OK lads, pull up the drawbridge!

From The Guardian:

Community groups will be given the right to... vote on new housing developments under powers to be unveiled on Monday as part of the government's "big society" project...

The bill will create:

• A community right to build, allowing homeowners to add extensions or loft conversions, or new homes to be built, as long as a simple majority in the area votes in favour.

Summa summarum, once these local groups of self-appointed fascists* are in charge, existing homeowners will almost automatically be given planning permission to stick on an extra room or two (thus banking the latent gain when the total value of the house increases by more than the cost of the work done, which it does in most cases); but there won't be any more new housing built for those who would like to be homeowners, so they'll have to settle for renting in perpetuity or buying somewhere much smaller (thus paying additional rent for permission to use duly enlarged existing buildings).

Applied to the business world, this is tantamount to saying that red tape for existing businesses will be reduced but you can only start a new business if you first obtain permission from all other businesses in the area.

* Interestingly, it was Nulabour who insisted on sticking the word 'community' into every sentence, which was their code for 'looking after our special interest groups' (this reached its apogee with the catch-all gibberish phrase in the community). The Lib-Cons have now merrily hijacked this and 'the community' is now code for their own favoured special interest groups; the NIMBYs and Home-Owner-Ists.