /><br />All of these things - land prices, planning costs, mitigating planning requirements, community infrastructure - may be good things but their net effect is that homes get more expensive not that developers get more greedy. And the price of homes is constrained by the housing market - the developer can't make homes more expensively than those in the second hand market. I recall a development in inner city Bradford where the cost of building two- and three-bedroom family homes was more than similar sized homes in the local market - the homes got built but ended up as rentals rather than the intended market housing.<br /><br />If we're looking for greediness in our housing system, the place to look is in the reason why the land is so expensive. That reason is because we have chosen politically to restrict the supply of land at the urban fringe (indeed we have an "urban fringe" that amounts to nearly 15% of England's land area) so as to protect the interests, and asset values, of the people - you and me mostly - who live in or near those urban fringes. Meanwhile, another group of relatively wealthy self-interested people are opposing development on city brownfield sites on the basis of it not being affordable, being too tall, not enough car parking - plus, of course, the familiar objections about doctors, schools and heritage.<br /><br />The housing crisis is a consequence of our greed not developer greed. We say we want housing but then say, regardless of where we live, that over the road from us is the wrong place for that housing. And politicians suck up to this selfishness (and our votes) by calling the developers greedy for wanting to make a net margin of under 5% on building the homes everybody agrees we need.<br /><br />....<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-62974297771833769092020-12-28T17:01:00.001+00:002020-12-28T17:01:10.372+00:00Urban densification isn't the answer to Britain's housing crisis, it's a sop to the NIMBYs<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8n1EM_Yx7YGKDrXiOs7-8nG9E9qTyOCZ9kdFA1Z_hR8nod5mf59AnLP9OcMQfsKEjxfvGsfinUe_kBPPgc9ZMM1pd3x-qni_EXKi3DDp4QJel_7ByhEJsR9aWouafKc157yeFC3-CyoyY/s1125/Screenshot_2020-12-28+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+1000+%25C3%2597+750+pixels%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="785" data-original-width="1125" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8n1EM_Yx7YGKDrXiOs7-8nG9E9qTyOCZ9kdFA1Z_hR8nod5mf59AnLP9OcMQfsKEjxfvGsfinUe_kBPPgc9ZMM1pd3x-qni_EXKi3DDp4QJel_7ByhEJsR9aWouafKc157yeFC3-CyoyY/w400-h279/Screenshot_2020-12-28+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+1000+%25C3%2597+750+pixels%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gentle density<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> </p><p>There is an element of the town planning world that, for all sorts of reasons, believes it knows better what sort of places people want than do actual people. This is the tradition of Le Corbusier whose ideas encompassed super-dense high-rise cities filled with well-behaved peons. A tradition that, when put into practice by the great man's adherents, gave us America's urban housing projects, crime-ridden tower block estates in South London, and the worst of Paris's banlieues. Contrary to the sociological evidence, town planners and architects persist with the idea that other people would be better off in very dense urban environments than in the suburban places those people say they prefer.<br /><br />In doing this these planners and architects project their own biases onto the system. Often this amounts to single, well-paid, middle class graduates telling less well paid non-graduate workers with families that living in a flat in "gentle density" is so much better than the four-bed detached home in a good suburb the families aspire to. All of this will get mixed up with the current, almost religious, views on climate change - "suburbs are bad for the planet, you know" is the message used to shame aspiring young families out of buying that smart suburban home near good schools. We're told we have to live fifteen minutes from everything and that the motor car is the source of all development evils.<br /><br />As the pandemic plays out its course, we approach a huge political crunch between the desire to spread out (and in doing so reduce the risks from contagion) and the efforts of planners, urged on by NIMBYs, to squeeze us into ever smaller spaces. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">On one front we have ideas that embrace space and suburbia:</a><br /></p><blockquote>The pandemic has served as a hammer deconstructing our cities, our neighborhoods, our homes, and our lives and allows them to be reconstructed in productive ways. The year in 2021 will be the start of a new, more flexible, more productive, and happier year. The year will be enhanced by corporate leaders providing their employees more freedom and flexibility. The year will be enriched and made safer by elected officials allowing their constituents to spread out their activities. Neighborhoods will flourish and cities will thrive if city officials and planners embrace <a href="https://douglasnewby.com/2020/06/organic-urbanism-is-the-cure-for-new-urbanism/">Organic Urbanism</a>, emphasizing the natural rhythms and desires of how and where people want to live and work.</blockquote><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">And on the other the continued urging towards urban density</a>, apartment living and a sort of ultimately purposeless anti-family existence.<br /><blockquote>In short, the correct post-pandemic response may be to urbanify the suburban communities that have thus far been spared the brunt of COVID-19. Yes, that might mean greater risk for community spread the next time we find ourselves in a similar crisis—but we should nonetheless strive for the widest, most inclusive outcomes. The infrastructure we invest in—more housing to drive down rent prices, rapid transit to decrease car dependency, and more grocery stores to mitigate food deserts—would go a long way toward aiding our most vulnerable communities.</blockquote>Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/27/cramped-housing-has-helped-fuel-spread-of-covid-in-england-study">as evidence connecting crowding and contagion grows</a>, we are told by density's advocates that, of course, their sort of density won't have the problems of crowding and exposure that characterised the old forms of density. The model such advocates like - and bizarrely present as deliverable - is streets of five-story, Georgian pastiche. Roads filled with the same sort of anti-family environment as the skyscraper homes built in the last couple of decades except with a prettier front door and some <a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2020/11/why-street-trees-are-problem.html">lonely street trees</a>.<br /><br />Governments seize on the idea of 'gentle density' or proposals to "urbanify the suburban communities" because they allow a new justification to act in the interests of another influential community - activists on the urban fringes who oppose new housing, the NIMBYs. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">As one pro-NIMBY politician, Neil O'Brien put it:</a><br /><blockquote>"...infill is the type of development that attracts most opposition. That’s unsurprising: it means building right next to people. And specifically, to people who chose to live on the edge to get a nice view." </blockquote>To indulge the narrow interests of these people (who have the time, money and votes to worry politicians everywhere) planners draw in concerns about regeneration or the environment to rationalise the campaign to stop new suburban housing. My favourite is one dreamed up by NIMBY campaign group CPRE: "if London was at the same density as Milton Keynes it would cover the whole of East Anglia". The thing is that most of Milton Keynes is green - either gardens, public open space and protected marginalia or else undeveloped farmland. To house 8 million people at suburban densities (around 40 homes per hectare) would need a lot of land but probably only a third of Suffolk not the whole of East Anglia. And nobody's proposing over three million new homes in one location.<br /><br />"It'll be different this time" seems to be the mantra of planners and architects. Unfortunately, if we build high-rise tenements, terraces and walk-up blocks, all funded by generous government grants for social housing, and then fill them with the poor, it won't be any different from any other occasion when governments did this sort of development. And again, people like Neil O'Brien promote such housing development as 'regeneration', providing a rationale for plonking it on surface car parks and former factory sites in the inner city - literally dumping the poor in the worst places. The real rationale for O'Brien (and politicians from every party), of course, is that we can't have those sort of people coming to live in smart, suburban housing, I mean listen to those accents, look at what they wear, it'll spoil the area, it'll cost me votes.<br /><br />Less that 5% of England has houses on. And to meet the needs of those in substandard housing and the desires of aspiring families, we need to develop about 1% more. This development should be on the urban fringe, in extensions to existing places rather than grand new town schemes or in expensive and unpleasant inner city 'regeneration'. Increasing the size of a village or a small town by 15-20% doesn't destroy it's nature but it does help to sustain the social infrastructure that makes these places work - the doctors surgery, the chemist, the post office, the village hall or community centre, convenience shopping and a couple of pubs. Stopping hew housing because a minority think they own a view - the Neil O'Brien proposal - is at least honest. It's far worse to squeal 'climate emergency' and block those much-need homes on the back of not liking cars or myths about suburbs being less 'sustainable' than high-rise inner city developments.<br /><br />....<p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-58174295782351355712020-12-13T15:47:00.001+00:002020-12-13T15:47:21.740+00:00Of course art (and gardening) can be political, it's just better when it isn't<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQ5PJnM3JXrZ7FJaLBN4OZqiEYiJERReWUwpFkLtPv4iITloOpz9MxzrjlljV7AufN7s13sy8fPdEMO8qI5drfcFW53C-l28SBGnxyODWwVxOBlcDCNcYycX7CaOddEHeFEOSGiV7uO9v/s1816/20200824_161405.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1684" data-original-width="1816" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQ5PJnM3JXrZ7FJaLBN4OZqiEYiJERReWUwpFkLtPv4iITloOpz9MxzrjlljV7AufN7s13sy8fPdEMO8qI5drfcFW53C-l28SBGnxyODWwVxOBlcDCNcYycX7CaOddEHeFEOSGiV7uO9v/w400-h371/20200824_161405.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />Gardening bloke James Wong was again trolling the Twiterati by saying that gardening (more specifically British gardening) has "racism in its DNA". All this came in response to another Tweet from Ed Wall who is the head of Landscape Architecture Urbanism at the University of Greenwich:<br /><blockquote>Gardens are denied their political agency because they too often reveal uncomfortable politics of individual ownership, spatial inequity, & unsustainable practices. There needs to be more honest conversations about gardens in the UK!</blockquote>I'm not going to get into the issues James Wong raises except to say that I'm sure he's right about non-white people facing racism within the gardening world - it would be a miracle if that world was, unlike everywhere else, without any racism. I'm also sure that the use of terms like 'native' and 'heritage' are not indications of racism even if they sometimes point to a degree of ignorance about just how few of the everyday plants in our gardens are native. And there's also a slightly jingoistic tendency in British gardening to believe that, somehow, we're the only people who do gardens well.<br /><br />The thing is that Wong frames the argument from the perspective of the elite gardening world - the designers, plant experts, and gardening gurus - not the everyday world of the average person's little garden. <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/nov/29/james-wong-other-arts-are-often-political-who-says-gardening-shouldnt-be-too?__twitter_impression=true&s=09">Gardening is 'art', and like other art, Wong thinks, should be infused - is inevitably infused - with politics:</a><br /><blockquote>About five years ago, I was admiring one of my favourite conceptual gardens at the Hampton Court flower show. Among a collection of avant garde horticultural installations was a design inspired by the issues facing displaced peoples around the world. In the 10 minutes I stood there, before being dragged away with work, I overheard at least half a dozen visitors decrying it, not for its planting, hardscape design, or use or colour or form, but because of the perceived importance of “keeping politics out of gardening”.</blockquote>Again I didn't see this garden but I was struck by what Wong overheard and that, he says, "...would anyone have ever made a statement like that in an art gallery? After stepping out of the theatre or a film screening? Going to a concert?"<br /><br />The answer to Wong's questions, in every case, is 'yes'. Lots of ordinary people who visit these arts events come away pleased with the art but muttering about "keeping the politics out". What these people object to isn't really politics but a sort of artistic preachiness, to the idea that art's job isn't to please or excite but rather to shock, disturb and upset. So much of the 'politics' presented by artist is simplistic, sloganised and lacking in any depth or analysis. It is not intended to inform or educate but to signal the artists adopted righeousness, an adoption made easier when the artist doesn't really challenge recieved thinking but simply apes what Kristian Niemietz calls <a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2020/05/socialism-is-luxury-opinion-high-status.html">"high status opinion"</a>.<br /><br />These opinions are reflected in Ed Wall's Tweet too - "...uncomfortable politics of individual ownership, spatial inequity, & unsustainable practices..." speaks to the central conceit of easy progressive politics, of those 'high status opinions. Gardens are political - people own land, some people don't, and anyway the climate emergency. You only need to add something about neoliberalism to arrive at a distillation of modern progressivism, especially when you add Wong's contention that it's all racist anyway. And that people who say "keep politics out of gardening" are obviously low status and probably racist.<br /><br />Too much of the politics in art is levered in there to grab attention and adds little to the art itself. Yet artists, designers and writers are now taught that without a 'message', without that infusion of politics, their work is less good, less important and probably less valuable (to the high status elite who troop through the doors of state subsidised galleries, theatre and music). Gardening remains more inclusive, a genuinely middle class pursuit more typified by hints about how to grow things, how to lay out a garden and going "wow" at beautiful flowers, trees and foliage. Until recently the garden shows reflected this simplicity with the displays showcasing the use of materials, creative planting and great husbandry. Wong's favourite garden begins to change this by making the art of garden design about a message rather than a celebration of craft. Just as with elite theatre and the visual arts the garden designer is now expected to impress the high status viewer with their political message, something that brings out the "why are they so political" response from many of the regular visitors to the flower show.<br /><br />We're going to see the same divide emerge in the horticultural world as we see elsewhere in the arts - the great and feted elite parading indulgent and safe progressive politcal messages while the old audience drifts away to places that see the art as being about beauty, craft and imagination not ramming a one-eyed political agenda down peoples' throats.<br /><br /> ..... <br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-76940195974274455722020-12-11T15:10:00.002+00:002020-12-11T15:10:19.100+00:00If you want civic pride then you need accountable, practical and, above all, local government.<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSzow_NFxrWLeATFWClTxmNAiYyF-FFElycqaLlQv3Y7ImD_wIL45O7aUtECoAu2I8LhbWY7mugk31NJoPO1-qg-wNiGZqBhjNTrY7kO4EqFw4EPPgcmwlbphnyNlh8T9SS0NMfwLXrtto/s808/Screenshot_2020-12-11+Portrait+of+Penge+1964.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="505" data-original-width="808" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSzow_NFxrWLeATFWClTxmNAiYyF-FFElycqaLlQv3Y7ImD_wIL45O7aUtECoAu2I8LhbWY7mugk31NJoPO1-qg-wNiGZqBhjNTrY7kO4EqFw4EPPgcmwlbphnyNlh8T9SS0NMfwLXrtto/w400-h250/Screenshot_2020-12-11+Portrait+of+Penge+1964.png" width="400" /></a></p><p></p><p>Sadly, <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-must-sweat-the-small-stuff-to-change-lives-post-brexit/">"...it's means hanging baskets..."</a> comes across as the standout, throwaway line in a largely sensible article by Rachel Wolf about the matter of levelling up. What she reports on is a sense of troubled civic pride that anyone with ears in the North will have heard - not just in recent times but for decades. Certainly it was a feature of my 24 years as a local councillor in Bradford:</p><p></p><blockquote>People are deeply
proud of where they live, and it is the primary source of their
identity. They feel embarrassed and angry about what is happening to
their towns. Shops are closed, the cenotaph has graffiti on it, people
often feel unsafe. The pandemic has accelerated an existing decline.
When the town opens up again, what will there be to do? In a lot of
places, there’s an event — a local fireworks display; an event in the
park; a well-known market — that has disappeared. No one knows why.
People can’t park in the center and the buses are an expensive,
irregular joke.</blockquote><p></p><p>But this isn't about some sort of Potempkin village strategy for Boris Johnson to adopt, rather we should ask why - why is it that this sense of pride is so damaged, why is there graffiti all over the place, why do people spit in the street, why don't we have park keepers any more, why is the kiddies' playground vandalised? A thousand questions about the immediate environment in which people live - the potholes, the unmended walls, the dog poo, the litter, and the impression that anyone using a car to go shopping is either a convenient source of cash or else the spawn of satan.</p><p><a href="https://vimeo.com/306160159">I have an old film</a>, made in 1964 when Penge Urban District Council was abolished with the creation of the new London Borough of Bromley. I keep the film because it features my maternal grandfather (that's him and my Grandma behind him in the picture) who was the last Chairman of that Council. Somewhere I also have the proceedings from the final council and accompanying dinner - this sent out a message at once sad and hopeful. Sad at the passing of a genuinely local council looking after the interests of SE20 residents but hopeful that the new arrangements brought new opportunities and a shared future with the District's neighbours in Beckenham, Bromley and Orpington.</p><p>In the film, produced by the local Rotary Club, that sense of civic pride described by Rachel Wolf comes across strongly. Every part of the town is celebrated - Crystal Palace Park, the High Street, the market, the council housing, the pubs and, of course, more famous things like Peggy Spencer's dance school. Plus my grandpa, sporting his chain of office, at a visit to an old folks' home. That civic pride oozes from every second of the film.</p><p>So what changed? How did we get from that world of the 1960s when a working class suburb in South London took such pride in itself, to a time when ordinary people despair at the state of their town? We're a lot richer but that ought to have made things better not worse. We're certainly healthier - my grandpa died a slow death in his '70s from work-related lung disease something that's far less prevalent these days. And mostly we're happier.</p><p>The answer lies, in part at least, in the decision to reform London's government in 1964. Where there'd previously been a patchwork of little district councils all fussing and bothering over things like litter and hanging baskets, we got instead large unitary councils with grand strategies and big schemes. And today this process of shutting down little district councils continues with developing proposals for unitary councils in, for example, North Yorkshire. Councils with a fighting chance of developing that civic pride get replaced by huge councils that wade through the clamerous, competing calls from dozens of towns and villages. Meanwhile the cost pressures from social services climb and climb, taking up an ever growing portion of the council's budget - at least two thirds and nearing 80% in a few cases.</p><p>It has been the shift in local government resourses from visible to social services (or "place" to "people" as the modern jargon puts it) that created many of the problems identified by Rachel Wolf. Statutory obligations to provide care outweigh the desire to make places look great - so the litter budget gets cut, the parks department is shrunk and the library service is stripped to its legal bones. Meanwhile the elimination of local accountability for the police, removing control of business rates from local councils and a bewildering collection of inspectorates all signal to the councillor and the resident that local government doesn't matter. Yet every single problem identified by Rachel Wolf was once, and now isn't, something done by local government. We had little district councils with councillors who knew their neighbours to do things like pick up litter, collect bins, put swings in the park, provide car parks and clean up graffiti. Bigger city councils also ran buses and the police force.</p><p>If we want to "sweat the small stuff", then we need a new life for local councils rather than the grandiose devolution schems and proposals for distant, 'strategic' unitary councils. And we need to either fund councils properly to provide social services or remove those services to a national agency or agencies. My issue with the 'levelling up' debate is the view, clear in Rachel Wolf's article, that it is central government 'funds' - the 'vast plethora of funds' - that matter. If, and I think the people surveyed by Wolf are right here, civic pride matters, then the best way to do this is to rediscover the sort of local government large towns and cities lost in the 1960s and 1970s and which current policy is destroying in more rural and small town England.</p><p>....<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-65040712356514838422020-12-06T16:10:00.005+00:002020-12-06T16:10:44.756+00:00The 15-minute City won't be utopia, it will be a nightmare (unless you're rich)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiifavT9gKiavmGCLXQpaAzFbnKL9SmM97JmGRMIEpngQ2HRT6oaWNdeHXOZ-xNpRCBi0B9PjVoxxc9ptV6eYkISjJI5W5MBOkkr1Hq0CzHqCkbndVBRr1QOr9GpnkvSjs1rb_u7NhaQwDs/s1367/Screenshot_2020-12-06+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+1900+%25C3%2597+1260+pixels%2529+%25E2%2580%2593+Scaled+%252859%2525%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="773" data-original-width="1367" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiifavT9gKiavmGCLXQpaAzFbnKL9SmM97JmGRMIEpngQ2HRT6oaWNdeHXOZ-xNpRCBi0B9PjVoxxc9ptV6eYkISjJI5W5MBOkkr1Hq0CzHqCkbndVBRr1QOr9GpnkvSjs1rb_u7NhaQwDs/w400-h226/Screenshot_2020-12-06+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+1900+%25C3%2597+1260+pixels%2529+%25E2%2580%2593+Scaled+%252859%2525%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p> The latest <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-11-12/paris-s-15-minute-city-could-be-coming-to-an-urban-area-near-you">urban planning gimmick</a> is the '15-minute City' with its poster child being Paris and its godfather Carlos Moreno:</p><p></p><blockquote>His 15-minute concept was developed primarily to reduce urban carbon
emissions, reimagining our towns not as divided into discrete zones for
living, working, and entertainment, but as mosaics of neighborhoods in
which almost all residents’ needs can be met within 15 minutes of their
homes on foot, by bike, or on public transit. As workplaces, stores, and
homes are brought into closer proximity, street space previously
dedicated to cars is freed up, eliminating pollution and making way for
gardens, bike lanes, and sports and leisure facilities.</blockquote><p></p><p>The main driving force for this idea wasn't a dream of a better urbanism but a belief that we face a climate emergency and that people travelling about was a big factor behind the carbon emissions causing that emergency. But soon, as the youthful, hipster planners grasped the idea, it became the latest in a long line of anti-car, anti-suburb campaigns. Nobody, least of all the leaders of London, New York or Los Angeles, stopped to ask important questions about the programme in Paris, its scope and its impact. We gathered Moreno's PR as if it was the simple truth and believed that Paris was becoming a car-free city to the delight of its inhabitants.</p><p>The problem here is what Wendell Cox calls <a href="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00176-louvre-caf%C3%A9-syndrome-misunderstanding-amsterdam-and-america">'Louvre Café Syndrome'</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote>This occurs when Americans sit at Paris cafes in view of the Louvre and
imagine why it is that the United States does not look like this. In
fact, most of Paris doesn't even look like this, nor do other European
urban areas. Like their US counterparts, European urban areas rely
principally on cars for mobility (though to a somewhat lesser degree)
and their residents live in suburbs that have been built since World War
II.</blockquote><p></p><p>Most Parisians don't live in the central city but in sprawling suburbs surround that city. And, just like everywhere else, most of those Parisians don't spend their daily life skittling into and out of the city us visitors enjoy. The 15-minute city doesn't apply to this population and, were planners smitten by Moreno's ideas to introduce them, the results would be as unpopular as the introduction of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54180647">'Low Traffic Neighbourhoods' (LTNs)</a> has been in London's inner suburbs. What the 15-minute City does is reduce the scope and choice of residents. It assumes that people prefer a more limited choice within strolling distance of a fourth floor town centre flat over a wide choice available within a fifteen minute drive or a suburban house in their car.</p><p>None of this is to say that we shouldn't have more walkable communities or that we shouldn't encourage what's know now as 'active travel', but all of these things are possible without the blunt and controlling ideas that come from Moreno's 'smart city' concepts. Moreover, Moreno's ideas respond to a very narrow demographic with a model that simply cannot work in a modern agglomerated metropolis.</p><p>The first thing we'll notice is how the '15-minute City' is popular in the grand arrondisements of Paris's wealthy centre. Such places already enjoy the benefits that come from being wealthy and situated in the heart of a city that, in normal circumstances, has millions of visitors adding to the extravagence of rich residents. Take a trip out of the city centre to some of the less salubrious banlieue with their unemployment, poverty and ethic tensions - how does containing these residents inside a '15-minute' cordon help with their social mobility, with the betterment of their lives? Will good jobs either on the urban fringe or in the city centre now migrate to places known now for bad policing, car burning, and sky-high levels of crime?</p><p>Some more radical folk no doubt consider that the '15-minute City' (or twenty minutes if you're in Victoria) represents a radical remake, not of the city, but of people's lives. In the authoritarian tradition of Le Corbusier, these urban planners see citizens as counters to be moved about within their smart cities - peons not people. Plebs who can be forced into using uncomfortable, inconvenient and expensive transport to access a range of choices (employment, leisure, lifestyle) deliberately limited by the preferences of planners. All of this washed over in gentle green watercolour.</p><p>Successful modern societies are diverse in many ways, in the people, in lives and in geography. Denying people the flexibilty of comfortable, efficient and relatively cheap private transport represents a huge backwards step in the betterment of our lives. Yet this is exactly the policy pursued by the wealthy authoritarians who now run big cities. Worse still, because decisions about the rest of us and our lives are being made in those cities by these green-tinted authoritarian planners, people living in Pennine Yorkshire or the Ardennes get told they shouldn't be driving that car, that they should be huddled into a 15-minute zone that barely allows them to reach the next village, let alone the towns tantalisingly beyond the approved limit.</p><p>Even in the suburbia where most of us live, the choice and flexibility granted us by the wonder that is the private car would, if removed, make such places less diverse and less appealing even ghost towns. The idea that, by car, we are within a few minutes of several choices for shopping, for leisure and for work is being sneered at by planners in big city centres pretending that the life of a well-paid, single young graduate is the ideal life. And that urban planning should be skewed entirely to the needs and preferences of such people. This, not saving the planet or a "new urban vision", is the reality of the '15-minute City'.</p><p>.... <br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-55280973243776697562020-12-04T13:49:00.002+00:002020-12-04T22:34:03.114+00:00Community, good business and attention - conservatives and levelling up<img border="0" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="1071" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUEUB2yfPAPA1Bv-v81odA0PB-Myj4zlYv4Mt2y8dQAWScB_6fbtjnQxbOtTaBO_KscpYGnACZP38T_V2oo6s1BbQQVlEoQ8mR_MijJj-L86OBhJrJ0q4JacC8PmHc1Z1ybzoIaEkZbdp1/w400-h171/Screenshot_2020-12-04+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+1280+%25C3%2597+720+pixels%2529.png" width="400" /><blockquote>"The Conservatives no longer represent the kind of metropolitan values characterised by the Notting Hill set, but their new coalition is highly homogeneous in terms of values – leaning marginally to the left on the economy and right on socio-cultural issues."</blockquote><a href="https://www.ukonward.com/noturningback/">This observation is how Onward open</a> their analysis of voting behaviour and demographics for the 2019 general election. It mirrors a long-standing observation from political scientists that the gap in the political market is for a party that leans left on economics and right on culture. It also, once again, exposes the problem with the binary left-right distinction than dominates political discusion and analysis everywhere. For me, it's a reminder why, as a conservative, I no longer consider myself 'right wing'.<br /><br />Despite recent Blairite attenpts to corral the idea of community into a social democratic narrative, it has long seemed to me that community is the central concept in conservatism. Or at least in the sort of conservatism that prompted Disraeli to write <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Sybil</a>:<br /><blockquote>“In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain. They are not in a state of cooperation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes;; and for all the rest they are careless of neighbors. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as ourself; modern society acknowledges no neighbour.”</blockquote>This is not, as the socialists pretend, a rejection of capitalism and the idea of gain but rather that the utilitarian pursuit of that gain means that people are drawn away from community. This tension is a really important factor in modern society. Dig out a collection of cheesy Christmas movies and you'll get Disraeli's theme again and again - people are reminded about friends, family, community and even god. Conservatives see those "Notting Hill Values" as narrow, selfish and coldly utilitarian. I appreciate that the Notting Hill Set don't see their values in this fashion but they recognise people's innate conservatism - it's in the TV shows they make, the magazines they publish, and the adverts they write.<br /><br />It's not new to say that there have always been two popular characterisation of business, of capitalism. It's the difference between <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Wonderful_Life">Henry Potter and George Bailey</a>. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">It's Larry the Liquidator versus Jorgy Jorgenson</a>. It's the redemption of Scrooge and the scouring of The Shire. The difference isn't about, as that Notting Hill set too often think, noblesse oblige but about why we do business, about the purpose of it all, about the pleasure of betterment not the hedonism of accumulation.<br /><br />These characterisations exist because business contains both dark and light. This isn't anything more than the reality of human nature - every occupation contains the selfish and the selfless, good and bad behaviour. There are bad doctors, corrupt lawyers, and sinful parsons just as much as there are greedy businessmen. Yet it is only business where the failings are seen as a feature of the system not a weakness of the man. For conservatives, however, while change does happen, Jorgy Jorgenson should get a fair chance at saving his business not get blown away by someone from Wall Street who has never seen the business, its people and its community.<br /><br />While liberals can tell us, often with the sorts of graphs and numbers that Larry the Liquidator so loved, that everyone gains from the business being closed or broken up, it doesn't feel that way to the community. The thing that J D Vance described in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Elegy">Hillbilly Elegy</a>, a broken, scarred place left high and dry by the closing of industry and filled with a sad flotsam of humanity. For sure, Vance's personal story also provides a classic sense of hope, that American Dream. But the idea of people still left behind stays lodged in our minds as we return to the same urge to act described by Disraeli.<br /><br />At the opening of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Robert Heinlein's 'Starman Jones'</a>, he places the hero, Max, firmly on the outside.<br /><blockquote>"The incredible sight and the impact on his ears always affected him the same way. He had heard that for the passengers the train was silent, with the sound trailing them, but he did not know; he had never ridden a train and it seemed unlikely, with Maw and the farm to take care of, that he ever would."</blockquote>Those who see building a high speed railway as the way to bridge the gap between the shining city and the provincial backwater should, perhaps, read that passage and pause. Like J D Vance, Max escapes (by having a spacesuit and a photographic memory as it happens) and finishes the story on the train he describes at the start, but public policy shouldn't be about the few who succeed against the odds but about how to stack those odds better so the few become many. Building a high speed train probably doesn't do that.<br /><br />Many conservatives have a conflicted relationship with business and capitalism. Ted Heath rather encapsulated this when he criticised 'Tiny' Rowland - “(i)t is the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism, but one should not suggest that the whole of British industry consists of practices of this kind.” Rowland was a real life precurser to the Wall Street asset stripper caricatured as Larry the Liquidator, he made himself (and investors) rich while have no regard to the communities trashed by the decisions he took. And Heath was right, for every Tiny Rowland there's a dozen like <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">John Timpson:</a><br /><blockquote>Business leaders are in a privileged position. They influence more people’s lives than priests, politicians, teachers and social workers. Rightly, we talk about corporate social responsibility, helping charities in the community, but the priority is, in fact, to support your own colleagues, through understanding, appreciation and providing an environment that feels like home.</blockquote>This is why conservatives support the idea of business. Not because we are cold, uncaring exploiters of the worker but because we know that a good business provides a framework for workers to thrive. And, if workers thrive their families thrive and the communities where they live thrive. So it matters that when things change, we moderate the rate this happens and mitigate the damage it does. The terrible thing with the closing of Britains mines wasn't so much their closing but that it left the communities affected with nothing but a sense of abandonment and betrayal. When I look at our high streets, I see the same scene repeated. Everyone knows they are changing, in many instances dying, but the only policy reponse is to shore them up while offering little hope for the businesses and their workers.<br /><br />We are, partly because this is an inevitable consequence of living through a pandemic, trapped in an ever more technocratic box. Public policy is shaped less by community or economy than by health and well-being. This will change as the pandemic fades but the question, given the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus, is whether future priority will be community or economy. Back in January we expected that, with the concluding of the tortuous Brexit process, we would start focusing on communities, on a real localism with investment aimed at a long-term betterment for the places that feel left behind by the triumph of the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Great City of the West</a>. Now, as the economic pain gets louder, we can expect the economy and especially jobs to become the focus of attention. Just as Ted Heath completely changed his economic policy because unemployment reached 1 million, we can expect the 'levelling up' agenda to become the core of an economic strategy rather than a community strategy.<br /><br />Despite this, I hope we get some attention to community. This, more than the so-called 'woke' agenda, is what 'leaning right' on culture means. Slowing the speed of cultural change will be welcomed but this is less important than investing in the new suburban communities, in supporting existing and helping create new social infrastructure. This requires a rethink of where we're directing local government, pulling back from the Heseltine-Osborne city-region approach and focusing again on getting councils closer to the people they serve. We perhaps need something of a reset on qualifications and access to good jobs. Right now the good jobs are not only too concentrated in big cities but are largely reserved to the graduates of Russell Group universities.<br /><br />Perhaps a good start would be to launch civil service apprenticeships - and to spread them to the BBC, the NHS and other grand national institutions. Recruiting people at sixteen and providing education alongside work - giving a genuine alternative to the dominant academic route of 'A' levels and university. And maybe we should give the same level of funding to schools in the North as we give to schools in London.<br /><br />This sort of practical change needs, however, to be matched by a rhetorical change that says to suburban and provincial places that they are at least as important as the big city and, in particular, <a href="https://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2020/11/levelling-up-is-as-much-about-attention.html">as important as London</a>. This requires those charged with developing policy to escape from the London-centric world they inhabit because that skews their understanding of how people live. If you live in a London flat and commute by train, tube or bike as do all your friends and colleagues, it becomes very easy to slip into the conceit that this is how everybody lives. Perhaps, instead of moving the back office and process functions of the civil service out of London, we should move the policy wonks and planners - to somewhere right in that 'red wall' like Scunthorpe, Mansfield or Consett?<br /><br />You get a sense that some policy work is beginning to recognise the shift in conservative support - away from the elite and towards regular people doing regular jobs and living regular lives. Conservatives should begin to celebrate the idea of the suburb with its compromise between urban and rural. In doing so, policy should also begin to stress the local community more - the village hall, the little co-op, the post office and the chemist. And conservatives should see that, while money matters, attention matters just as much. With a shift in investment, rhetoric and attention away from cities and towards suburbs and small towns we can set again the idea that conservatism is about place, community and society not a vehicle for utilitarian technocracy.<br /><br />....<p><br /></p><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-42697294132482373562020-11-30T12:31:00.002+00:002020-11-30T17:41:16.764+00:00Why street trees are a problem<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwskagjwY63Ib1SLgCpw7dKhP3o5s_N_ccfujLxEdVAmTQfQa0SVWvTdovXOhlbVS-3_JuI_gJE550UK_btwYot48fv8POTlPDRrlvRE02R5yxVLKTsjJqKCK_G_XNzI1kuhPTpIyDzUQJ/s511/Screenshot_2020-11-30+DkXyQhKV4AALUdS+jpg+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+933+%25C3%2597+699+pixels%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="223" data-original-width="511" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwskagjwY63Ib1SLgCpw7dKhP3o5s_N_ccfujLxEdVAmTQfQa0SVWvTdovXOhlbVS-3_JuI_gJE550UK_btwYot48fv8POTlPDRrlvRE02R5yxVLKTsjJqKCK_G_XNzI1kuhPTpIyDzUQJ/w400-h175/Screenshot_2020-11-30+DkXyQhKV4AALUdS+jpg+%2528JPEG+Image%252C+933+%25C3%2597+699+pixels%2529.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No soil, no fungi, no understory - sad trees on an urban street<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>I thought I'd write about trees. This is prompted by the seemingly egregious (but probably entirely justified) <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/doncaster-council-tree-felling-protests-sheffield-b1761076.html">decision by Doncaster Council to fell a row of mature limes along a street in their patch</a>. This, of course, brought back the story from neighbouring Sheffield which came over all lumberjack a year or two ago resulting in lots of shouting from all and sundry.</p><p>Anyway, Doncaster:</p><p></p><blockquote>Months after work was halted following initial protests, after dark on
Monday evening workers fenced off the four remaining trees on the road
and on Tuesday began sawing them down, prompting local activists to
climb the trees, and protest beneath them.</blockquote><p></p><p>The Council has removed 60 trees (I note with curiosity that the felling only became a story after 56 trees were already firewood) from Middlefield Road in Bessacar and lots of people are posting the resulting barren streetscene with sad faced emojis and outraged comments. The Council explains that it is removing the trees because "(t)he trees and roots on Middlefield Road have been causing safety issues
and damage to boundary walls, driveways and footpaths for a number of
years".</p><p>I was a local councillor for 24 years and, for a good few of those years, lived in a property with mature trees all along its boundary (which for reasons of location encompassed over 20 neighbours). Trees are a problem. Except that is when they present a political opportunity (and when this opportunity has gone the trees return to their previous staus of 'problem'). This isn't an anti-tree thing but a description of the reality - read that Doncaster Council explanation again - safety issues and damage to boundary walls, driveways and footpaths. You've spotted something there haven't you?</p><p>The reason for Doncaster Council's belated decision to remove the lime trees is that local people - probably not the ones hugging the trees - have complained to the Council about the Council's trees. "That tree's roots have damaged my garden wall", "the tree is taking all my light", "how do you know its safe, it might crush my car, my child could be in the garden" - these and a hundred other complaints and concerns are what you get if you're the local councillor (or the owner of the naughty trees).</p><p>The owners of trees, even Councils, patiently explain the rules of trees to people. "No it isn't my reponsibility to pick up the leaves in your garden", "yes you get seedling trees growing, just pull them up", "you can remove branches overhanging your property so long as this doesn't kill the tree", "no I don't have to pay for removing those branches, they're your problem so your cost", "yes, I have a responsibility to ensure the tree is safe and it is checked regularly", "yes if my tree blows over in a storm, your home insurance will cover the damage, you do have home insurance?"</p><p>Street trees add a further risk because of the enthusiasm of people for sueing councils when they trip over on pavements. As an aside, this is (along with cost) one big reason why councils replace flagstones and paving stones with tarmac. Returning to trees, they damage the pavements - you've all seen it cracked, stones lifted - and the public complain about this damage: "it's not safe" they cry and the highways officer trundles out to look and, given what's plain to see, has to agree with the complaining residents. So they summon the arboriculturalist (usually referred to as "trees") who looks at the tree and says "nice tree, no reason to cut it down". This process is repeated year after year until one day the arboriculturalist says something like "this tree is old and could be unsafe", which is enough for the highways people to get out the chain saws and remove the source of all those endless complaints. It's replaced with another, smaller and less troubling tree.</p><p>Putting trees in rows on streets, surrounded by bricks and concrete is, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hidden-Life-Trees-Communicate_Discoveries-Secret/dp/1771642483">as Peter Wohlleben observed</a> in "The Hidden Life of Trees", an act amounting to cruelty - in effect caging in the trees:</p><p></p><blockquote>"Are you surprised that summer storms topple a particularly large number of street trees? Their puny underground anchoring systems - which in Nature could cover more than 700 square yards and are now restricted to an area shrunk to a tiny percentage of that - are not capable of supporting trunks that weigh many tons."</blockquote><p></p><p>Wohlleben goes on to describe how street trees can't cool down at night, live in a world of constant light and an environment of exhaust fumes. Such trees lack the fungal and insect support systems that make the forest a pleasure and are damaged by dog pee and salt. We like the trees for all those good, green and caring reasons but simply plonking trees in cramped rows alongside the street is not, for forest trees like those limes in Doncaster, the right environment.</p><p>We now have <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/protecting-trees-and-woods/street-trees/">national campaigns for more street trees</a> but maybe we need to think differently. Instead of planing the trees alongside the road and storing up all those problems for future residents as well as making the poor tree suffer, why not design suburbia with marginalia, with undeveloped pockets left to their own foresty devices? Why not drop the 'gentle' density proposal and go in the opposite direction with bigger house plots featuring more garden - communal or private? Why not wide central, tree lined boulevards where the trees have the space needed without crowding the houses?</p><p>Trees are important. Britain - England especially - has done a good job recovering from a historically low level of tree cover of the mid-20th century. Today England's level of tree cover approaches that of the 11th century, still a long way short of the forest extent of Germany or Italy but a steady recovery back to ancient levels of woodland. But more than just trees, what we should be planting are woods. As <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Underland-Deep-Journey-Robert-Macfarlane/dp/0241143802">Robert Macfarlane describes in Underland</a>, woods are almost entities themselves, a mixture of trees, plants, fungi, lichen and moss that function as a whole providing a living space for insects, birds and small mammals. Plonking trees in rows because they look good is the equivalent of the old-fashioned zoo but, instead of cages filled with unhappy animals for humans to gawk at, we get rows of sad trees assuaging human guilt about our environment.</p><p>Organisations like Create Streets argue for more street trees with what amounts to an aesthetic abandon leavened by the occasional hint that more greenery makes cities healthier. But at no point do they consider the idea from the trees' perspective - what is the best environment for these trees to thrive - preferring a sort of human arrogance that results in poor quality trees lacking in the support systems allowing for a real woodland eco-system. Yes, let's get more urban woodland, let's rewild redundant city spaces instead of piling up another high rise. But let this not be simply trees neatly spaced out by architects and stuck in little concrete holes where they spend their shortened lives seeking water, fungi and friendship.</p><p>....<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3