In my experience the answer is yes, as I discovered in Reading in 2014, when I published locally my idea, simply an essay for a competition prize, for a new city on white land between Reading and Basingstoke. The controlling Labour council for Reading Borough went bananas. Petitions, public meetings and protest letters to the … Continue reading Are local Labour activists the same as Tory ones?

Watching and reading BBC News online this morning (23 October, ‘The Peckham primary school where most children are homeless’) shows an article by Henry Low. It dismayed me. It was not the worrying but inevitable truth summed up in their strapline above, but the audacious claim in it by a government minister. Felicity Buchan, the … Continue reading Homelessness: nightmare or vision?

At last it seems clear the main political parties recognise England has a house deficit problem. It is an important step forward. Taken a decade. Some more far sighted politicians also are beginning to connect the lack of national growth with local resistance to local change. For example the need for a massive boost in … Continue reading Who decides?

If you can, please read a sensible analysis of the cost imposed by opposition to new English infrastructure for example roads or railways, by John Burn-Murdoch in the FT 25 August 2023 (The Nimby tax on Britain and America). For example HS2 looks likely to cost £396 million per mile. The French equivalent is £46 … Continue reading Cost of saying no. Price of NIMBY opposition

Interesting that Taylor Wimpey have lodged an appeal for consent to build 1700+ new homes in the isolated depths of Surrey’s countryside. Very near the Royal Horticulture Society’s HQ and following Guildford Borough Council failure to decide. They bought the site in 2020. Their roots in the area are transitory. Creating popular places, following the … Continue reading Lessons from Wisley and Welbourne

Within the context of the prevailing political debate why does the serious media so often fail to look at underlying causes of house excessive house prices and rents? After all extortionate accommodation costs are destroying the financial prospects for the post boomer generation. In the run-up to the general election this omission reflects poorly. Perhaps … Continue reading Is lack of homes No.1 political election issue?

The idea aired last year of paying local residents to agree to locate on-shore wind turbines near them has re-emerged with the suggestion that residents be paid to accept new electricity pylons near them. These are essential the government says to meet its goals for electricity to be fossil free by 2035. Demand for electricity … Continue reading Pay residents to say ‘yes’?

SEC Newgate, a consultancy recently published a report based on the attitudes (February and March 2023) of local councillors towards new homes in their areas. The data base is small, 311 responses out of 4882 councillors, but it is useful too, on one point in particular. To quote “If there is a disconnect between councillors … Continue reading Local disconnect

On another blog I will explain why Michael Gove’s ‘Long term plan for housing’ published on Monday will fail, despite some worthy initiatives. The gigantic cause is the lack of local support for large scale housing, Here is an unpublished letter I sent the following day to the editor of The Times on Tuesday (25th … Continue reading No local support = Undeliverable

Michael Gove’s major housing speech in London this morning alongside the new parallel housing observations by the Prime Minister release dual emotions, Joy and dismay. The return journey out of Alice in Wonderland’s never, never garden is starting. At last. This reversal (because Cambridge 2040 is the explicit clue, the rest us fluff) is welcome … Continue reading Good news or false dawn?