From the BBC:
Most people in the UK associate Islam with extremism and the repression of women, a survey has suggested...
So that's the topic of this week's Fun Online Poll: Do you associate Islam with extremism and the repression of women?"
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
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Hmm. The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:
How much land in England is 'green belt', compared to the developed areas (just over a tenth)?
A lot less - 19%
About the same - 35%
A lot more - 46%
I had assumed (having looked it up on Wiki) that in the UK, the developed areas and the greenbelt were about the same size (a tenth each), but John's comment (left at the poll) leads me to suspect otherwise:
Cities have a natural footprint limit. The generally accepted limit is that if it takes over an hour to travel from one side to the other its expansion naturally tails off. In olden times this hour was on foot or on horseback, now it is in cars or on public transport. So we cant "sprawl" too far.
In England the area of greenbelt has doubled since 1980, with nearly 21 million acres absorbed in total, out of a UK total of 60 million. The UK actually has greenbelt sprawl.
Greenbelts, extensively introduced in the 1950s, were intended to be narrow and primarily used for recreation by the inhabitants of the towns and cities they surrounded. The belts were expanded in width, but continued to be used for farming. The shire counties used greenbelts to hold back the disliked populations of nearby towns and cities. Recreational uses disappeared and the greenbelts became green barriers to keep large numbers of urban inhabitants from mixing with a very small number of rural residents.
This is a clear case of the few exercising their will over a massive majority. Greenbelts were used as a means of population control, limiting where they could live. Often these greenbelts were not even green, containing industry and intensive industrial agriculture. Instead of being a sports jacket for the urban dwellers geenbelts became a strait jacket.
So I'm not even sure what the answer is, apart from "much too much".
Put On Your Big Boy Pants, Maybe?
3 hours ago
19 comments:
For more info on the origination of green belts look up Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City movement
That comment re the natural limits to growth, is wrong, surely, unless you're saying it's specifically an English limit. You just have to go to Tokyo to see that.
Just goes to show that there is no area of the operations of the state that cannot be perverted to serve the ends of the few to the detriment of the many.
You left the F**K Yeah!! option in the latest poll.
One of my children had a Green Belt once, but I think it was in judo. And for policies on such, Battleship Island, or Kowloon walled city might be instructive
L, that's a slightly different topic.
H, it's the one-hour limit that's important. London & Tokyo have amazing train networks. You can get from Zone 6 on one side of London to Zone 6 on the other side in just over an hour. Plus, some people prefer smaller conurbations - there's an upper limit but no lower one.
B, indeed. Another argument for scrapping most regulations.
Ch, either click 'Yes' twice or choose 'Other' and type in "Team America".
MW - Sort of different topic. EH was championing the 'green belt' thingy. And his thoughts tie in pretty well with what 'john' says.
Presumably there is undeveloped land other than designated greenbelt that is off limits to builders because otherwise the country is 90% Greenbelt which seems unlikely.
R, sure, 10% is built on, 1% is roads, a few per cent are water or marshland or beach, and about 85% is farmland (on which you cannot build) and out of that 85% between 10% and 33%* is Hallowed Green Belt (on which you really can't built).
* Depending on whether you believe Wiki or John.
Perhaps the Islamists should look at this poll result.
JH, they were the ones who carried out the original poll!
Their response was to launch an advertising campaign to show how wonderful Islamism is (as per the BBC article). I haven't yet worked out how the Explore Islam Foundation is funded, they don't appear to have a website or appear at Charities Commission.
"and about 85% is farmland (on which you cannot build)"
You cannot be serious! About 100% of building in the countryside is carried out on re-designated farmland. What do you think the land that is now housing estates round most country towns was used for before it was built on?
B, you do the maths. Let's say that practically no buildings or roads in this country are more than 300 years old, so in 300 years we have built on 12% (or whatever) that's 0.04% per annum. Try and imagine our entire ag land as a football pitch, we are developing less than 2 square yards per year.
Ok, not much land is given over to building per year, percentagewise, but also, percentagewise, the type of land that is built on is overwhelmingly former farmland. Yes, greenfield development is more difficult, but given effort and large wads of cash, it does happen.
The first Green belt was introduced by Elizabeth 1st. Greenbelts:
1. Create an artificial land shortage
ratchetting up land price inside the belt.
2. Keeps townies out of the lucrative
rented acres of large landowners.
Greenblets are not primarily for the benefit of the people at all. All to do with money and vested interest.
England's Green and Pleasant Land
Once upon a time there was a great Queen, called the Virgin Queen, and in the 32nd year of her reign, in 1580 by our reckoning, she laid down that there should be a 'Green Belt' about her capital, the great City of London.
For it covered much land being greater than one square mile in extent. And this was a great city where playwrights and poets lived, and from which explorers went out all over the world. But she saw that there were 'great multitudes of people brought to inhabit in small roomes, whereof a great part are seene very poor, heaped up together, and in a sort smothered with many families of children and servants in one house or small tenement'. So to protect this great City it was announced that 'her Majestie doth straightly command all manner of Persons to desist and forbeare from any new buildings of any house or tenement within three miles of any of the gates of the said cittie of London for Habitation or Lodging where no former House hath bene known to have bene in the memorie of such as are now living'.
And this 'Green Belt' was thought a good idea by the people. For otherwise they said, 'ye south east will be covered under ye cobble stones'. And it was thought a good idea by the lords because it stopped the common people moving out of London to live near them. So it was widened and extended by later Kings and also by the Commonwealth, first to five miles and then to seven miles and then to ten miles. It was in doubt only at the time of a Great Fire in 1666, but, fortunately for our fable, it was not so great a fire after all because the wind changed and so the City was not burned as it had been feared but only some manufactories and common people's houses in
the East. And after this the City was rebuilt in brick to hinder fires, but the Green Belt was kept.
Indeed the idea of this greenness was thought so good that the area of the belt was extended further and further and other Green Belts were put round all the other towns and cities in the kingdom, and Areas of Great Romantick Beauty were declared, because the country was now thought truly romantick
and it was thought that such areas should be preserved for ever.
So the cities and towns of Britain were not allowed to expand. The
countryside was kept free of any building and agriculture in Britain became prosperous. Of course there were threats to the countryside but these were resisted. Many years later, some land owners wanted to dig coal from under their land in the north of England and in Scotland and Wales. But this land
was in Areas of Great Romantick Beauty, and this coal mining was fiercely resisted, particularly by those landowners who did not have coal under their land. And so the countryside was preserved.
At about this time a Great Industrial Revolution occurred in Germany and in America and France, and there was a great demand for labour in these countries. And because house rents were so much higher in Britain than in these countries, because of the pressure of population, many people left to
get jobs elsewhere. So the countryside remained romantick while the country emptied .
Look at these docs by the Policy Exchange:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/watercity/Unaffordable_Housing.pdf
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/watercity/Bigger_Better_Faster_More.pdf
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/watercity/BetterHomes_GreenerCities.pdf
They explain the Green Belt well.
This site explains land well:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/watercity/LandArticle.html
DATA ON LAND USAGE
The land cover of Great Britain is 23.5m hectares. Taken from the Office of National Statistics, in 2002, usage was as follows:
Settled land - 1.8m hectares. 7.65% of the land mass.
Agricultural land - 10.8m hectares. 45.96% of the land mass.
Semi-natural land, with much uses as agricultural land - 7.0m hectares. 29.78% of the land mass.
Woodland - 2.8m hectares. 11.91% of the land mass
Water bodies - 0.3m hectares. 1.28% of the land mass.
Sundry, largely transport infrastructure - 0.8m hectares. 3.42% of the land mass.
Note 1:
Many question the accuracy of the above figures as government departments present differing figures. Nevertheless the figures are a good guide.
Note 2:
The settled land figure includes gardens and other green spaces, which are estimated at around 5%. When adjusted a figure of only 2.5% of paved land emerges.
Our freedoms are curtailed by a Stalinist planning system. The 1947 T&C planning act is mechanism for People control not to promote high quality habitation.
I should have the freedom to build where I like. except, SSSI, near nuclear powers stations, etc.
If I see a corner of a field surrounded by trees with a lane running near with an electric pole, and want to build and attractive house to the local vernacular, that affects no one - I am not allowed to do it. This is ludicrous.
The UK has a land surplus.
We are living in crowded and dense cities, not a crowded and urbanised country
Far too much land is given over to agriculture, about 78%, which only accounts for about 2.5%-3% of the UK economy. This poor performing over subsidised industry is absorbing land that could be better used economically in commerce and for much needed spacious higher quality homes for the population.
Much of the land is paid to remain idle out of our taxes. The UK could actually abandon most of agriculture and import most of its food, as food is obtainable cheaper elsewhere.
50% of the EU budget is allocated to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). CAP is supporting a lifestyle of a very small minority of country dwellers in a poor performing industry. In effect that is its prime function.
The city of Sheffield, a one industry city of steel, was virtually killed by allowing imports of cheaper steel from abroad. This created great misery and distress to its large population. Yet agriculture is subsidised to the hilt having land allocated to it which clearly can be better utilised for the greater good of British society.
The justification for subsidising agriculture is that we need to eat. We also need steel and cars in our modern society, yet the auto and steel industries were allowed to fall away to cheaper competition from abroad, and especially the Far East. Should taxpayers money be propping up an economically small industry that consumes vast tracts of land that certainly could be better used? What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
The overall agricultural subsidy is over £5 billion per year. This is £5 billion to an industry whose total turnover is only £15 billion per annum (2003 figures). Unbelievable. This implies huge inefficiency in the agricultural industry, about 40% on the £15 billion figure. Applied to the acres agriculture absorbs, and approximately 16 million acres are uneconomic. Apply real economics to farming and you theoretically free up 16 million acres, which is near 27% of the total UK land mass.
This is land that certainly could be put to better use for the population of the UK. Allowing the population to spread out and live amongst nature is highly desirable and simultaneously lowering land prices. This means lower house prices which the UK desperately needs. Second country homes could be within reach of much of the population, as in Scandinavia, creating large recreation and construction industries, and keeping the population in touch with the nature of their own country. In Germany the population have access to a large forests which are heavily used at weekends. Forests and woods are ideal for recreation and absorb CO2 cleaning up the atmosphere. Much land could be turned over to public forests.
John, ta for back up. I've said all this several times but it can't be repeated often enough.
Bizarrely, the QE1 story appears to be true.
As to Oli Hartwich, being German, he has a very sensible approach to planning - as long as it's good quality, you can build as much as you like - even though most of his stuff is published by the nominally centre-right Policy Exchange.
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