She wails on at length, as reported in yesterday's FT, that developers take too long to build what they're supposed to be building, and waffles on about "binding contracts which specify a time frame for delivery".
It's far simpler than that.
If, as suggested by Conservative MP David Curry, the government, aka English Partnerships*, were to grant itself planning permission first and then sell off the land, making it subject to an annual Land Value Tax ('LVT'), this would reduce the up-front price** that the developer has to pay for the site (LVT would act like an extra interest rate, so depress the price) but also act as an extra incentive for the developer to get the development finished ASAP.
Win-win!
* A totally evil quango, BTW.
** The State can grant itself planning permission at zero cost, but captures the windfall gain via higher selling price and/or future LVT receipts.
Local Council Efficiency
2 hours ago
6 comments:
But Mark, she is a perfect product of NuLab. So by definition she is a card-carrying member of the let's-see-how-best-can-we screw-this-up-at-maximum cost-to-the-taxpayer club of clods who currently constitute our government.
That's what they do!
Just think of her husband, incontestably the single most vile product of the NuLab school of dysfunctional government.
Lamp post, piano wire anyone?
There are, seriously, moments when despair seems too hopeful.
I need more drink.
Thomas
Calm down Thomas, you'll make yourself poorly and you don't want to have to go to hospital, do you?
Ah, Peter, always so sane and wise.
I think I need some more of your super-calm, bigger-shoe worldly wisdom.
Or maybe just an evening in the Marine Hotel.
Sigh.
Thomas
Jeez, it's been a decade or three since I've been to Saltburn. How goes it?
Yvette Cooper is indeed as you say.
The selling of land and the "granting" of planning permission is a nasty, corruption magnet.
It would be nice if land was granted planning permission but sold off as a series of small lots, so people, yes, PEOPLE could buy one or two plots, or even a a terrace and develop, as opposed to always handing it to huge developers.
The planning gain can be used to develop the roads, lighting, drainage whathaveyou.
I'm with the Victorians on this one. A loose collective or craftsmen would get together, buy up a new 'street'; each craftsman would do the digging, the brickwork, the carpentry, the roofing, the pastering etc for each house, depending on his (or her) particular skills.
Once the construction was finished, each would get one or two or three houses to be sold on. That way, you get a nice smart street where all the houses look the same, but miraculously, some would have super plasterwork but dodgy everything else. Or tip-top brickwork but shaky plumbing and so on.
This idea that a group of self-builders try and get things done, without any mutual interest is doomed to failure. Sarah Beeny did a series on it.
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