Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Now I'm angry Tamas got my hope up for some concrete dreams. Sir Simon Jenkins is almost always wrong about most things but especially about housing/building.

And he's been banging this drum for years:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/30/housing-crisis-policy-myth-realities

A piece about that 2015 article that probably applies to this 2020 article too:

Simon Jenkins is wrong about everything: some angry notes on the housing crisis
By Jonn Elledge


The horror! The horror! Some awful houses cluttering up the view of Bristol. Image: Getty.

There's an informal rule in place around these parts: we don't publish blogs about blogs. Any article that requires someone to have read another article before going in risks being so navel gazing that you'll lose the reader before they even begin.

But I make the rules around here, and sometimes an article is so crying out for rebuttal that you just have to do it, if only to make the voices in your head telling you to do it shut up for a few seconds oh my god just leave me in peace I'm literally doing it right now.

What's more, while you may not have read the latest Guardian gurgle from Sir Simon Jenkins, if you've bothered to read this far, you probably have a reasonably good handle on his views. The countryside is in danger. The green belt is all that stands between us and a Britain that looks like New Jersey. And the housing crisis is a myth: the problem is not a shortage of housing, it's just young people today all selfishly wants to live in expensive parts of the country.

I'm not going to rebut every point Jenkins makes – partly because, despite my snarky headline, I don't actually disagree with all of them; mostly because there are 17 of the bloody things, all numbered, and to explain what I was arguing with I'd have to quote the entire article and everyone would get bored and stop reading anyway. So instead, here are three general points.

1) Simon Jenkins' solution won't solve anything

Jenkins is a bit sneery about the idea we need to build houses at all – he seems to think this would only benefit the house building industry, and not the half a million extra people added to Britain's population every year, which is a bit odd.

But this is lucky, really, because his preferred policies would stop us from building any. He's against building on the green belt. He's against building skyscrapers. He's against social housing.

What he seems to want is for the house building industry to restrict itself to building on existing brownfield land, which is largely what happens now, and which clearly hasn't worked. Oh, but he also seems to want height restrictions, so if Jenkins got his way, new home numbers might actually fall.

He's also very keen on people living in spare rooms, and on adding extra stories to existing homes. What exactly we would do to persuade Britain's homeowners to rent out their back bedroom and stick an extra floor on their suburban semi is not exactly clear.

2) Simon Jenkins is bad for the economy

Jenkins points out, correctly, that you still can get affordable housing in other parts of the country. The people who complain about the cost of housing in places like London should therefore stop whining.

Fair enough. But the reason housing in London (and Oxford, and Cambridge, and...) is so expensive is because that's where so many of the jobs are – especially, the ones with the highest salaries.

And that's because these are Britain's most productive cities. It's not that Londoners are more productive by nature (I am one, and I'm basically a waste of oxygen). It's that there is something about the city – the aggregation of people, and companies, and infrastructure, and ideas – that means that when people move here they magically become more productive.

But that effect works in reverse, too. When people move from London to Salford, as Jenkins implies they should, they will become less productive, just by virtue of changing their postcode.

It would be brilliant if we could change that – that is what the whole Northern Powerhouse agenda is about – but nobody really knows how to achieve that. Until we work that out, by making it harder for people to live in the south east, we are placing a cap on Britain's growth in wages and living standards, too.

(By the way, there's a very good book about the US version of this phenomenon, in which people who can't afford productive Boston or San Francisco end up living in more affordable Houston or Phoenix. It's The Gated City, by the Economist journalist Ryan Avent, and you should all read it immediately.)

3) Simon Jenkins is just so cringe

I mean, oh my god, can this man hear himself? Simon Jenkins is a rich, successful man who owns two homes ("I've been to both of them," former planning minister Nick Boles said on Newsnight a few years ago). If the true cause of Britain's housing crisis really is rich homeowners hoarding more space than they actually need, then he is exactly the sort of person who is to blame for it.

And yet he has the gall to tell young people starting out in life to quit whining and live in someone's outhouse, or move to the other end of the country because he quite likes farms. Never mind whether he's right or wrong (and he's wrong), it's just plain embarrassing.

The oddest thing about Jenkins is his inconsistency. He's ostensibly a classical liberal, in that he seems to think that state action will generally do more harm than good. And yet, when it comes to this one specific issue, he is in favour of about the biggest state intervention imaginable, in the form of massive land use restrictions. He wants the market to let rip – so long as it doesn't spoil his view.

It's a position, I suppose. But, well, you'd hardly call it selfless, would you?

[Richard Hakluyt]

You will still be forced to have the fake fireplace in the living room though, right? Right?

I am concerned that, in their mindless craving for modernity, the government might make mixer taps compulsory 

[The Brain]

You will still be forced to have the fake fireplace in the living room though, right? Right?

I am concerned that, in their mindless craving for modernity, the government might make mixer taps compulsory 

This realm will be just like any other Eden.

[Sheilbh]

I am concerned that, in their mindless craving for modernity, the government might make mixer taps compulsory 

That's like the opposite of British plugs for me.

I am irrationally nationalist about the superiority of British plugs, but always irrationally outraged at our failure to embrace mixer taps

[Tamas]

You will still be forced to have the fake fireplace in the living room though, right? Right?

I am concerned that, in their mindless craving for modernity, the government might make mixer taps compulsory 

Our rented flat has fireplaces but they seem to connect to chimneys now not in use, so they were not always fake I'd say. What is far more odd, however, that this building looks to have been built several decades after anyone in the civilised world used open fireplaces in homes. Maybe it has just been modernised in outside looks, IDK.


And don't get me started on the lack of mixer taps. 

[Richard Hakluyt]

Heh, I hate mixer taps; you are right about the plugs though 

[Gups]

The article Tamas quotes from : https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/04/boris-johnson-nimbyism-planning-changes-disastrous-england-

[A planning lawyer speaks]. Nobody yet knows what the reforms will be but it seems that they are likely to be pretty huge. A more informed view from Zack Simona (a barrister I instruct)

https://www.planoraks.com/posts-1/viva-la-revolution

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It was Sir Ernest Benn CBE - uncle of one Tony Benn (who knew a radical reform when he saw one) - who said that:

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

Well. We've just lived through a very... political weekend.

Splashed all over the Sundays was our "blockbuster planning revolution" - the "radical but necessary" new era to make our system "simpler", "faster" and "people-focussed" (it all makes such a refreshing change from those manifesto commitments from years gone by promising to make our system slower, more complex and less connected to the public).

But so much for press releases. We all know about devils and details. With the Ministry's consultation paper still a few days away which will reveal all, it would take a real eejit - wouldn't it? - to start reading the runes of the Times and Telegraph stories in the hunt for a cohesive program for reform.

Well, to be fair, you are reading a blog called #planoraks. So it shouldn't shock you to learn... I am that eejit.

Here's 5 things we learned yesterday. And after that I'll give you another 5 things we still don't know.

What we learned:

New zones - the Ministry's proposing 3 kinds of zone: for growth, for renewal and for protection.

In the growth zone, the Minister says "new homes, hospitals, schools, shops and offices will be allowed automatically". Though NB the Times said in this zone there's a "presumption that new houses get the go-ahead". Not the same thing (presumptions can be rebutted!). So we'll have to wait and see about growth zones.

In the renewal zone, we get "a "permission in principle" approach to balance speed while ensuring appropriate checks are carried out".

In the protection zone, we get "our Green Belt, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and rich heritage – will be protected as the places, views and landscapes we cherish most and passed on to the next generation".

Who sets the zones? Local Planning Authorities. How? Through "democratic local agreement". Agreement? Come, Minister, this is the planning system. Ah hang on, he means through a(nother) new era of local plans (joyous tidings for planning policy officers up and down the country).

But along with all of this growth, there are standards to be met. The Minister is offering us "design codes and pattern books" to make sure "new developments will be beautiful places, not just collections of buildings". In fact, we're told that the new system "places a higher regard on quality and design than ever before".

We're in for "a new system of developer contributions to infrastructure" through which the Government's going to "take a greater proportion of "land value uplift".

And get ready for more tech - no more notices on lamp-posts. We're being offered "an interactive, and accessible map-based online system".

Which takes us to the many things we don't know - I mean, where to start. The things we don't know could sink a ship. But here are 5 biggies (I say 5... it's a few more than 5 really...):

New local plans - by the sounds of it, as well as setting zones, we'll still need good old-fashioned policies to guide the determination of discretionary development management decisions - at least in the Renewal Zone if not the others too? How are we going to resource LPAs properly for this bold new round of plan-making? What will be the national (and regional?) framework within which these plans are produced? Given that there are still authorities which have not adopted a local plan in the modern era, what happens in the transitional period (which could take decades!) before everybody's zones are fixed? If they're ever fixed? The traditional TCPA 1990 regime in some towns, the brand new zonal system elsewhere? And what about Neighbourhood Plans - remember them? Can they fix zones too? And if they can't... well, if they can't what good will they be?

Design codes - who drafts them (local planning authorities?), who assesses new schemes against them and how, what happens in the (inevitable) event of disagreements over whether a scheme complies - do we head off to appeal? What if - in this world of enhanced "land value uplift" capture - full compliance with every scintilla of the design code would render a scheme unviable? Can that justify departure from the design code?

Growth zones - in reality, how "automatic" is this green light to build build build? As above, who's to decide whether or not the scheme meets the design codes and what happens if they don't? What about environmental impact assessment? Will the green light be subject to scale, height, massing or density parameters, and if so who fixes them and how? What about (non-exhaustive list alert...) weighing impacts on the landscape / townscape, conservation areas, the setting of listed buildings, archaeology, transport, highways, maintaining adequate daylight and sunlight in any given case? What about ensuring that the system delivers an adequate mix of commercial, industrial, retail and residential uses - this task's a bit harder anyway after Class E, as I said here.

Renewal zones - are we talking about building on the permission in principal system we already have, i.e. under the Housing and Planning Act 2016? So despite some of the more extreme suggestions in the last few months, are we still on for a system - in at least some of these zones - where a local planning authority is taking discretionary decisions on whether or not to grant planning permission in accordance with... what... policies in a development plan? Other material considerations? Which would place us still more or less in the "plan-led" world enshrined by what is now section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 - see my bit on that here.

Protect zones - we know Green Belts and AONBs are heading into these zones, but what about the  plethora of lower-level designations of green spaces, wedges and open countryside?  Is the requirement to "protect" absolute? Is it just as strong regardless of whether you're in an AONB or a locally designated green wedge? What about the important differences in how we should approach e.g. an AONB (which is a landscape designation) and the Green Belt (which isn't)? What about the (very many) cases where it's necessary and appropriate to allow development to proceed in the Green Belt or in an AONB? What if there's no 5 year housing land supply? Are we still living in a world where LPAs can exercise their discretion to allow schemes to proceed in a protection zone? And if so, are they making that decision in accordance with a local plan informed by national policy? And in that case, is this system really so different from what we're doing already?

Consider all of that a palette cleanser for when the consultation paper arrives later this week. Not long to wait now! For all of our questions to be answered. And for us to be shown why - if it had been properly resourced - the system we already have couldn't do all of this stuff just as well. But as Ernest Benn understood, "radical" reforms might not always be wise, but they can make for some excellent politics.

[Sheilbh]

Our rented flat has fireplaces but they seem to connect to chimneys now not in use, so they were not always fake I'd say. What is far more odd, however, that this building looks to have been built several decades after anyone in the civilised world used open fireplaces in homes. Maybe it has just been modernised in outside looks, IDK.

In fairness - and I could be wrong - I only think that started in the 1950s in London after the great smog. Until then open fires were pretty common but then there were various changes to regulations/incentives to install gas fires etc.

I live in a 1930s block and I'm fairly sure where the covered up fireplace is links to a real chimney.

[The Brain]

Fireplaces (real, functioning ones) are nice IMHO.

[Richard Hakluyt]

My recollection is that central heating systems did not really begin to dominate till the 1970s. With the progression away from coal fires delayed by the country being close to bankruptcy throughout the 1940s and 50s.

[Sheilbh]

My recollection is that central heating systems did not really begin to dominate till the 1970s. With the progression away from coal fires delayed by the country being close to bankruptcy throughout the 1940s and 50s.

Also we had a lot of coal 

[The Brain]

Where I grew up we had a big fancy tile stove. It was very nice to light a cosy fire. Fuel was birch wood.

[Tamas]

Which reminds me, is there somewhere online I could check when a building was built? I have no idea. It looks half the age of most apartment buildings in its price range, but on the other hand it has room sizes from before the time they started selling broom closets as bedrooms.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I grew up in the countryside and we had a tiled fireplace in the living room - mainly used peat and some coal.

[Richard Hakluyt]

My recollection is that central heating systems did not really begin to dominate till the 1970s. With the progression away from coal fires delayed by the country being close to bankruptcy throughout the 1940s and 50s.

Also we had a lot of coal 

Most coal miners got 8 tons a year free off the National Coal Board, people with coal mining pensions got free coal as well...............that was nearly everyone in my hometown back in the day.