Whining NIMBYs

With a breathtaking lack of understanding of economics, the Council for the Protection of Rural England have claimed that building more houses won't get prices down.

There are two ways to get prices down:

1. Build more houses. And I agree that most new housing could and should be built on "brownfield" sites (rather than on floodplains!), but there is a maximum density in towns and cities as well. The next best place is in the Hallowed Greenbelt. Most people don't seem to know that only 10% - 15% of UK land by surface area is developed, 15% to 20% in the South East incl. Greater London. The Greenbelt does not separate one town from another. It's fields that separate towns from fields.

2. Encourage more efficient use of available housing. Land Value Tax (or a Progressive Property Tax as in Northern Ireland) would encourage people to bring empty homes back into use and would encourage single pensioners to trade down into smaller homes. The proceeds of a fiscally neutral LVT could and should replace Council Tax, Stamp Duty Land Tax, Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax on sales of second homes and investment properties. Two thirds of households would pay the same or less in LVT as they did in Council Tax. A third would pay more, but there would be no SDLT (which costs rich people 4% of the value of their home every time they move) or Inheritance Tax (pensioners would be allowed to roll up LVT at low or no interest until death - unless they live to be a hundred, the rolled up LVT will be much less than IHT would have been).

Is either solution acceptable to the Whining NIMBYs? Nope. The CPRE is a pressure group for rich old people who live in the countryside and want the value of their homes to be kept as high as possible, and damn the rest of us.

*The CPRE qualify for a "Liars" tag but not "Fuckwit", as they know exactly what they are doing.