Although I have faith that BAA have done their calculations properly and that the third runway makes economic sense, the idea of knocking down the entire village of Sipson is a bit of a stumbling block.
From The Evening Standard:
... the people who live in Sipson's 700 homes are resigned to losing their fight.
... Campaigner Lynne Davies, 60, a retired florist, said: "I have lived in Sipson for 50 years. My brother-in-law built my house and now we have a Spanish company coming in with compulsory purchase and offering us peanuts*. They have only offered us market value, moving costs and 10 per cent commission when they get planning permission. That's not a good deal. I don't want somebody telling me what to do.
The best way of balancing competing property rights is LVT of course and a parallel tax on the value of the landing slots to compensate those affected by noise, but short of this, what BAA ought to do is buy up ten acres of farmland a few miles down the road and build a carbon copy of Sipson, with the same street names, same houses, only make everything ten per cent bigger and better. The market value of the 700 houses in Sipson may be £200,000 each, but rebuilding them (including drainage, electricity, broadband) etc would be half that. They can even bung in a nicer park, give the pub a bigger beer garden/car park, whatever.
BAA should then invite the entire population of Sipson onto a fleet of coaches, drive them a few miles down the road, ply them with free drinks and offer each resident or property owner a straight swap, new for old. Some will jump at the chance, others will dig their heels in, but hopefully those who like the idea of shifting the whole village, lock and barrel will put pressure on the stick-in-the-muds and commonsense will prevail. BAA could even offer to bung in £50,000 towards everybody's mortgage or something, this would still work out cheaper than paying market value.
Hey presto, problem solved.
Part 1 of this series over at Ross.
* Er, "... market value plus moving costs and ten per cent commission" is not what I'd call peanuts.
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12 comments:
Well it might peanuts if one had bought in Sipson just before property prices crashed.
Then again the lady quoted seems to have got her house newly built 50 years ago, so I don't think that let out really applies to her situation.
http://tinyurl.com/8wh5ax
Sipson was always for the chop its just 62 years late....
If I had seen these proposals and I was considering buying in Sipson I would have said No way Jose
Its been delayed true enough but Heath Row a charming village with timber framed houses doesnt exist anymore does it?
There shouldn't be any compulsory purchase powers available for this scheme. If the owners of Heathrow can't entice the people who own the land they need to sell, with very generous offers (I wouldn't neccessarily want to sell in the current market, even for a 10% premium) they should have to give up. It is a private scheme, run for profit by a plc. They should not be able to drive people off their own land, using state enabled theft powers.
Compulsory purchase should only ever be where there is an overwhelming public interest - in cases where private companies are involved (utilities, railways etc) if CP is 100% required the private company should have to pay a percentage of turnover to the dispossessed landowner to compensate for the loss of his/her land, which they did not want to sell. IE if BAA want your land for a 3rd runway, not only should they have to buy you out at market value (plus costs etc) they would have to pay 0.0001% (or whatever figure) of turnover annually to the previous owners. That way the State gets its strategic transport asset, but BAA don't profit from expropriating someones land.
The system to which you refer is called "Land Value Tax".
Let's assume the land is worth far more to BAA to be used as an airport that it is to existing owners as a village (it must do or else there would be no economic rationale to the airport).
In a faux 'free market' without taxes, BAA has to keep upping their offer until the vendors cave in, but this leads to the ransom problem, whereby Emma Thompson cashes out at £1 billion for a football field.
In a truly free market with LVT, if the vendors hold out for a silly offer - abusing their monopoly position - they have to pay LVT on the value they have turned down. Sooner or later, either BAA accept that they'll never cave in, and at least the NIMBYs are landed with a colossal LVT bill; or the existing owners cave in and BAA are landed with a colossal LVT bill.
Either way, the local councils can collect a load more tax; other taxes can be reduced and the land is put to its most efficient use, seen objectively.
MY way is that owners set their buy-out level (Which they pay an LVT on), and BAA pays them that (with a delay).
Drinks all round.
As you know, Mark, I'm not with the LVT idea. I'm with sobers.
Get rid of compulsory purchase.
I'm instinctively against CPO's as well, but there are extreme situations where it would have to happen. Or else Emma Thompson can split up her field and sell of thousands of mini plots of a few square feet each, even with the 'LVT' stick to discourage owners from asking for ludicrous prices , the negotiations would be ridiculous.
I could agree that the construction of some vital defence installation, which would not be effective on any other plot of land, might be considered such an 'extreme' circumstance. But not this.
My thoughts on this are here:
http://idlepenpusher.blogspot.com/2009/01/greenpeace-and-various-publicity.html
IPP, just you wait until one day you want to build something big, like a factory or a power station or an airport or something and you require change of use consent or possibly little bits of adjoining land.
Of course there's no reason why you should be entitled to a CPO as a private businessman, but once you get all and sundry holding you to ransom and demanding silly money you'll wish there were an LVT stick to keep their demands within reason.
market plus 10% isn't peanuts. everybody has an incentive to say they don't want to move & the house has great emotional value because their much loved brother in law built it. Occasionaly somebody means it but I would try to negotiate a higher price too if I could.
NC, which is why I suggested relocating the whole village to minimise emotional wrench.
Mark - I'm sure you're right. But the fact a bad policy might be in my personal interests at some juncture in the future doesn't make me think it's OK.
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