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Samizdata quote of the day – A reverse Chesterton’s Fence exercise Before it’s possible to suggest a solution to a problem, it’s necessary to grasp the root cause of the problem itself. A sort of Reverse Chesterton’s Fence exercise.
So, what has gone wrong? As we never tire of repeating it’s the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. That is, for the past 78 years we’ve had that coherent national plan. With a long term vision. Run by the Rolls Royce minds of the Men in Whitehall who know best. Which is how we’ve ended up with the output we’ve got, something that would disgrace a Trabant factory.
As it is national control of planning – the TCPA really does define who may build what where, is the nationalisation of land use – that is the problem then the solution is to get rid of what caused the problem. Blow up the TCPA, proper blow up – kablooie.
– Tim Worstall
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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Pick a country, any country, import there planning legislaton wholesale
Heaven save us from planners.
They’re all highly motivated, green, they absolutely know which way society should progress, and by god they’ll drag it along kicking and screaming.
Their plans actually do tend to be coherent and aimed.
They’re just aimed at results many of us don’t want to see.
But it’s like any government function. The kinds of people who want government to step away and leave us be tend not to go for the professions and positions that exist to foster government control.
Perhaps we should have gone that way. But we abdicated government to the pro-governors.
As I have pointed out many times – the Planning Acts have never stopped any housing estates around here.
And there are many new ones – thousands upon thousands of houses have been built and are being built (like in so many other towns) which never seem to get into the statistics quoted by London based people such as those who work for the IEA and ASI – or the Boundary Commission, who says that estates that have walked around do-not-exist (which is why the election boundaries make no sense).
House price rises are caused partly by fiat money and Credit Bubble banking – but also by MASS IMMIGRATION (and the natural increase, births, of these populations), at least 10 million extra people in the last couple of decades alone. As they arrive in the cities, the people who were in the cities flee to smaller towns – thus shoving up house prices.
I have pointed this out again-and-again – you do not know, because you do not WANT to know. Because blaming the “Planning Laws” does not get you called a “racist”.
No I do not support the “Planning Laws” – but the idea that getting rid of them would reduce house prices, or “aid economic growth” by making building factories and so on less difficult, is Moonshine.
By the way….
The Reform Party have promised (again and again – nationally and locally) to “use the Planning laws” to oppose various projects. I do not know how they will do that as “we do not like …” is not a Material Planning Consideration under planning law – but it does highlight an interesting contradiction.
How can this cult (for that is what it is – it is a Personality Cult around Mr Farage) both want to get rid of the Planning Laws and use them to block XYZ?
But then I have never heard Mr Farage (or Richard Tice or the other chap) say they want to get rid of the Planning Laws.
This seems more like Labour Party policy (part of their desire to get rid of what is left of rural England and replace it with endless housing estates, and other such, for other population groups) than Reform Party policy.
The town in which I live, Andover, has had multiple blocks of flats poked in spaces in the middle of town. A whole new massive development at Picket Twenty has covered fields that aren’t even contiguous to the town. Right up to the edge of Harewood Forest. Another development has covered what we’re several large fields and encroached towards a nearby village. These are the latest developments. Before them, Augustus Park. Saxons Fields.
I met the head of our local councils planning department once. I asked him whether the people of Andover were breeding like rabbits or where all the homeless people of Andover were. He gave a flippent answer.
He was an asshole. Worstal is an asshole as is anyone else who has the same opinion as him.
We’ve had over two decades of immigration on an unprecedented scale and over the same period insane monetary policy.
But apparently housing is increasingly unaffordable due to an eighty year old planning law?
Another reason I don’t bother to take ‘think tanks’ seriously.
Simple Economics: supply and demand. Yes, we are building. But not fast enough to house the huge increase in population.So we must build more (no planning hold ups).
This doesn’t make Worstall wrong – immigration has already happened at huge scale. So, unless you have a plan to ‘get rid of’ some recent arrivals…
Very true, but i submit that there is at least one more problem: a ruling class that (on the 1 hand) regards falling house prices as a disaster, and (otoh) wants to make housing more affordable.
Actually, this cognitive dissonance must surely be part of the motivation for the “insane monetary policy”.
The mass immigration suggests the British ruling class doesn’t want housing to be more affordable.
It is not just Kettering – it is almost every town and village I have seen, houses (and flats – in the towns) being built everywhere.
What matters is not whether the new houses and flats appear in the statistics of London based policy institutes and government bureaucracies (such as the Boundary Commission – which thinks the village of Isham is in the Constituency of Daventry – a town that many people in Isham have never been to, there are much closer towns to Isham than Daventry) – what matters is the physical existence of all these new houses and flats, and they most certainly exist.
You are blaming the Planning Acts for a problem that does-not-exist – the supposed non building of houses and flats (which are going up everywhere), whilst ignoring the real crises – mass immigration (many millions of people) and the natural increase of these new populations.
This site is increasingly obsessed with problems that do-not-exist (such as supposed legal barriers to building houses and flats – which, in reality, are going up all over he place) whilst ignoring real problems.
Good comments by everyone – especially Martin’s first comment (although his second comment was also good).
Martin expressed the truth in a few words – I find that difficult to do.
I know some developers who would strongly disagree with you. New builds are not even close to servicing demand & that was true even before mass immigration went to warp speed.
Wessexboy – let us assume that all immigration ended right now, the situation would NOT say the same as it is now.
If mass (mass) immigration had been stopped in the 1960s all might have been well, the relatively (relatively) limited number of people might have assimilated over time. Or, even if their children and children’s children never assimilated – would form relatively small enclaves, that would be of little importance (for example there is a Welsh enclave in Argentina – but Argentina is not going transform into Wales).
But mass immigration (really mass migration – as there was no intention to join the nation) did NOT stop – millions upon millions were invited (yes invited – at least de facto) in – and natural increase (births) have kicked in (as some people warned, back in the 1960s, that it would).
Have a look at, for example, Birmingham – the second city of England, that is the future of England – even if all immigration stopped right now.
To change (correct) what the Marxists of the 1920s and 1930s said – “I have seen the future – and it does NOT work”.
This is the point that Ben Habib (himself of Pakistani heritage) and Rupert Lowe (and many others) have made against Nigel Farage – that he either has his head in the sand about natural increase, or has already given up on England.
The solution? It is possible that there is no solution – it may already be too late, cultures, nations, come to an end – and this may be the turn of this nation to come to an end (I do not know).
Perhaps it is the end of Western nations in general – “demography is destiny” as the French used to say (before they were put in prison for saying such things), after all even Americans now have a fertility rate well below 2 (thanks to the insane “social revolution” or “cultural revolution” that started in the 1960s but has taken decades to undermine rural and small town America – it hit the cities first) – and face a mass influx (and natural increase of) populations who are migrating, not “immigrating” (i.e. they have no intention of being part of the old nation).
But certainly “getting rid of the planning laws” is not going to achieve anything.
Do it if you want to (I have no love of the planning laws) – but such activity is like arguing over what music to play as the Titanic sinks.
More evidence
”Illegal migrants flock to Britain for ‘easy money’ food delivery jobs
Telegraph investigation reveals asylum seekers make up to £500 a week working as bike couriers”
The ruling class have economic motives in play but definitely not a desire for affordable housing for British people.
Martin:
You are assuming that the British ruling class is composed of people smart enough to foresee the consequences of mass immigration.
I do not share your assumption. If they cannot see any contradiction between high housing prices and housing affordability, how could they possibly see the contradiction between mass immigration and housing affordability??
Vote the Tory Party out of existence & give Reform a working majority. That’s the solution. You lot are the problem, not the solution.
Old Jack Tar – are you deaf? Have you not listened to Nigel Farage say he is not going to do XYZ? If you do not believe Ben Habib, Rupert Lowe (and so many others) when they point this out – do you not believe Mr Farage himself when he admits it?
You declare me “the problem” – well I think you are the problem Sir, because you refuse to listen. Or refuse to understand.
According to the bureaucrats down in London (and the “free market institutes” who do the bidding of the corporations) the vast new estates in Kettering, Wellingborough and most-other-towns either do not exist – or have only a few people in them (hence the weird political boundaries).
It is fascinating that people like Tim Worstall choose to believe the official statistics (on house and flat building) rather than the evidence of their own eyes.
As for what the Reform Party will do with their “Working Majority” (they actually have a large majority on North Northants Council and other councils) – well they may (perhaps) do cosmetic things like get rid of the Ukrainian flag outside council offices (I wonder what Perry thinks about that), but in terms of real policy they will do nothing – because they can do nothing. It will all be words, but no real action – not because Reform Party people do not want to take action, but because (in this system) it is not possible. Ask Jacob Rees-Mogg and Liz Truss (and many others) why they did not do XYZ in government (they tried Old Jack Tar – but they were powerless).
Will “Old Jack Tar” then wake up? When he sees his Reform Party unable to do anything of real substance. Most likely NO he will not.
It is not just Britain
In the United States – the people of Texas (on the public schools and by elected representatives) and then California (directly by referendum) voted to restrict the amount of government benefits and public services given to illegal (illegal – people who should not be in the country) “immigrants” (really migrants – as they have no intention of becoming Americans in a cultural sense, they hate the “oppressive and exploitative” United States – they are not immigrating, they are migrating) – but the courts (State and Federal) overturned this.
In California people voted to define marriage as one man and one woman – they even passed a Constitutional Amendment to his effect.
The courts overturned it – as they overturned the efforts to restrict the amount of money spent on illegal migrants.
The courts (State and Federal) could not cite any text of the laws or Constitution (State or Federal) to justify their antics – the judges just liked “Gay Marriage” and unlimited spending on illegal immigrants, and that was that.
Just as in New Hampshire – where the judges decided that TAXES must be increased to spend more on education, judges have demanded tax increases in other States as well.
Western nations are democratic – apart from on important things. On important things the system (the judges and so on) will act to impose “Progressive” (i.e. suicidally destructive) policies – trusting that the education system and the media will eventually make people “catch up”.
And it does – for example after decades of indoctrination by the education system and the media most Americans now accept same-sex-marriage.
In Britain there was the “Brexit” vote – I kept asking, at the time, why people (including Mr Nigel Farage) kept saying “Brexit” (a meaningless made-up “word”) rather than independence.
I eventually got the answer – “Brexit” was never going to be independence, there was going to be no real divergence from international “Policy” (keeping Northern Ireland in the E.U. made sure of that) – we were not even going to get the fishing grounds back, let alone major departures in LAW.
The vote that I believed was for independence – was really about the meaningless “Brexit” of Mr Johnson, Mr Farage, and so on.
So they were correct (I admit it – they were correct in their language) to say “Brexit” not independence – as independence was never on offer.
It is important to note that Hungary has more independence inside the European Union than the United Kingdom has outside it (although this is hardly a high bar – as judges in Britain, and officials and the Bank of England and….. mean that we have, basically, no independence at all).
I suspect Hungary will be the next nation the International Community targets for regime change – they will not tolerate even the limited independence the nation of Hungary has.
I have met and chatted with Ben Habib a couple times (who I liked personally but don’t agree with on several things) and Rupert Lowe once (who I agree with on more things but would not trust him in any way whatsoever, given he’s motivated by nothing more profound than gut feelings & Russia Today narratives that Farage has now wised up about).
Reform’s grandees (yes, there are several) want to tear down “the system” because they understand that’s the problem. That’s what they say to each other even if they are less radical when talking with the normies 😀
Reform may well end up being another containment party, that’s certainly a suspicion I have. Containment is normally safer for elites to attempt than outright oppression. I don’t see how this particularly validates anything about the Tory party of Boriswave fame.A concern I have with Reform is whether a lot of the recent Tory defectors will just make the party into a new Tory party. While some of Rupert Lowe’s criticisms of Reform may have validity, his championing of Tommy Robinson suggests he is or is being used as containment as Tommy has a suspicious relationship with the security services, has a cocaine problem, and a tendency to wreck anything he’s associated with.
Some family friends are in the process of renovating a derelict country cottage. Well when I say renovate, it’s more trying to get permission to renovate. Four planning surveys, three bat surveys, two council petitions, and a partridge in a pear tree. They are in year three with no end in sight.
It got so bad that their architect decided he would no longer take on any renovation work. A county councilor told them and the architect that “there was no point” in applying for planning permission for anything built before the 1960’s in their area as it would be denied out of hand because the local head planner is a power tripping psycho.
My apologies for bringing up an old topic, but…
Is “estates that have walked around” a real-estate/zoning/law/etc. term I haven’t heard? It looks like it’s a just a typo, where Paul Marks meant “estates that I have walked around” do not exist. However, I neither work in real-estate, nor live in the British Isles, so maybe it’s a jargon or dialect thing.
We all know politicians would use a technicality to create a crisis for them to “solve” with new powers & bigger budgets. “We have a housing shortage! What, those thousands of new estates we just built? Those don’t count towards the statistics, because those estates have ‘walked around’, and it would just be foolish to include those in the housing totals.”
Perhaps things are different here. Perhaps we define “planning” differently.
My group has ended our sideline of GC-ing the building of small homes because the planning authorities have prescribed lines around the core Metropolitan Statistical Area outside of which no development will occur for at least fifteen years.
That is their PLAN. It is set out in one grand document, which they call a PLAN.
There is little useable and available land left within that MSA that is not designated as something other than “build smaller houses here.” They have prescribed where future retail should be, what corridors shall be reserved for transportation, and, most importantly, they hold the authority over where future sewage removal systems may be laid. Without sewer, no building is possible.
We can argue the merits of their decisions, but it is inarguable that PLANNING is keeping housing out of my area.
Sorry, I found this link only after edit went away:
https://metrocouncil.org/Planning.aspx
Our Glorious Planners.
And the worst British Governemnt of post WW2, that of Clement Atlee rears its ugly had again.