Margin__Walker wrote: Thu May 23, 2024 2:43 pm
Paddington Bear wrote: Thu May 23, 2024 2:25 pm
epwc wrote: Thu May 23, 2024 1:30 pm
Politicians in the outer boroughs don't understand that trying to reduce density on a development will generally mean encroachment on the Green Belt
So many places where the argument is about height when really it makes no difference to the neighbourhood whether a development is 18 stories or 21 high.
Yep. Round me people kick off about tower blocks being built in central Watford. Building hundreds of units in the centre of Watford is good for maintaining my town as it is, and they still oppose it!
To my mind though, if you shortened the planning process and narrowed the grounds for appeal a lot of these complaints would turn into ‘ah well, can’t be helped’ very quickly, and everyone would get on with their lives. I don’t think NIMBYs are the towering political force they are believed to be
John Burn-Murdoch is great on this for the FT. Talks a lot about it. Argues that the housing crisis is primarily caused by a broken planning system. Also the scope for densification of cities
At a time when homelessness and people in temporary accommodation is exploding in this country, it really can't be ignored for much longer. This is one recent thread that starts comparing SF and Houston, but arrives back in London.
https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1760995132034130335
Yeah I read a lot of his stuff ( FT is very good value).
I totally agree - our system is comically slow, allows vetoes at nearly every stage (even where the scheme meets public policy), and has become a fact of life for too many in public office. It doesn’t have to be this way and I genuinely believe root and branch reform of it, from statute up, is the key to unlocking growth in Britain.
Given that what gets through the planning process is often ugly, of poor environmental value and low quality anyway, not sure what we have to lose by loosening the taps and seeing if proper growth comes out the other side