Brown field

[tobyaw]

I see that England has reclassified gardens in planning terms so they are no longer “brownfield” sites (a category otherwise used for post-industrial land). This means that councils can make the planning process for building on gardens more arduous, which I welcome. Suburban gardens should be treasured and valued, rather than viewed as a money-making development opportunity. In particular, I don’t think that houses should be built on gardens in a way that significantly changes the housing density or character of a neighbourhood.

In covering this story on the BBC News channel, their report said that new houses will still need to be built. Do they?

Comments

[ggreig]

I agree that the overpopulation of the South East is a Bad Thing - for the rest of England, the rest of the UK, and probably for the South East itself.

However, I think it would take more extensive social engineering than just failing to build houses to prevent the lemming-like rush to live/work/do business there. Lack of housing, while the other pressures to go there remain, will just result in slum conditions.

You need to move significant parts of government and business out of London to make that kind of change. Difficult.

[tobyaw]

Maybe if businesses' NI contributions were related to the local cost of living, there would be a financial incentive to employ people in cheaper areas. That could help to spread business spending around the country.

And if the government took a lead in this by saying that it was unaffordable to pay anyone a London weighting on a public-sector salary that didn't have a really good reason to be based in London, then that could see public spending move out of the south east too.

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall the howls of protest when the Scottish Government took the decision to move some department or other (?Sport? Culture?) to Inverness. I think the crying would be deafening if you moved (and I think they should) major departments out of London. As far as I can see, the only Government Department with a decent reason to be in London at all is the Foreign Office, and that only because all the Ambassadors are there...

Hrmmm.... Move Defence to somewhere between Portsmouth, Brize Norton, and Salisbury Plain. Winchester, perhaps? Salisbury? Home office to Manchester. Environment to Newcastle. Treasury to Birmingham. Can you hear the lamentation of the masses already? And yet presumably it would net a massive amount for the treasury, as you sold all that prime housing land in central london.

[tobyaw]

Scottish Natural Heritage? They moved from Edinburgh to Inverness. Actually, I could heartily support moving most government departments to the highlands.