One of my UKIP friends sent me a link to an article in The Telegraph:
Research by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has revealed local authorities which are attempting to redraw the boundaries of Green Belts in their areas to make way for new housing.
Analysis of local development plans drawn up by councils have revealed that swathes of land will be "redesignated" to allow the development of more than 74,500 new houses. Protected Green Belt land will also reassigned to make way for new business parks, university buildings and transport infrastructure...
To which I responded:
That's splendid news.
The UK is 60 million acres of land, and the developed part is only 6% of that, about half of which is residential, i.e. over 60 million of us are squashed onto 2 million acres, and we've still got 56 million acres of farmland (some of which is green belt, some of which isn't).
If they allow 75,000 new houses to be built at generous density 10 to the acre, that's only 7,500 acres, i.e. 0.01% of previously
undeveloped land.
I think you'll find that the main reason for the green belt is not to "preserve the environment" but to "preserve high house prices", or are you happy for your adult children to be forced to wildly overpay for something miles from the area they'd like to live?
Sunday, 14 August 2011
I'm not sure if that's how he meant it
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10 comments:
Why have ukip been so quiet about the London slave rebellions?
going loopy I see Robin.
Mark, I'm interested to know how LVT actually goes down within UKIP? I have to admit I only briefly flicked through their manifesto last year and came to the conclusion that it was probably a home to faux-libertarianism. Feel free to correct me.
"I think you'll find that the main reason for the green belt is not to "preserve the environment" but to "preserve high house prices",
AFAICS it is a case of unintended consequences. The original idea of the green belts was to stop all the major towns and cities running into each other to create a huge megalopolis, with isolated pockets of "agricultural land" isolated within it. It is not simply a case of figures: not simply how much land is under housing, but how that developed land interfaces with with the agricultural land.
The result of creating the green belts was to massively raise the desireablity of the housing within them and hence create a strong vested interest in their remaining, but doesn't mean that was why they were created.
But as you always say, it's something which LVT would sort out: those who want the privilege of living a rural idyll close to the city would have to pay for it.
those who want the privilege of living a rural idyll close to the city would have to pay for it
I'm for living in a tree hut close to the idyll.
B: "The original idea of the green belts was to stop all the major towns and cities running into each other to create a huge megalopolis"
OK, that makes sense in West Yorkshire or round Manchester-Liverpool, where there are lots of towns in danger of merging into each other, it's nice for everybody to have somewhere to go for a country stroll at the weekend. But FFS, why is there a green belt round London? With which other big towns can it possible merge? There aren't any!
JH, if you're happy with that, your potential LVT bill would be less than £100 a year.
The green belt policy is as antequated as anything in British government - it rests on ideas and facts before and immediately after WWII. Councils have always been fiddling with it (and they have extensive powers to ignore all planning regulations for their own developments). If it's going to go, the Green Belt should all go in one big bang, otherwise it's just a way for farmers to get their land upgraded and sold at massive price increase; and lawyers to suck up huge fees from the planning inquiries and disputes that will still happen in the remaining areas.
What is meant by "Agricultural land". Land for housing is a premium in UK however the farm land is often underused , unused, Set aside, and only there sitting idle or uneconomiclly unproductive because of CAP. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0135p1t/Farming_Today_15_08_2011/
eight minutes and fifty seconds in.
CB, yes, spot on, subject to patches of woodlands and rivers being retained so that people can have their Sunday stroll.
D, subsidies make things more expensive, not cheaper, it's as simple as that.
MW, a quote I remember imperfectly was that the nascent social planners in the 40s did not want "bungalows all the way to Brighton".
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