Saturday 24 July 2010

Grant Shapps's Cunning Plan

Grant Shapps has come up with a scheme to kill two birds with one stone.  Ostensibly designed to provide rural housing for the young, it is a sop to the housebuilding lobby, whilst placating the NIMBYs by giving them, not the local authority, control over what is built where and, also, presumably, that all-important aesthetic control that, bizarrely, comes under "planning".  It also gives all those retired folk, who form the majority of the population of most of the country's villages , something to get their teeth into.

The problem with the current planning system is that those who reap the benefits, in form of the huge financial gains to be made by changing the use of a piece of land from agricultural to building, are the developers, who are not those who suffer the disbenefits, in the form of more traffic, reduced amenity value, increased pressure on local services etc etc.  So it is hardly surprising that the attitude of the inhabitants of the locality of an development tend to be against it from the start; there is nothing in it for them.  Under the cunning plan, the locals will be the developers and the planning authority rolled into one, giving them back both the control and the financial benefit that the current system denies them.  It will have to be seen how far this melts hard NIMBY hearts.  I forsee battle royal being joined in village halls up and down the land.

Meanwhile the Cornish are not happy, with worries about second-home owners putting the kibosh on any building. As far as I can see, the answer is simple - you only get to vote in the referendum if your primary residence is in the village concerned. 

9 comments:

Robin Smith said...

How will

"the locals will be the developers and the planning authority rolled into one"

?

Bayard said...

From the BBC article "Under the plan villages would be able to form local housing trusts*, and hold a referendum to decide if house building should go ahead**."

*i.e. the developer
** i.e. the planning authority

business plan said...

Could the lost records scandal be a cunning plan to discredit the ID card scheme, which backfired?

Tim Almond said...

There's plenty of land to build on in Cornwall. Get about 5 miles in from the coast and there's bugger all housing.

In fact, one of the reasons I'm not very keen on Cornwall is precisely that it's so barren.

Robin Smith said...

Bayard, thanks

"*i.e. the developer
** i.e. the planning authority"

But

* there is almost no development in villages. A LITTLE thing. Developers always do a better job in a Real Market. Trusts in control of large unearned gains always become corrupt. A BIG thing.

** they already have this in the local planning authority. We keep voting for it. Govt keeps overturning their decisions in favour of the real enemy, the monopoly developer

Either the minister is ignorant or malevolent. I suspect he is a Useful Idiot for the developers. Please don't believe him.

Agree with Joseph. See my recent post on Cornwall. There is a great opportunity there... if we choose it.

Real Reform: There's plenty of Land (3): "There's plenty of Land (3)"

James Higham said...

I forsee battle royal being joined in village halls up and down the land.

Unfortunately, yes, it does look that way.

Bayard said...

JH, that is one aspect of the cunningness of the plan, as I see it.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, I like your last suggestion in the post, but I don't like the reference to "pressure on local services".

Don't forget that people use services, and people provide services (whether state run, or privately run).

As long as the people who move in to the new houses provide services as well as using them, then what is the problem?

business plan said...

(I apologize for feeling so negative about this issue, but, hell, with CA Blue Cross announcing it's current insurance increases and saying they have the right to impose further increases at any time during the year..