The document from the Free Market Forum (FMF), an offshoot of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), suggests scrapping free childcare hours, releasing green belt land for housing, abolishing corporation tax and dropping teacher training qualifications for graduates.
Releasing green belt land? Lefty, statist, nonsense. Aboplish the green belt, blow up the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. Kablooie.
Dr Kristian Niemietz, the IEA’s head of political economy, urges ministers to release green belt land for more housebuilding, a move likely to be unpopular with Tory MPs. He suggests green belt land within an 800-metre radius of a commuter station, which is not otherwise protected, should be released, with extra infrastructure paid for by taxing the uplift in land value.
See? Lefty nonsnese.
We can’t start building houses on the green belt, that’s going to be wind farms.
When the fields and tree have all gone, and we live in a copy of Singapore but with shanty-towns, will we be rich enough then?
Sam: Considering that the built-up area of the UK is between 4% and 6% -that’s homes, factories, retail, roads, everything- you have no cause for concern.
@Sam Vara: No, we won’t. And if you want to keep fields and trees you can pay for them rather than relying on armed thugs to enforce your will on others.
On a positive note, I bet free market development includes plenty of trees and parks. I reckon people like them enough to pay for them – and if they don’t, that’s just revealed preferences.
Snag:
And considering that the 4/6% refers to land area, and makes no reference to visual impact, noise, pollution, wildlife, light pollution, etc., the cause for concern is seen every day. A field with trees completely surrounded by factories or houses is ruined for ever.
JK277:
I haven’t seen many “armed thugs” protecting the countryside, have you? It seems to be more like a loose alliance of those with an interest in what Burke called “the unbought grace of life”. Long may they defend us against those who only see things in terms of buying and selling.
Sam Vara: it boils down to armed thugs. If you just go ahead and start building on your land, and refusing to stop, or pay fines, or whatever, how do you think it ends?
I do find it odd. Some friends on Facebook are in uproar about some nice bit of land they enjoy walking near being built on. They enjoy it so much but they don’t consider it doesn’t belong to them; they wouldn’t dream of paying for the use of it.
There’s some land near me like that. I enjoy walking on it. It might be houses one day. I considered how much I would pay to enjoy my walks. Maybe 50 pounds per month. The trouble is there are people who would pay more to have a nice place to live. I don’t see why I should be able to stop them, in all honesty.
Why 800m? I can pedal 2000m in the time it takes someone to walk 500m.
You might want to put road pricing or congestion charging in around the station, that neoliberal taxation thing that reduces the thing being taxed, but there shouldn’t be any limit at all on the distance to the new housing. Or the height of it.
“A field with trees”: I like a pretty bit of wood pasture, I admit. If I want to preserve it I should buy it, in co-operation with others if needs be. Then we could fence it against hoi polloi and bloody deer, let the grazing rights to whoever will pay for them, pollard the trees as we like, and flog off the wood. Or use it in our own wood-burners. Or keep it for Guy Fawkes night bonfires. We could all claim Agricultural Property Relief against Inheritance Tax.
Come to think of it, it’s a wonder more people don’t do it. On the other hand I remember the lovely fenced “private” gardens in the middle of some Edinburgh streets, owned by the dwellers in surrounding tenements. There was perpetual pressure to have some arm of the state steal them from the owners. “Divisive”, don’cha know. I felt that the owners should point out that they were not private, they were simply Commons with the flat owners/tenants being both the Commoners and the Lord of the Manor.
It couldn’t have worked because there can’t be any institution in British history more misunderstood than Common land.
Considering that the built-up area of the UK is between 4% and 6% -that’s homes, factories, retail, roads, everything- you have no cause for concern.
You’re ignoring the fact that population is extremely unevenly distributed across the UK (compared to other Densley populated areas such as the Netherlands or Belgium). 70% of the UK population live in 25% of the land area (Central England).
There aren’t many houses or factories in Corrour, but I’m not taking a 1,000 mile round trip to walk the dog.
Rob:
It would only “boil down to” armed thugs if you defied the law and then offered violence to those sent to enforce it. The same as if you persisted with shoplifting, indecent exposure, or any illegal activity. (Except, apparently, if you are in XR, BLM, or are an illegal immigrant, but that’s another matter…).
As for your nice piece of land nearby, you can of course put a cash value on your enjoyment if you want to. But I would advise you to not do that, along with the cash value of good manners, friendship, honesty, freedom of expression, our daughters’ modesty and chastity, and human life. It’s a kind of object lesson in Maslow’s Hammer.
But let’s hope that good sense, severely restricted immigration, and a defeat for the philistines save you that £50 per month. Or even the degrading activity of trying to calculate it.
@ Sam Vara
Be of good cheer. None of the armchair libertarians arguing here have sufficient influence to bring in the Randian paradise they’d be absolutely horrified to actually live in.
Even if Liz Truss’s “growth, growth, growth” statement that she’s going to “make it easier to build homes” results in an announcement that the Green Belt is becoming the greed belt, the explosions from conservatives and greens would make the reaction to borrowing-funded tax cuts for the rich seem like an invitation to tea and cakes. She’d do a millisecond pulsar of a uturn, or be hounded from office.
And even if it somehow got through, they can’t dig it all up at once. So unless you were unlucky enough to live next to the bit dug up first, you probably wouldn’t live to see too much change. And none of us, from peasants to presidents, can control events when we’re dead.
Beautiful England will soldier on for a while yet. Eventually the ice will return and shovel everything into the Atlantic. Then it will recede and life will begin anew.
Singapore has to restrict immigration, despite having almost no natural land. If it’s so horrible, why do all those people want to live there? See also Hong Kong and all the world’s mega cities.
People *want* to live in cities. It’s why we all do. And that trend is not decreasing.
A few nice big parks and build on the rest.
People *want* to live in cities . . . And that trend is not decreasing.
Actually, people are getting the fuck out of Dodge in lots of countries. Nearly every city has heavy-handed left-wing government with increasingly batshit regulations that make life hell for increasing numbers of people.
The whole reason the countryside is under pressure is that people don’t want to live in cities. They want to live in suburbia, or a picture postcard village or maybe a nice gentrified small town.
90% of Hong Kong is countryside.
‘Eventually the ice will return and shovel everything into the Atlantic.’
So that’s why TPTB don’t like global warming, PJF!!