"In the near future, it could be the home of a new town, one within reach of Oxford, Cambridge and London. Tempsford should be built in one of the traditional styles that people generally prefer to modernist buildings; think of the charm of Bath, for instance."
Which part? Queen Square, or Twerton? There's a lot of Bath that isn't Jane Austenish.
The simple answer is that planning is best left to local authorities, who also collect the rates and that is most of their income. They then have to balance things like aesthetics against other things. Like I'd say it would be very sensible for Bath to demand that the centre adheres to the general aesthetic because Bath gets tourists. It would make the place worse off. But Swindon? It's a "doing" place. We have WHSmith, Nationwide, companies that design the power management in an iPhone, parking meters. It's fine to knock down an office building and put a newer one in its place. It's also a family place, so people prioritise housing that is larger and cheaper.
And if you want the aesthetics, if you want to screen people out, well, you're going to get poorer as a town because of less revenue. Maybe the people of some fancy place accept that trade off. But many other places wouldn't. They'd rather accept in more people that would bring more prosperity. At the moment, councils gain nothing from housing. The existing residents hate it and they don't get much revenue, but they also have to do various things for those residents. They side with NIMBYs, where back in the era when they mostly ran on rates they opposed them. It's this shift to grants that is the bigger problem than the 1947 act.
I agree we need to release the rocket of capitalism but I also think we need to think carefully first about how we are going to steer it. Because all else being equal we will just see more of what is already happening: huge estates of scrimp-built housing that will directly house illegals on the taxpayers bill, with a handful of even-scrimpier hovels for the Brits to fight over at 50:1 over-subscription. That is “actually existing capitalism” in the Ukay housing sector.
But yes both of those two political groups you mention are delusionally wrong, and the straitjacket of Planning has to go.
"In the near future, it could be the home of a new town, one within reach of Oxford, Cambridge and London. Tempsford should be built in one of the traditional styles that people generally prefer to modernist buildings; think of the charm of Bath, for instance."
Which part? Queen Square, or Twerton? There's a lot of Bath that isn't Jane Austenish.
The simple answer is that planning is best left to local authorities, who also collect the rates and that is most of their income. They then have to balance things like aesthetics against other things. Like I'd say it would be very sensible for Bath to demand that the centre adheres to the general aesthetic because Bath gets tourists. It would make the place worse off. But Swindon? It's a "doing" place. We have WHSmith, Nationwide, companies that design the power management in an iPhone, parking meters. It's fine to knock down an office building and put a newer one in its place. It's also a family place, so people prioritise housing that is larger and cheaper.
And if you want the aesthetics, if you want to screen people out, well, you're going to get poorer as a town because of less revenue. Maybe the people of some fancy place accept that trade off. But many other places wouldn't. They'd rather accept in more people that would bring more prosperity. At the moment, councils gain nothing from housing. The existing residents hate it and they don't get much revenue, but they also have to do various things for those residents. They side with NIMBYs, where back in the era when they mostly ran on rates they opposed them. It's this shift to grants that is the bigger problem than the 1947 act.
I agree we need to release the rocket of capitalism but I also think we need to think carefully first about how we are going to steer it. Because all else being equal we will just see more of what is already happening: huge estates of scrimp-built housing that will directly house illegals on the taxpayers bill, with a handful of even-scrimpier hovels for the Brits to fight over at 50:1 over-subscription. That is “actually existing capitalism” in the Ukay housing sector.
But yes both of those two political groups you mention are delusionally wrong, and the straitjacket of Planning has to go.