Britain's Failure To Build is Throttling Its Economy (economist.com) 266
An anonymous reader shares a report: Building in Britain is never easy, often difficult and sometimes impossible. The country has become a vetocracy, in which many people and agencies have the power to stymie any given development. The Town and Country Planning Act, passed in 1947, in effect nationalised the right to build. Decisions about whether to approve new projects are made by politicians who rely on the votes of nimbys ("Not in my back yard"), notes ("Not over there, either") and bananas ("Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything"). Green belts, which were designed to stop suburban sprawl, have achieved precisely that. These enormous no-build zones enjoy Pyongyangesque levels of support among voters, who picture them as rural idylls rather than the mish-mash of motorways, petrol stations, scrubland and golf courses that they are in reality. Strict environmental laws protect many creatures, especially cute ones like bats. Judges strike down government decisions if they are based on a botched process because Britain respects the rule of law.
In isolation, each part of the planning system may seem unobjectionable. But the whole thing is a disaster. Britain's failure to build enough is most pronounced when it comes to housing. England has 434 homes per 1,000 people, whereas France has 590. Its most dynamic cities can barely expand outwards, and are frequently prevented from shooting skywards as well. But the problems extend well beyond housing. Britain has not built a reservoir since 1991 or finished a new nuclear-power station since 1995. hs2, a high-speed railway, is the first new line connecting large British cities since the 19th century. Even modest projects, such as widening the a66 road across northern England, take over a decade. The result is frustration and slower economic growth. A truly bold government could transform the planning system. A proper land-value tax would weaken the perverse incentives to keep city centres underdeveloped and encourage landlords to build or sell up. Scrapping or shrinking the green belt is a no-brainer. A rules-based system, with local authorities declaring loose zones of development and letting developers build within them, would be preferable to a discretionary system that leaves each decision in the hands of capricious politicians.
In isolation, each part of the planning system may seem unobjectionable. But the whole thing is a disaster. Britain's failure to build enough is most pronounced when it comes to housing. England has 434 homes per 1,000 people, whereas France has 590. Its most dynamic cities can barely expand outwards, and are frequently prevented from shooting skywards as well. But the problems extend well beyond housing. Britain has not built a reservoir since 1991 or finished a new nuclear-power station since 1995. hs2, a high-speed railway, is the first new line connecting large British cities since the 19th century. Even modest projects, such as widening the a66 road across northern England, take over a decade. The result is frustration and slower economic growth. A truly bold government could transform the planning system. A proper land-value tax would weaken the perverse incentives to keep city centres underdeveloped and encourage landlords to build or sell up. Scrapping or shrinking the green belt is a no-brainer. A rules-based system, with local authorities declaring loose zones of development and letting developers build within them, would be preferable to a discretionary system that leaves each decision in the hands of capricious politicians.
And it will stay that way (Score:2)
... as long as someone has a say in changing it.
And a lot of somebodies, as pointed out, have power to prevent change. They'll fight to maintain it.
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the author is a corporate shill.
These enormous no-build zones enjoy Pyongyangesque levels of support among voters....
And so then you shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.
They live there, and they are voting for what they want.
"Booo hooo, I wish corporations made more money! I wish industry could do whatever it wants! Why can't we rip up all the green spaces and fill them with factories and houses?"
Because the people who live there have said no, that's why. So shut the fuck up and go find something else to do. Your hard-on for trampling the will of the people is really not ok. There's a whole lot more to life than numbers in your investment account getting ever larger.
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, the author is a corporate shill.
I actually work in planning of windfarms/powerlines in the UK and I can tell you that every word is true.
If there's a single otter living in the area then it has to be mapped and overlaid on the plans so there's no construction near it (which is fair enough, we can handle that). We also go around every single affected village with a 3D model so people can see what the planned development will look like from their own back garden.
In every single meeting the same old people turn up with their protest banners. They're people who live nowhere near the area but they've got nothing better to do than follow us around the county. They go on and on about how nobody will be able to sleep because of infrasound from the turbines and how everybody will get cancer from the cables, etc. None of it is true but they've had years of practice with their slogans and flyers and there's always a bunch of people who'll believe them.
It's a messed up system.
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:5, Insightful)
Those same old people, couldnt wait fast enough for progress in the 60s, to get WATER connected, or to get electricity, or new paved roads done.
Or even a telephone line connected.
Now again, old people are denying younger generations the same progress that they got.
The 2030-40ss are going to be a boom time, as all those oldies will die away.
Re: (Score:3)
Now again, old people are denying younger generations the same progress that they got.
No even if what you say is actually happening, they are not denying them that. They are denying them additional progress. Which we should maybe ask ourselves if might be a good idea. Certainly looking back on the 19th and 20th centuries progress has not come without costs - some of those costs might very well have been avoidable if we'd slow walked things a bit more and done a few more impact studies. I am not a fan of "paralysis by analysis" but a few things are true:
1) There has to be some point where
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:4, Interesting)
The world isn't going to get much better until the Grandpa Simpsons of the world are six feet under. The swallowed up every once of wealth the world had, accelerated climate change out of greed, gamed political systems so they could maintain their power and influence, walled off whole parts of communities so they wouldn't have to see the misery of their greed and selfishness, and now, old, feeble and cognitively challenged, they still believe they are unique, special, and should be treated with deference.
Fuck them.
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course on the other hand, you wouldn't have all this tech and modern life without them, since they laid the seeds for it and invented it and put it into production.
How many internets have you invented to date?
Re: (Score:3)
This is exactly why some of us try to keep government out of everything we can and where it does happen keep it as close to home and small as possible. The bureaucracy in a large corporation is horrible but its got nothing on government.
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:5, Informative)
I live in an area where mining occured for decades without gov't regulation. Today it is 50-mile super fund site [idaho.gov]. You are warned not to eat on picnic tables at boat launches and children should not wade along the shorelines because of heavy metal contamination. Dead water fowl is common along the many wetlands below the mines and mills. Starting back in the 70s children were tested and 99% of the children had blood-lead levels over 40 g/dL with a high of 164 g/dL. Medical interventions are necessary when a child is found with a test result of greater than or equal to 3.5 g/dL.
So preach to us on the evils of govt bureaucracy.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It was the fact that the EPA always said "just a couple more years and you'll be good", but it just kept dragging on and killed the tourism. This dragged on for over a decade. It was just plain fatigue.
One complaint, for example, was on how lead was measured in fish caught from the river (or C'dA lake). The EPA method was to put a caught fish in a blender, turn it into a slurry, then test that. Locals wanted them to only test the parts people ate -- fillet the fish after caught and test those fillets, not m
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:5, Insightful)
So preach to us on the evils of govt bureaucracy.
The only thing we are preaching here is the duality of extreme positions. This may come as a shock to many here on Slashdot but a world exists between the realm of "insane government bureaucracy", and the "government should have no say in anything".
The only thing truly evil is taking either extreme view.
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:4, Insightful)
This is exactly why some of us try to keep government out of everything we can
There is no such thing as keeping government out of anything. When you do anything, you're using government-provided infrastructure. When people don't steal everything you own, it's because of government-provided consequences. Etc etc.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: And it will stay that way (Score:3)
Yep. Nobody from any of the major parties wants to even consider the possibility that migration is the problem. It ramped-up massively in the 90s under Blair, and no government since has thought it worthwhile to curtail the flow. This is the main reason for the shortage.
There's a better solution that doesn't involve paving over the country.
Re: (Score:2)
Because it's totally not a tyranny [wikipedia.org] when the majority wants it [wikipedia.org].
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for lunch."
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:4, Informative)
And your solution is?
Tyranny of the minority?
Dictatorship?
People in democratic countries seem happy to accept majority rule. Except corporations and developers when they find themselves restricted by what the majority wants.
Land anywhere is a finite resource, and some of it needs preservation for one purpose or another - farming, conservation, etc. England is an obvious example.
Re: (Score:3)
And your solution is?
Tyranny of the minority?
Dictatorship?
The solution is education. People need to understand that supporting no-growth policies is voting against jobs and affordable housing for the next generation.
I live in California, and we have the same problems here. It is surprising how few people understand the connection between what they vote for and the dysfunction they see around them.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree education is important, but it takes time.
In the meantime, majority rules.
Not really. One side of the coin is on the ballot (Score:5, Interesting)
> They live there, and they are voting for what they want.
Partially. Most people want to have greens spaces, and they want their rent or mortgage to be affordable. They don't want any kind of power plant in their view, and they want to have electricity.
What's on the ballot is "protect nature". They vote for "projecting nature". The proposal isn't titled "raise your rent by a third", though of course the supply of housing directly affects the cost.
They're asked if they want to allow a new power station to be built on the hillside above their house, and they don't want it THERE. They might vote different if presented with "do you want your energy bills to be twice as high, and have rolling blackouts, or would you rather we build a power plant so you'll have electricity?"
A lot of people are currently very happy about a plan that will cost them $15K-$25K, and they'll get $10K back. Of course the folks pitching the plan don't mention the cost, and most voters don't ask.
Re:Not really. One side of the coin is on the ball (Score:5, Informative)
The absolute best way is: "If you let us put a turbine on that hill we'll pay your village XXX per month"
It's amazing how soundly they sleep at night when there's money coming in.
Infrasound? What's that...?
Re:Not really. One side of the coin is on the ball (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Because the people who live there have said no, that's why. So shut the fuck up and go find something else to do. Your hard-on for trampling the will of the people is really not ok.
If you almonds had sunlight and palm trees, you'd be California. An because of your no-build attitude, you would have he same massive homeless problem.
Re:And it will stay that way (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I had a Norwegian tell me it was the coldest place he'd lived. Because it's juuust warm enough that you can half arse insulation and not die. Norwegians have nice warm houses.
how is this (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
This is something many nerds ignore until it has a huge impact on them.
There is bias in the summary that I disagree with (Ireland has similar housing issues but different approval hurdles as an example), but on the whole the UK has an epic problem. The Heathrow third runway situation is a joke running at least 50 years, and there are plenty of other examples.
Re: (Score:3)
They have gone full on anti "one-off" houses in the countryside due to the green party being in power. They also insist that you spend at least 100k on insulation and fancy overpriced heating systems if you are one of the lucky few to get planning permission. If this happened in the 90s we would have built our way out of it now everything is impossible due to regulation.
Re: (Score:2)
And getting past that regulation is quite a political challenge. You have to fight the uphill battle as the opposition claims you hate whatever the legislation alleged to support. Try to roll back some draconian green measure and you must hate the earth, a wildlife measure and it must be because you hate wildlife. Try to ease regulation on building nuclear and you must want Chernobyl. Reform welfare systems and you must hit the poor.
In the US we have another major issue. Contrary to our Constitution there h
Re: (Score:2)
> Ireland has similar housing issues but different approval hurdles as an example
So does Toronto, and they ramrod every development through. They just built a superhighway through the only greenspace in our area.
Housing is a worldwide issue, but remember that all politics is local, which allows anyone to push their version of what "the problem" is.
Re:how is this (Score:5, Informative)
You do know the "International Building Code" (and the International Code Council, which created it) is almost entirely a US thing, don't you? The "International" in the name is purely because a few tiny near-USA countries have adopted bits of it.
Nobody else takes any notice of it. Hell, not even Canada follows it; they have their own National Building Code...
Re:how is this (Score:5, Insightful)
The US loves to call things "International" and "World" when it's only relevant to the US :P
"World Series". What "World" are we talking about exactly? Disney? Water?
Re: (Score:2)
MLB recruits globally though organized baseball admittedly only exists in a few other countries.
College Station Park world headquaters (Score:2)
College Station, TX is a city of 115,000 people.
Outside the small building that houses their parks department, there is a sign "College Station parks World Headquarters". :)
Of course this is the same city whose council passed a resolution declaring that George Bush Drive is NOT named after junior.
Re: (Score:2)
And? You do know the United States is a massive beast spanning half a continent and with tendrils all over the globe. There is nothing local about national.
Doesn't matter (Score:2)
The person you replied to said it isn't entirely local anymore. The IBC requires tests done by whomever far away. Whether someone in Delaware is stopped by someone in California or in Taiwan, either way it's not local.
Re: (Score:3)
he Heathrow third runway situation is a joke running at least 50 years, and there are plenty of other examples.
The alternative is even worse. The new Sydney airport terminal is a cesspool of nepostistic land deals for party cronies: https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]
Re: (Score:2)
The other concern is more global. Often when people are talking about houses, they are not taking about their residences. Many of these people are talking about their second or third h
Space filler for editors (Score:2)
It isn't since the editors (on who I openly wish intense suffering for wrecking Slashdot) chose to make this place Yahoo Lite.
Please, please continue complaining because eventually someone might make better choices like firing the current staff.
Does anyone know if they own Slashdot or work for someone we can motivate to get rid of them?
Rail lines (Score:3)
On the other hand, Britain is at least currently well-connected with rail countrywide, in contrast to one very large western democracy that has pissed its passenger rail network away.
Re:Rail lines (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahah
The rail network in the UK sucks, absolutely and utterly.
A return ticket between London and Manchester can easily cost you north of £250 for a 2 hour journey, on trains that often break down, are over crowded (to the point where you can forget about a seat, and often have to stand touching multiple other people around you) and never on time.
The UK rail system is why I finally gave in and learned to drive at the grand old age of 28. Until then I had put up with it, but being stuck on a platform at a major station for 9 hours for the second week in a row after a series of signal failures on the mainline just tipped me over the edge. Haven't looked back.
The last time I used the train system in the UK was back in early 2020, before the pandemic took off - flew into Heathrow, took the underground to London Liverpool Street station to get on a train only to find that that train was cancelled and everyone was being directed to London Kings Cross for a different train (and this was not announced on their website). So another trip across London, and we get to the platform for the replacement train - oh look, its a 2 car regional train, replacing a 8 car intercity train...
It was crammed full by the time it left the station, and of course no one on it wanted any of the regional stops so it stayed crammed full for the rest of the 4 hour journey as it winded its way around the British countryside - and obviously people at these regional stops wanted to get on...
For most routes around the UK, your best bet is actually to travel to London and then travel out again - local lines are actually rather crap for frequency and availability.
Never again, the UK rail network is a joke.
Re:Rail lines (Score:5, Informative)
> A return ticket between London and Manchester can easily cost you north of £250 for a 2 hour journey, on trains that often break down, are over crowded (to the point where you can forget about a seat, and often have to stand touching multiple other people around you) and never on time.
Huh. I took the train from London to Edinburg for less than half of that for a 4-hour ride even though I booked two hours before leaving. We arrived literally on the minute on the schedule. The train was full, but there were still a few empty seats and the (future) wife and I had no problems getting seats together. It was great.
So I looked it up. 90% of trains in the UK arrive on time. This is slightly higher than France's 89%. Germany is 82%. The best European service is the Netherlands which is 91%. And here in Canada, Via has the wonderful statistic of 71%, while Amtrak in the US is about the same.
Seems that the UK service is among the best in the world, at least when one looks at, you know, **actual data** as opposed to Internet Rando.
Re: (Score:3)
Good for you, you had a good experience. You were lucky. You also probably travelled off peak, which has a stark contrast price wise.
Thats just fucking laughable, it really really is. Someones fiddling statistics there, for sure - train companies have been known to run additional services at pointless times to improve their on time figure, because percentages are easy to game...
Re:Rail lines (Score:5, Informative)
You can't really take a Via Rail train in BC. The only one is the "Canadian" (formerly the Transcontinental) and it only runs twice a week, and only one departure on the given day. And to go from say Vancouver to Kamloops which is a 4 hour drive, it will take the train around 12 hours or more as it sits constantly on sidings, waiting for freight trains to go by which have track priority. It is the same everywhere in Canada except the 400 km Montreal to Windsor (via Toronto) corridor. Everywhere else in Canada, Via Rail is literally the shittiest passenger rail service in the western world, where there is even rail service at all. You can't take a Via rail to Calgary, the service just doesn't exist. And you can't take a Via rail east of Montreal. You need to take a bus, except most of the bus services don't exist anymore. Most of Canada geographically, does not straight up have passenger rail service all; and most that do, do not have usable rail service except for Southern Ontario. The twice a week "Canadian" service is really only for tourist travel with its twice per week runs. So how can you get people to take a train when the service doesn't exist, and if it did it will never run on time because freight trains delay you for dozens of hours (again, except for Ontario). Answer: you can't. Bottom line, don't brag about Canada's passenger rail service, it is dogshit.
FWIW, I know America has the same issues outside of the Northeast megalopolis and a couple west coast routes in California. I tried to take a trip from Springfield IL once, to Chicago. A few hour drive. Started a noon, and at one in the morning I got off in Joliet where someone gave me a ride the rest of my way to my destination.
Passenger rail doesn't work where freight trains have higher priority than passenger trains that are forced to use the same tracks. Period. And that is most of North America. It's probably why there won't be high speed rail here anytime in the future. You can't convince people to pay for something they see as completely unusable now, in even a limited way.
Re: (Score:2)
Canada is also freakin huge and empty. It's a thousand kilometers from Vancouver to the next major Canadian city. Through 2 mountain ranges, in earthquake country. No one is building passenger rail in the west as long as planes are allowed to fly.
Re: (Score:2)
We arrived literally on the minute on the schedule.
Many UK train services actually garantee that you'll be on time or you get your ticket refunded.
They are expensive though. Anything that's "rush hour" or can carry business people costs a fortune.
Re: (Score:2)
We arrived literally on the minute on the schedule.
Many UK train services actually garantee that you'll be on time or you get your ticket refunded.
They have to be significantly late for this.
You're legally entitled to compensation of: 50% of your ticket price if you get to your destination between 30 minutes and an hour late. a full refund if you arrive more than 1 hour late.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
May be in crummy shape, but at least they have one.
In the US, getting the right of way, and getting the freight companies who own today's lines to pass passenger trains on time are near impossible.
Unlikely that the US will see improvement in its non-existent network any time soon.
I haven't ridden British rail a bunch, but I have a few times, and haven't had your experience.
They have a network of right-of-way and rails they can repair and improve.
Re: (Score:2)
The US needs HSR, but it's important to understand that we have one particularly big, expensive problem that other countries (with the possible exception of Canada) generally don't: density. And no, I don't mean "lack of it".
The REAL problem is, if you want to build passenger rail "from city center to city center" in most parts of the US where HSR could make sense, there's no direct path BETWEEN those "city centers" that isn't already developed to at least the density of single-family suburbia every inch of
Re: (Score:2)
This is exactly it. If passenger trains don't get priority or their own tracks, the service, outside of the Northeast and some small number of California routes, will remain dogshit. And that is the majority of America. And if it is dogshit, no one will use it, and they really don't. And if they don't use it, they won't see the point of rail. And if they don't see the point of rail, good luck getting the population to see the point of paying tens of billions for high speed rail.
Re: (Score:2)
My wife took a train from York to London and ended up sitting on the floor the entire trip. The trains are that crowded.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A few years ago when I visited the UK to hike the Wainwright, i found the trains from London to Cumbria and returning from Yorkshire to be low-cost, comprehensive and on time. The only place I ran into crowding was northbound near Manchester, when football fans crammed onto the train.
Accurate summary (Score:2)
Most summaries on slashdot are inacurate at best, but this is one hits the nail on the head.
I've lived in the UK for the past 10 years and I can truthfully tell you that people and processes here are unbelievably slow. Even the greatest fire has very little sense of urgency and can wait until tomorrow, if not the day after.
On a related note, compared to where I come from originally, people in the UK are grossly unambitious and throw "wows" and "well dones" at you if you go anywhere above the baseline expect
Re:Accurate summary (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years before I left the UK in 2017, we bought a house on a brand new brown field development in the city centre - it was being built on land which had previously been a factory for 200 years, but that factory had been demolished in the 1980s. The land laid unused for 22 years before developers were finally granted permission to build housing on it - its not as if it was in a non-residential area either, the land around it had been redeveloped from factories to housing over the preceding 20 years as well.
That house is a stones throw from the "second city centre", a shopping centre built in the 1960s - these days, that shopping centre is tired, decrepit, has no major brand shops to speak of, and is 90% empty shops. Oh, and half of the shopping centre is built into the bottom floor of a government building that has been unoccupied since the government office moved out of it in the 1990s. The multi story car park attached to this shopping centre closed in 2015 because it was "unsafe", but because it was also built into the shopping centre it cannot be demolished. The last major attraction of this shopping centre, the cinema, closed in 2019.
Developers have had successive applications for redevelopment turned down, as either its "too much housing", or its "not in the keeping of the location" or "cant have a tower block because it might compete with the cathedral...". Every modification the local applications body has required to the redevelopment application has made the redevelopment for the developers financially impossible - reducing housing means less income from the sale of that housing, which means either building it is unaffordable or the prices have to go up, but the prices are also fixed by the local applications body... Oh, and the developers are required to take care of the asbestos left by the government in the aforementioned government offices.
So that shit hole continues to be the uncleaned butthole of the city, as its passed from developer to developer, all of which have had their plans turned down.
That is the reality of development in the UK these days.
On a related note, all housing development in the area (as in, that half of the country) has been stopped for the past year because a government body put in place a requirement for "water run off plans" to eliminate pollution flowing into the regions rivers - of course, no one was prepared for this, and actually meeting the government bodies requirements is nearly impossible at anything approaching a reasonable price point, so building has simply stopped. You cant even build a home as an independent land owner because of this limitation now, so its not just affecting the larger builders.
Re: Accurate summary (Score:2)
That shit hole was built by previous developers who sold the idea of utopia, did a shoddy job with shitty materials and then scarpered. Why should anyone think that approving the next development will do anyone but the developers any good?
Re: Accurate summary (Score:4, Informative)
What makes you think any of that is true?
It was a public development, run by the City Engineer in the 1960s using materials that were perfectly legitimate at the time. There were no developers to scarper, it was all public works managed by public officials.
What happened was not a matter of a shoddy job or shitty materials, it was that that entire area of the city only saw a rejuvenation which lasted until the late 1990s, which is when the City then concentrated on the former cattle market and library, pouring millions into those areas to basically move the city centre there, with two new shopping centres and a complete overhaul of the old city centre.
This, accompanied with no investment into the area in question, saw lots of business and high value foot fall move literally across to the new city centre over night.
Re:Accurate summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Developers have had successive applications for redevelopment turned down, as either its "too much housing"
Yes that is a really fucking important point.
It means not enough shops which means not enough is local. This means journeys for everything must be by car. Are the developers offering to build out the road infrastructure for the surround area not just the development to accommodate that? Are they offering to pay the long term NHS costs from the increased pollution? No. No they are not.
They want to do the cheap, profitable part but put the costs on to everyone else.
On a related note, all housing development in the area (as in, that half of the country) has been stopped for the past year because a government body put in place a requirement for "water run off plans" to eliminate pollution flowing into the regions rivers - of course, no one was prepared for this, and actually meeting the government bodies requirements is nearly impossible at anything approaching a reasonable price point, so building has simply stopped.
Yeah developers should get the profit from making and building of homes. The costs of floods and polluted rivers should be socialised.
Hostage (Score:2)
Small government is hostage to the demagogue: There is no easy answer to good government. Actually there is, enforcing "responsibility for everyone" on the ruling class. How to enforce it, that's the sticking point: Giving immoral corporations the power to lobby government is the wrong direction. So is preventing accountability for 'protected' industries (eg. telecommunications and finance).
Careful what you wish for (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Careful what you wish for (Score:4, Insightful)
The primary problem that exists is population growth. If that stops then you don't need new areas to build on.
But it's a worldwide problem. However the economy is built for that - so if the population shrinks it's causing new problems.
Re: (Score:3)
In the UK it's not the population growth that is the issue, it's the lack of housing and the extremely poor quality of most of what we have, combined with rocketing prices.
While ending population growth would help, that's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
We need to build more houses. There are plenty of sites, even with NIMBYism. Problem is the developers don't want to build too many new houses, because that would make them less valuable.
The houses that do get built end to be very small and poo
Too many people coming in... (Score:5, Informative)
More than one million foreign nationals allowed to live in UK in a year [telegraph.co.uk]
How are you supposed to keep up with that?
Re: (Score:2)
Face it. Brits are not having children, they dont care who lives in their land after their time.
Hope it is Indians. For all the money the Brits stole from India, the right thing to do would be hand over the country back to them and ride off into the sunset.
Re:Too many people coming in... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're supposed to sacrifice everything out of shame for the deeds of men long dead.
Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
Britain can just build higher, most of their huge cities have half or less the population density of places like Paris, New York, hell half the major cities in France have double the population density or more of their English counterparts. Just build denser you blithering idiots. But instead this asshole authors solution is, always has been, and always will be "bulldoze nature, it's useless, fuck the planet, fuck democracy, fuck the people, I don't care what you vote for, I care about expansion damnit!". They're basically a bad guy from Captain Planet.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, in Germany building height is one of the things covered by rules. But a vote on such rules should work better than politicians deciding every case.
Funny is, I thought the problem of UK is that many people in p
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The author's first recommendation was to destroy nature. He considers that obvious:
"Scrapping or shrinking the green belt is a no-brainer."
Re: (Score:2)
The author's first recommendation was to destroy nature. He considers that obvious
The author has it totally backwards. Britain (and Ireland's) economic woes are caused precisely because of over-development.
You see, it's all the gnomes, pixies and faeries - driven from their homes by another motorway - causing chaos and disorder. But it's ok. Nature always wins in the end.
Re: (Score:2)
Happened to Italy, too. That is the lesson of Trevi fountain, preserved for the ages.
Re: (Score:2)
Just build denser you blithering idiots.
A lot of people don't like denser. I've lived in apartments and would never do so again. If your plan is to force denser on everyone whether they like it or not, your time as a politician will be short.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a time in people's lives when apartments and condos are great, a time when townhouses will pass given the savings, and a time when people really want detached homes. The bottom line is that you need a variety of different housing types, and you need to work hard to make the higher density solutions attractive.
I love my house, I love the space, vistas, and control. I've had it for two years. There is no way I want to live here in 20 years though; I'll happily go back to condo living. Hopefully a
Re: (Score:3)
Britain can just build higher
In principle, yes. In practice, Grenfell Tower.
Leasehold (Score:3)
Britain can just build higher,
As someone in the market for property in the UK, I can tell you that the number one reason why the UK does not have high density housing like Paris/New York etc, is the clusterfuck that is leasehold ownership. For those who don't know, it entails some random third party owning the ground your building sits on, and who is given responsibility for maintaining the building. They have almost no fiduciary duty to the leaseholders (the individual apartment owners), so it's perfectly fine for them to buy building
Doesn't care (Score:5, Informative)
Third world economies are shit because of massive corruption. You cannot do anything at any level without kickbacks. So either play the game, which is financially risky, or don't do anything.
Don't do anything wins, and the economy is a dog.
Modern democracies can hinder their own economies in this way. It doesn't matter if it'a for a good reason or not. When enough of this stacks up, you start having the same problems.
It was noted fifteen yeads ago that it was taking longer to fight legal battles to deepen a South Carolina harbor by 5 feet, to handle the new "Superpanamax" ships (expansion at Panama Canal, which pretty much defines most shipping size) than it did back in the Bully! Teddy Roosevelt days to build the original canal.
If you insist on stomping your foot and squeaking that that burden has value (lawyers thank you!) then be prepared for the increasing doggification of the economy.
The economy doesn't care why people are getting in the way.
A problem in North America too. (Score:2)
https://theorca.ca/visiting-po... [theorca.ca]
...and the latest PM (4th out of the past 7 years) (Score:2)
Liz (Score:2)
Re: Liz (Score:2)
Real estate value != growth (Score:3)
As a swedish citizen, I am unfamiliar with details of the britsh real estate market. But I do see similar pushes here in Gothenburg, where old, open and green-rich areas are replaced with new, closed, concrete-covered ones. Higher density, yet much higher living cost for less space. Gated off with code locks and cameras, unheard of and unneeded in the old areas. All the paved ground causes massive water flow to the sewer system, overloading it, whereas all the old green served as distributed water absorbtion, ground water infiltration and biodiversity islands.
We're having national elections in about a week, a lot of opportunit to talk about these things with representatives have presented itself. 15+ years of loose money policies have redistributed enormous wealth. "Growth" nowadays seems to be less about ingenuity and improvement and more about inflating real estate value. The article laments legally mandated "equality" calling it ill-defined, wanting it replaced with "growth". It accuses democratic participation for slowing growth; I suspect the proponents of this particular definition of "growth" disproportionally benefits from it.
The saddest part is that inflating real estate is something easily done by any politician, while creating sustainable, true growth is something that can only be done by smart, hard-working people under a honest government.
Little c conservative (Score:3)
I thought about this one while making my tea. I used to live in the UK, and I've lived in other European countries and the USA and now in New Zealand. Every developed country has this same issue. It's not a problem, it's just the natural progression from "doing whatever the hell you feel like to increase the economy" to "we probably don't want to actually live and play in the factory."
The author mentions France. France recently introduced some laws to preserve the character of rural villages.
This kind of thinking really shows the split on the right between conservatives and neolibs. Little c conservative right wing idea is that people will sort things out between themselves and that local upwards is better than left wing progressive top down planning. If this were the only left/right axis then I would fall in the middle, maybe slightly left, but I definitely respect the conservative thinking. However, the neolib idea, the one being espoused by this article, is that there should be no state planning OR restrictions brought about by general agreement, instead everything should be left to the whim of the person/organisation with the most money and influence. And, if you don't like that, you can bally well move to a location where the local high lord's whims are more to your liking.
Britain is way more of a small c conservative country than statist or neoliberal, although they seem to be voting in more radical politicians. A case of "get things done, but don't get them done near me".
Brexit, Covid, Ukraine war (Score:2)
I successfully opposed a development in the UK. (Score:4, Interesting)
Recently, I successfully opposed the building of a couple of houses.
The proposed development would turn a parking space that I owned into a driveway for the new houses. However, that is not a valid reason for opposing new development, so I pointed out that the new development would not add the requisite number of parking spaces, because it would involve removing my (and someone else's) parking space. Also that the proposed development had no vehicular access because there was no right of way to it (a short strip of road is privately owned) AND, that the developer had not done the necessary study on the impact of bats (the developer had said that there were no bats nearby, which was a lie).
Re: (Score:3)
... AND, that the developer had not done the necessary study on the impact of bats (the developer had said that there were no bats nearby, which was a lie).
To slightly alter an old joke:
Q) How can you tell when a developer is lying?
A) His lips are moving.
Welcome to the contract with America (Score:2)
Basically what you do is block anything that would help anyone or even allow the country to function. You then use the media which you control to get voters to blame your opponent. The voters fall for it because you control the media that they consume. This causes the voters to give you more power which you use to stymie any progress forward or even the functioning of civilization which yo
centralized (Score:2)
>"The country has become a vetocracy, in which many people and agencies have the power to stymie any given development. The Town and Country Planning Act, passed in 1947, in effect nationalised the right to build."
Yep, welcome to centralized planning where central "experts" in a distant bureaucracy of unelected officials control what happens on the local levels. Places they have never been, don't understand, don't really care about, and to whom they are not accountable. That is EXACTLY why the USA was
Re: (Score:2)
So (Score:2)
So, the poster want to wipe out species, cover the remaining countryside with enormous motorways and endless urban sprawl.
No thanks.
There's no-where near enough building upwards, most property is only 1 or 2 stories high but central London has some great examples of 6 to 10 story buildings that you barely even notice they're so tall until you count the levels.
Allow anyone with a 2-story house to build another 4 stories and you'll solve the housing crisis overnight.
Don't worry, be happy (Score:2)
It's for the greater good [youtube.com]...
There are limits to growth (Score:2)
This probably sounds obvious, but perhaps it needs stating: nothing can grow larger forever. Sooner or later, it will hit some limit(s) that force it to either stop growing, or at least change tactics and grow in some other direction.
Given that, every nation (and eventually the human population of Earth as a whole) will have to decide how and when they want their growth to taper off into something like a sustainable equilibrium.
You want to keep growing as fast as possible for as long as possible, until fi
Sounds great to me (Score:2)
British population growth has stalled (Score:2)
The author proves he has no brains by saying, "shrinking or getting rid of green belt is a no brainer". He has no brains so it appears to be a great solution to a problem that does not even exist.
These
This article makes me shudder (Score:3)
This is one side of the argument - clearly very far right in terms of wanting to rip up all protections - e.g. the green belt.
The very far left side, effectively, wants to make building so difficult, it grinds to a halt.
Whatever happened to the middle-ground?
Simple, it's bogged down between these two vocal opposing camps. All common sense has ... left the building.
The UK has a ridiculous amount of land in the ownership of a tiny amount of people, all of whom use their privilege to hold onto it, almost like feudal barons.
Anyone who understands the problem knows that the biggest issue is them - and what the UK needs is new towns. Not only new towns, but properly planned new towns that:
1. Aren't on a flood plain
2. Have a good mix of property types - affordable housing
3. Are built with the environment in mind
4. Have all the facilities a town needs
5. Are built with society in mind - parks, shops, libraries, schools
Instead what we get is developers throwing up thousands of houses in towns without the infrastructure to cope with the influx.
So, no new shops, no new amenities and often flung up in locations which require a car to get to amenities.
There are a great deal of ridiculous planning laws in the UK, of that, there is no doubt.
One of the most absurd, is the sheer volume of "listed buildings" - where even the owners are unable to make any changes to them.
A former landlord of mine - farmer - has an 18th century barn on his land - private land - which cannot be seen by anyone else from the road or wherever.
He's not allowed to demolish it to rebuild something more suitable.
That's the level of insanity.
Re: (Score:2)
The very far left side, effectively, wants to make building so difficult, it grinds to a halt.
The far left in the UK often wants to build on the green belt. However, the far left in the UK is tiny and has no representation in Parliament, and I am not sure if even has any in local government, so it's fairly irrelevant.
One of the most absurd, is the sheer volume of "listed buildings" - where even the owners are unable to make any changes to them.
My grandparents owned a listed building and modified it. It depends on grade of listing.
Article is Confused (Score:2)
Britain has not built a reservoir since 1991 or finished a new nuclear-power station since 1995.
Neither are because of planning restrictions.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Good thing there's no need to build, then (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't see how 4.6 million people moving to the UK would put pressure on housing? In what fantasy world do you live where the UK can indefinitely build a million new homes each year? And that's not even considering the cultural and economic impacts of migration.