Sustainable Communities Bill ignores sustainable housing
Gerrard Winstanley
office at evnuk.org.uk
Tue Feb 7 16:37:07 GMT 2006
From/By
James Armstrong
22 Harveys Terrace,
Dorchester DT1 ILE tel 01305 265510
LOCAL WORKS - WITHOUT HOUSES FOR LOCAL WORKERS?
THE SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES BILL
[3306 complete. 900 last page]
A proposed new Act of parliament promoting sustainable communities
does not address the rural housing crisis. This is curious when
housing is the biggest item in household expenditure. 'Farming',
'Food', 'Travel' and 'Traffic congestion' are prominently featured in
the Bill. In contrast 'Social housing' is obscurely mentioned but
neither defined nor expanded on, and grouped with 'Post-offices,
Eating places and Open spaces', in paragraph 2 of schedule one.
This Bill is an appeal to harness the genuine grievances of rural
communities about centralised 'economic' driven policies from
Whitehall inappropriate for local circumstances, aiming to direct
the energy of the nimby brigade towards otherwise laudable goals like
reducing traffic congestion, reducing food miles and reducing the
monopoly of food supply by private or public agencies using
centralised depot distribution systems whether supermarkets or
suppliers of milk and meals for schoolchildren.
THERE IS A HOUSING CRISIS
The lack of houses available to people on low, average and even high
incomes is a national problem and particularly acute in rural areas
and arguably is the main cause of the decline of rural communities..
How can communities thrive if people cannot afford to live there?
Without people how can commerce thrive- and vice versa? Yet the
campaign and the Bill is curiously unconcerned about the housing
crisis.
Rural housing is a divisive issue amongst those who have it who want
the value to go up and those who need it who want prices to come down.
There is tension between wealthy incomers and disadvantaged local
people in unequal competition for the same houses. Landowners, owner
farmers and property owners thrive from the scarcity of houses. When
permission to develop is given, land jumps in value from £2,000 per
acre to anything up to £1million per acre. The landowner pockets the
windfall the house-buyer pays an inflated price and the house-needy
goes un-housed.
If land was widely owned the profits would be dispersed. If
permission was freely available the scarcity and speculative value of
land with permission would disappear.
If houses were built by the self-build method this would reward
local initiative, encourage sustainability and the community's
economy would be stimulated by the local activity.
There is potential controversy too from people who oppose any
development especially from non appropriate building. Revealingly the
campaign features as a bullet point, '162 green belt developments
approved'. and glaringly omits the 'elephant in the sitting room' -
house completions annually declining whilst housing demand annually
increases. And house prices out of reach of average salary earners.
We can only conclude that to avoid antagonising opposing interests
the campaign takes the easy way out and omits mention of the problem.
The Sustainable Communities Bill mistakenly believes that
sustainability can be achieved without large-scale building of houses
in rural areas, also associates development with despoliation. This
is muddle-headed when the only housing mentioned in the campaign is
'social housing'.which is typically low specification houses. built to
a budget, in mono designs, grouped in clearly defined schemes, not
integrated with non-social houses, administered by a housing
association for which occupants are admitted after means testing and
not allowed to be sold on the open market. In other words only
socially divisive social housing is promoted in a Bill promoting
community.
All communities are local. Houses are an existential requirement for
living and so you cannot have a community without adequate housing,
nor a thriving economy without a growing community . A Bill which
perpetuates social division and does not address the acute rural
housing crisis can neither achieve its aims nor hope to enjoy enjoy
wide support.
Central to an amended Bill should be measures to build houses in
rural areas which people could occupy while living in an
integrated community, houses within a price range appropriate to the
local economy. We say this can be achieved by community supported
self- or community-built housing as an alternative to inappropriate
overpriced commercially built 'estates' of houses of a specification
designed to appeal to affluent incomers. 'Social housing' stigmatises
and is a superfluous stickingplaster solution. 'Social housing' is
divisive, does not confront the mainstream crisis of high price, low
availability and often intrusive design.
To what kind of 'choice' does a 'social housing' policy aspire ? To
this end Planning Permission should be directed to the house-needy
would-be occupier not, as at present, to the well-housed and
affluent land-owners who as a group have abused their monopoly of
land to restrict the supply while illegally reaping monopoly rewards.
An amended Sustainable Communities Bill would have the role of
assessing local housing needs, planning local development, monitoring
building and occupancy.
J Armstrong Dorchester
3rd Feb
2006
SELF- AND COMMUNITY- BUILT HOUSES MEET LOCAL NEEDS AND
PROMOTE COMMUNITIES. LANDOWNERS AND BUILDERS NOW MONOPOLISE
BUILDING LAND.
Promoting Self Build and community build houses in locations styles
and by people and on land approved and provided by the community is a
solution.
At present the provision of houses is handed over to commercial
interests.
The driving forces are the landowners (a restricted group) whose
interest is to pocket the windfall gains received with planning
permission of undeveloped land. Land prices rocket.the other
beneficiaries are the Property developers whose interest is to
maximise the profit by building at the lowest cost and selling at the
maximum price. The result is standardised mono-designs, crammed on
sites at the highest possible density. Houses are built of design,
specification and price inappropriate to the locality because they are
not tailored to the local need but to the most lucrative market.
A scarce resource, building land with planning permission, is
being used to make profit, not to meet needs. This scarce
resource, land with p.p. or with potential planning permission, has
been bought up long ago..This is where the name 'spec. builder' comes
from. .All monopolies used against the public interest are illegal.
The monopoly (land with p.p.) of an existential need (shelter-houses)
usedagainst the public interest ( to raise prices ) is illegal, evil,
unpardonable and unsupportable in a democracy- yet this is the result
of the present planning regime.
Self build is an entirely practical method of people building exactly
the house to meet their specific need, at the highest specification
and the lowest cost . The technology is widely available and the level
of skill required no greater than that available to the average d-I-y
enthusiast.
The key fact is that the cost of the materials and labour for a high
specification house is sometimes less and often very much less than
half the asking price. If in the case of self build the labour cost
is nil or next to nil then the cost is yet considerably lower and
comes within the range of the least affluent of the community. In
addition mortgages are available to help finance the self building
process. Also the great advantage of self build is that building can
progress as the income of the builder allows. On completion the house
is a source of pride to the builder and the community and fosters
initiative. Eco- friendly materials can be used . Labour/ and
material/miles are typically reduced.
Self build is an iconic example of local initiative for sustainable
communities promoting local employment , use of local labour,
materials etc. and allowing the community to influence the look of
it's environment. It is perverse that self build is virtually squeezed
out of the system. It is unacceptable that the ODPM Barker Report
inadvertently or purposely entirely overlooked it. It is squeezed out
because of the difficulty of finding land and the exploitatve price
of land with planning permission. This in turn is caused by a
deliberate campaign principally by two groups. Builders who want to
profit by cornering the market for new houses at high prices The
method used is to buy up land with p.p. and land with potential p.p.
round every town and village in the country. Thus a country wide
virtual monopoly has been achieved The ODPM Barker Report lists the
landholdings of the giant builders. Inspection of the registers in
the planning department of the county offices reveals the local
monopoly of applications by a few entities. Second. The giant
landowners want to maintain their windfall gains from releasing
land for building. The method is to dribble the land onto the
market, Restricting the supply of land puts up the price. This
reaches obscene levels as at present when a backlog of housing demand
builds up against an ever increasing peak of prices for the limited
supply of houses available House builders join in the campaign by
restricting the number of houses built. National statistics show an
annual decline in the number of houses built, Barker suggests the
annual shortfall is in tens of thousands and the cumulative shortfall
perhaps half a million.
The Planning Regime is not blameless. It lends itself to
exploitation by those who control the availability of land. This was
foreseen by the sponsors in 1947, but has only reached crisis point as
builders' land acquisition policies have matured so that they have
amassed land-banks over the years.
A demonstration of this is that now the giant building contractors
make more profit from buying and selling land than they do from
house- building..
THE NEED FOR HOUSING LAND IS EXPLOITED BY MONOPOLY LANDOWNERS
In this context it is worth looking at a historical precedent - the
Government's handling of the sudden demand for land in the nineteenth
Century.
When a national railway network was proposed arrangements were
necessary to see that land was available. The Government foresaw that
this was an opportunity for unscrupulous landowners to
Hold out against the needs of the railway companies which had a
public service dimension.. HMG intervened and passed the Regulation
of Railways Act 1844. Among the provisions were the possibility of
compulsory purchase of land. Also the proviso that HMG could call in
the operation for public ownership after the railway companies had
operated commercially for 21 years. (a little noted precedent for
'nationalisation' although never implemented) Clearly HMG
anticipated that speculators would exploit their monopoly of transport
against the public interest. To that end many subsequent railway Acts
limited freight charges. Of course abuses happened and in some
cases Railway promoters solicited funds from the public with no
intention of ever building a railway. A peculiarity of land is that
it lends itself to monopoly exploitation. All land is 'local' he
who owns it owns a monopoly of that land, so it is peculiarly
susceptible to exploitation Would it be surprising if speculators
have exploited the T &C P Act?
They have done so and it is time to amend it.
THE PLANNING REGIME REQUIRES RADICAL CHANGE
Planning permission is now granted to the land owner. It should be
changed and granted to the would-be house occupier and preference
given to the self or community builder /occupier.
The inspiration for the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 was
for central Government to step in and secure for the people adequate
houses and to preclude unscrupulous people from exploiting their
need .
The Act has failed in this. It should either be withdrawn completely
allowing people in housing need to build anywhere they want- housing
being more critical than ogling the landscape in a utilitarian
society.
Or, a new Act should be introduced meeting the needs of the homeless
not the pockets of the wealthy and the share prices of Banks,
Building Societies and Builders in the city .
Planning permission for house-building should be granted to the house-
needy and not to the landowner who is already well housed.
This needs supervision at a local level- here the proposed Local
Works communities have a role. In deciding where houses should be
built, how many, of what design and by whom. They can give preference
to sustainable building for sustainable communities by encouraging
local families to undertake building the houses they require.
In the present bizarre and unsatisfactory situation the planning
regime instead of promoting the building of houses with the interests
of the house needy in mind, it rewards landowners with unearned and
unheard riches, landowners either hereditary or in their guise as
land-banking building corporations whose interest is restricting the
supply of new houses, driving up their prices and catering for the
most affluent speculators in houses to the detriment of both those in
greatest need and the beauty of the countryside and the character of
our villages and towns. Planning Permission Punishes the Poor.
'SOCIAL HOUSING' IS 'PAST IT'. SUPER SELF-BUILD HOUSING IS JUST GOOD
ENOUGH
Within the range of products displayed by such builders are included
purposely non-designed houses whose role is to show off the
desirability of the up-market 'estates'(sic). Easily recognisable
non-designs of four apartments to the block turn up in myriads in
every town and County in the country. Another role is to build a
'social house' which profitably attracts Housing Corporation funds -
presented by the developer as a standard design sold at 'cost' to
contrast the additional design features of the non-standard house as
justifying the enormously inflated (and speculative) price demanded of
the public.
'Social houses' then both offer a sop to the conscience of local and
central government otherwise apparently helpless before the
machinations of the builders. The house-needy are stigmatised by their
post-code . To the advantage of the speculative builder the otherwise
often poorly appointed and unremarkable standard show house is set-
off to its advantage. This is a definition of social housing you
will not find in the Barker Report. 'Social Housing' extracted from
developers is a puncture repair solution to a defective sticking-
plaster. Council houses were built in thousands in the 1950's. Now
HMG funding has been withdrawn .
The alternative is better houses and savings by building houses by
the Community-build method - so great that those unable to wholly
finance their own house can be part financed by the others benefiting
from the new regime, and part by the labour the would-be occupier
contributes to the community build project.
THE TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING ACTS NEED TOTAL REVISION AND REDIRECTION
The purpose of introducing in 1947 the Town and Country Planning Act,
which controls where houses are built by issuing permits to build,
was to compensate landowners with £300million for their development
rights taken away when formerly they benefited from the increase
in value as agricultural land was acquired when needed for housing
development. The war destruction, the resumption after the hiatus in
building and the demob of a million servicemen stimulated this
central government initiative.
Providing 'land fit for heroes' in 1947, would inevitably be an
expensive, £m300 , sticking plaster, without confronting the Powerful.
It was designed to cover the wound left by the missing land on which
to build the urgently needed houses, land torn away from cottagers,
small farmers and squatters in the previous century under the
Enclosure Acts. The 1947 Act took for granted that private agencies
would otherwise exploit people's needs. Central to the current housing
problem is land. Again and again the Barker Report states this. It
is the scarcity of land with planning permission- not of land in
absolute terms which is the root cause of the housing crisis. There
is no shortage of land in a territory with 60million acres -
sufficient for Puck to circle the globe with a ribbon of British land
four miles wide (and return in forty minutes.)
The recipients of planning permission should be the house-needy not
the landowner. There is no alternative way to make housing provision
match people's needs and means. This will at a stroke destroy
windfall gains, introduce an alternative to buying a house, replace
speculative land value with lower existing -use value, and
significantly and crucially reduce the cost of providing new houses.
It will also free tenant farmers from ruin. If it reduces the income
of the predatory rich few, they are a tiny privileged well-housed
selfish coterie satiated with past undeserved gains and it will
increase the felicity and happiness of the many, the long suffering
badly housed and the young house-needy. The 1947 Act has proved a
disastrous license to exploit people's needs. Associated with the
Proposed New Act is a reserved compulsory purchase power to bring
forward land required for manifest public need. Providing land for
houses requires these powers more than do roads, railways & defence.
Why defend an inequitable society?
Such an Act , by reducing the price of land from speculative/ monopoly
-to commercial- levels will make it possible at any future date to
de-privatise land so that its use reverts to the public whose
existence and needs give it value and taking it from the status of a
commodity open to speculation to that of a utility and a national
resource not a private treasure hoard.. The public interest and
dependence on land , shown by the amount of public taxes required to
control its use, buy it for houses, roads and airports and subsidise
it for farming , suggests the time has come to prevent it's
exploitation against the public interest. Winston Churchill
castigated the landowners' monopoly as 'the worst of all monopolies'
to the House of Commons in 1909 and advocated ending it. Churchill
and Lloyd George were sidetracked by local trouble in Sarajevo.
THE LANDOWNERS COUP THE STATE WITHIN THE STATE
There is no polite way of saying that a small group of wealthy,
powerful and politically entrenched people, the traditional land
lords , the N.F.U., and builder/developers-the ariviste landowners
with giant land banks, maliciously spread a campaign of misinformation
to protect their ill gained profits amounting to £billions annually.
They inflate the cost of the largest item in household expenditure-
housing, and via mortgages they influence the amount of consumer
spending - which regulates the economy. They have more control than
the Exchequer ! The myth is that there is a shortage of land, that
the green belt is in danger, that the countryside will be concreted-
over if the required houses are built, that development is spoliation
and that they are custodians and guardians of something called '
heritage..' There are infinite variations of this theme. Land
arrangements are no more ancient than the Tudor pillagers and lordly
enclosers of the 1800's
This group long ago captured political power in Parliament and now
concentrate on manipulating their monopoly of landownership (see
Kevin Cahill's book, ' Who Owns Britain?') in our arrested democracy.
This coup was achieved by promoting advantageous laws shifting the
burden of tax from Land tax to Income tax, now to Council tax. This is
done through securing massive state subsidies to agriculture, and
increased land values through both EU grants and by manipulating the
Planning Laws in their favour.
The CAP Regime now replaces the Corn laws. Exploiting housing need is
the latest scam. Plus ca change
Exercising a monopoly (on land with p.p.) against the public interest
is illegal. Although (so far) it escapes the prosecution of the
Competition Commission this is not a reason to preserve misdirected
Planning regime and the private taxation system dependent on it which
operate in exactly the opposite fashion to which it was intended
and is an affront to open democracy. The truth is that there is
plenty of land, that houses of appropriate design complement the
landscape as John Constable showed, that it is the developers'
ghastly commercial non-designs in which the minimum architectural
input and maximum environmental damage is involved which are
inappropriate and attract valid nimby resentment. Their universal
product sits ill at ease with vernacular designed houses ,
themselves a well-loved feature of the British landscape.
Exploiting vulnerable people is a vicious and illegal abuse of the
monopoly of land, wealth and privilege. Changing the planning regime
and promoting self and community build housing with the help of an
amended Sustainable Communities Bill can right this pernicious abuse
which will be changed because democracy cannot survive entrenched
injustice. 900words James Armstrong, 3rd Feb 2006
james36armstrong at hotmail.com
Features Editor
Planning Magazine.
Dear Sir,
4th Feb 2006
I enclose an article of 792 words, ' Local Works- without houses for
local workers?'
On the subject of the Sustainable Commuities Bill For consideration
for your publication 'Planning'.
A further 900 word article 'The £300million sticking plaster' , the
1947 T & C P Act '
goes on to trace the original intention of the present planning
regime and suggest radical changes.
The message is :
"A scarce resource, building land with planning permission, is being
used to make profit, not to meet needs.
This scarce resource, land with p.p. or with potential planning
permission, has been bought up long ago..
This is where the name 'spec. builder' comes from. .
Monopolies used against the public interest are illegal under UK and
EU law..
The monopoly (land with p.p.) of an existential need (shelter-houses)
used against the public interest ( to raise prices ) is illegal, evil,
unpardonable and unsupportable in a democracy- yet this is the
result of the present planning regime. "
You will have seen that Messrs Sainsbury have appealed to the
Competition Commission against the monopoly of out of town sites for
supermarkets. Last year I followed the same thinking and asked CC to
consider the monopoly of building land.
I made a submission to the Barker Report and have found glaring
oversights in the method and findings.
Yours faithfully,
James Armstrong
22 Harveys Terrace,
Dorchester DT1 ILE tel 01305 265510
The Editor,
The Guardian
Dear Sir, AN ILLEGAL HOUSING SCAM.
4th Feb 2006
I enclose for your consideration an article of 792 words, ' Local
Works- without houses for local workers?'
On the subject of the Sustainable Commuities Bill For consideration
for your publication.
A further 900 word article 'The £300million sticking plaster' , the
1947 T & C P Act '
goes on to trace the original intention of the present planning
regime and suggest radical changes.
Alternatively the article can be printed complete at 3306 words.
Yours faithfully,
James Armstrong
22 Harveys Terrace,
Dorchester DT1 ILE tel 01305 265510
LOCAL WORKS - WITHOUT HOUSES FOR LOCAL WORKERS?
792words (I page)
THE SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES BILL 3306 complete. 900 last page
A proposed new Act of parliament promoting sustainable communities
does not address the rural housing crisis. This is curious when
housing is the biggest item in household expenditure.' Farming' , Food
'
And 'Travel' and 'Traffic congestion' are prominently featured in
the Bill. In contrast 'Social housing' is obscurely mentioned but
neither defined nor expanded on, and grouped with Post-offices,
Eating places and Open spaces, in paragraph 2 of schedule one.
This Bill is an appeal to harness the genuine grievances of
rural communities about centralised 'economic' driven policies from
Whitehall inappropriate for local circumstances, aiming to direct
the energy of the nimby brigade towards otherwise laudable goals like
reducing traffic congestion, reducing food miles and reducing the
monopoly of food supply by private or public agencies using
centralised depot distribution systems whether supermarkets or
suppliers of milk and meals for schoolchildren.
THERE IS A HOUSING CRISIS
The lack of houses available to people on low, average and
even high incomes is a national problem and particularly acute in
rural areas and arguably is the main cause of the decline of rural
communities.. How can communities thrive if people cannot afford to
live there? Without people how can commerce thrive- and vice versa?
Yet the campaign and the Bill is curiously unconcerned about the
housing crisis.
Rural housing is a divisive issue amongst those who have it
who want the value to go up and those who need it who want prices to
come down.. There is tension between wealthy incomers and
disadvantaged local people in unequal competition for the same
houses. Landowners , owner farmers and property owners thrive from
the scarcity of houses. When permission to develop is given, land
jumps in value from £2,000 per acre to £1million per acre. The
landowner pockets the windfall the house-buyer pays an inflated
price and the house-needy goes un-housed. If land was widely owned
the profits would be dispersed. If permission was freely available
the scarcity and speculative value of land with permission would
disappear. If houses were built by the self-build method this would
reward local initiative, encourage sustainability and the
community's economy would be stimulated by the local activity.
There is potential controversy too from people who oppose any
development especially from non appropriate building. Revealingly the
campaign features as a bullet point, '162 green belt developments
approved'. and glaringly omits the 'elephant in the sitting room' -
house completions annually declining whilst housing demand annually
increases. And house prices out of reach of average salary earners.
We can only conclude that to avoid antagonising opposing interests
the campaign takes the easy way out and omits mention of the problem.
The Sustainable Communities Bill mistakenly believes that
sustainability can be achieved without
large-scale building of houses in rural areas, also associates
development with despoliation.This is muddle-headed when the only
housing mentioned in the campaign is 'social housing'.which is
typically low specification houses. built to a budget, in mono
designs, grouped in clearly defined schemes, not integrated with
non-social houses, administered by a housing association for which
occupants are admitted after means testing and not allowed to be sold
on the open market. In other words only socially divisive social
housing is promoted in a Bill promoting community. All
communities are local. Houses are an existential requirement for
living and so you cannot have a community without adequate housing,
nor a thriving economy without a growing community . A Bill which
perpetuates social division and does not address the acute rural
housing crisis can neither achieve its aims nor hope to enjoy enjoy
wide support.
Central to an amended Bill should be measures to build houses
in rural areas which people could occupy while living in an
integrated community, houses within a price range appropriate to the
local economy. We say this can be achieved by community supported
self- or community-built housing as an alternative to inappropriate
overpriced commercially built 'estates' of houses of a specification
designed to appeal to affluent incomers.. 'Social housing '
stigmatises and is a superfluous stickingplaster solution . 'Social
housing' is divisive, does not confront the mainstream crisis of high
price, low availability and often intrusive design. To what kind of
'choice' does a 'social housing' policy aspire ? To this end
Planning Permission should be directed to the house-needy would-be
occupier not, as at present, to the well-housed and affluent land-
owners who as a group have abused their monopoly of land to restrict
the supply while illegally reaping monopoly rewards. An amended
Sustainable Communities Bill would have the role of assessing local
housing needs, planning local development, monitoring building and
occupancy.
J Armstrong Dorchester
3rd Feb
2006
SELF- AND COMMUNITY- BUILT HOUSES MEET LOCAL NEEDS AND
PROMOTE COMMUNITIES. LANDOWNERS AND BUILDERS NOW MONOPOLISE
BUILDING LAND.
Promoting Self Build and community build houses in locations styles
and by people and on land approved and provided by the community is a
solution.
At present the provision of houses is handed over to commercial
interests.
The driving forces are the landowners (a restricted group) whose
interest is to pocket the windfall gains received with planning
permission of undeveloped land. Land prices rocket.the other
beneficiaries are the Property developers whose interest is to
maximise the profit by building at the lowest cost and selling at the
maximum price. The result is standardised mono-designs, crammed on
sites at the highest possible density. Houses are built of design,
specification and price inappropriate to the locality because they are
not tailored to the local need but to the most lucrative market.
A scarce resource, building land with planning permission, is
being used to make profit, not to meet needs. This scarce
resource, land with p.p. or with potential planning permission, has
been bought up long ago..This is where the name 'spec. builder' comes
from. .All monopolies used against the public interest are illegal.
The monopoly (land with p.p.) of an existential need (shelter-houses)
usedagainst the public interest ( to raise prices ) is illegal, evil,
unpardonable and unsupportable in a democracy- yet this is the result
of the present planning regime.
Self build is an entirely practical method of people building exactly
the house to meet their specific need, at the highest specification
and the lowest cost . The technology is widely available and the level
of skill required no greater than that available to the average d-I-y
enthusiast.
The key fact is that the cost of the materials and labour for a high
specification house is sometimes less and often very much less than
half the asking price. If in the case of self build the labour cost
is nil or next to nil then the cost is yet considerably lower and
comes within the range of the least affluent of the community. In
addition mortgages are available to help finance the self building
process. Also the great advantage of self build is that building can
progress as the income of the builder allows. On completion the house
is a source of pride to the builder and the community and fosters
initiative. Eco- friendly materials can be used . Labour/ and
material/miles are typically reduced.
Self build is an iconic example of local initiative for sustainable
communities promoting local employment , use of local labour,
materials etc. and allowing the community to influence the look of
it's environment. It is perverse that self build is virtually squeezed
out of the system. It is unacceptable that the ODPM Barker Report
inadvertently or purposely entirely overlooked it. It is squeezed out
because of the difficulty of finding land and the exploitatve price
of land with planning permission. This in turn is caused by a
deliberate campaign principally by two groups. Builders who want to
profit by cornering the market for new houses at high prices The
method used is to buy up land with p.p. and land with potential p.p.
round every town and village in the country. Thus a country wide
virtual monopoly has been achieved The ODPM Barker Report lists the
landholdings of the giant builders. Inspection of the registers in
the planning department of the county offices reveals the local
monopoly of applications by a few entities. Second. The giant
landowners want to maintain their windfall gains from releasing
land for building. The method is to dribble the land onto the
market, Restricting the supply of land puts up the price. This
reaches obscene levels as at present when a backlog of housing demand
builds up against an ever increasing peak of prices for the limited
supply of houses available House builders join in the campaign by
restricting the number of houses built. National statistics show an
annual decline in the number of houses built, Barker suggests the
annual shortfall is in tens of thousands and the cumulative shortfall
perhaps half a million.
The Planning Regime is not blameless. It lends itself to
exploitation by those who control the availability of land. This was
foreseen by the sponsors in 1947, but has only reached crisis point as
builders' land acquisition policies have matured so that they have
amassed land-banks over the years.
A demonstration of this is that now the giant building contractors
make more profit from buying and selling land than they do from
house- building..
THE NEED FOR HOUSING LAND IS EXPLOITED BY MONOPOLY LANDOWNERS
In this context it is worth looking at a historical precedent - the
Government's handling of the sudden demand for land in the nineteenth
Century.
When a national railway network was proposed arrangements were
necessary to see that land was available. The Government foresaw that
this was an opportunity for unscrupulous landowners to
Hold out against the needs of the railway companies which had a
public service dimension.. HMG intervened and passed the Regulation
of Railways Act 1844. Among the provisions were the possibility of
compulsory purchase of land. Also the proviso that HMG could call in
the operation for public ownership after the railway companies had
operated commercially for 21 years. (a little noted precedent for
'nationalisation' although never implemented) Clearly HMG
anticipated that speculators would exploit their monopoly of transport
against the public interest. To that end many subsequent railway Acts
limited freight charges. Of course abuses happened and in some
cases Railway promoters solicited funds from the public with no
intention of ever building a railway. A peculiarity of land is that
it lends itself to monopoly exploitation. All land is 'local' he
who owns it owns a monopoly of that land, so it is peculiarly
susceptible to exploitation Would it be surprising if speculators
have exploited the T &C P Act?
They have done so and it is time to amend it.
THE PLANNING REGIME REQUIRES RADICAL CHANGE
Planning permission is now granted to the land owner. It should be
changed and granted to the would-be house occupier and preference
given to the self or community builder /occupier.
The inspiration for the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 was
for central Government to step in and secure for the people adequate
houses and to preclude unscrupulous people from exploiting their
need .
The Act has failed in this. It should either be withdrawn completely
allowing people in housing need to build anywhere they want- housing
being more critical than ogling the landscape in a utilitarian
society.
Or, a new Act should be introduced meeting the needs of the homeless
not the pockets of the wealthy and the share prices of Banks,
Building Societies and Builders in the city .
Planning permission for house-building should be granted to the house-
needy and not to the landowner who is already well housed.
This needs supervision at a local level- here the proposed Local
Works communities have a role. In deciding where houses should be
built, how many, of what design and by whom. They can give preference
to sustainable building for sustainable communities by encouraging
local families to undertake building the houses they require.
In the present bizarre and unsatisfactory situation the planning
regime instead of promoting the building of houses with the interests
of the house needy in mind, it rewards landowners with unearned and
unheard riches, landowners either hereditary or in their guise as
land-banking building corporations whose interest is restricting the
supply of new houses, driving up their prices and catering for the
most affluent speculators in houses to the detriment of both those in
greatest need and the beauty of the countryside and the character of
our villages and towns. Planning Permission Punishes the Poor.
'SOCIAL HOUSING' IS 'PAST IT'. SUPER SELF-BUILD HOUSING IS JUST GOOD
ENOUGH
Within the range of products displayed by such builders are included
purposely non-designed houses whose role is to show off the
desirability of the up-market 'estates'(sic). Easily recognisable
non-designs of four apartments to the block turn up in myriads in
every town and County in the country. Another role is to build a
'social house' which profitably attracts Housing Corporation funds -
presented by the developer as a standard design sold at 'cost' to
contrast the additional design features of the non-standard house as
justifying the enormously inflated (and speculative) price demanded of
the public.
'Social houses' then both offer a sop to the conscience of local and
central government otherwise apparently helpless before the
machinations of the builders. The house-needy are stigmatised by their
post-code . To the advantage of the speculative builder the otherwise
often poorly appointed and unremarkable standard show house is set-
off to its advantage. This is a definition of social housing you
will not find in the Barker Report. 'Social Housing' extracted from
developers is a puncture repair solution to a defective sticking-
plaster. Council houses were built in thousands in the 1950's. Now
HMG funding has been withdrawn .
The alternative is better houses and savings by building houses by
the Community-build method - so great that those unable to wholly
finance their own house can be part financed by the others benefiting
from the new regime, and part by the labour the would-be occupier
contributes to the community build project.
THE TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING ACTS NEED TOTAL REVISION AND REDIRECTION
The purpose of introducing in 1947 the Town and Country Planning Act,
which controls where houses are built by issuing permits to build,
was to compensate landowners with £300million for their development
rights taken away when formerly they benefited from the increase
in value as agricultural land was acquired when needed for housing
development. The war destruction, the resumption after the hiatus in
building and the demob of a million servicemen stimulated this
central government initiative.
Providing 'land fit for heroes' in 1947, would inevitably be an
expensive, £m300 , sticking plaster, without confronting the Powerful.
It was designed to cover the wound left by the missing land on which
to build the urgently needed houses, land torn away from cottagers,
small farmers and squatters in the previous century under the
Enclosure Acts. The 1947 Act took for granted that private agencies
would otherwise exploit people's needs. Central to the current housing
problem is land. Again and again the Barker Report states this. It
is the scarcity of land with planning permission- not of land in
absolute terms which is the root cause of the housing crisis. There
is no shortage of land in a territory with 60million acres -
sufficient for Puck to circle the globe with a ribbon of British land
four miles wide (and return in forty minutes.)
The recipients of planning permission should be the house-needy not
the landowner. There is no alternative way to make housing provision
match people's needs and means. This will at a stroke destroy
windfall gains, introduce an alternative to buying a house, replace
speculative land value with lower existing -use value, and
significantly and crucially reduce the cost of providing new houses.
It will also free tenant farmers from ruin. If it reduces the income
of the predatory rich few, they are a tiny privileged well-housed
selfish coterie satiated with past undeserved gains and it will
increase the felicity and happiness of the many, the long suffering
badly housed and the young house-needy. The 1947 Act has proved a
disastrous license to exploit people's needs. Associated with the
Proposed New Act is a reserved compulsory purchase power to bring
forward land required for manifest public need. Providing land for
houses requires these powers more than do roads, railways & defence.
Why defend an inequitable society?
Such an Act , by reducing the price of land from speculative/ monopoly
-to commercial- levels will make it possible at any future date to
de-privatise land so that its use reverts to the public whose
existence and needs give it value and taking it from the status of a
commodity open to speculation to that of a utility and a national
resource not a private treasure hoard.. The public interest and
dependence on land , shown by the amount of public taxes required to
control its use, buy it for houses, roads and airports and subsidise
it for farming , suggests the time has come to prevent it's
exploitation against the public interest. Winston Churchill
castigated the landowners' monopoly as 'the worst of all monopolies'
to the House of Commons in 1909 and advocated ending it. Churchill
and Lloyd George were sidetracked by local trouble in Sarajevo.
THE LANDOWNERS COUP THE STATE WITHIN THE STATE
There is no polite way of saying that a small group of wealthy,
powerful and politically entrenched people, the traditional land
lords , the N.F.U., and builder/developers-the ariviste landowners
with giant land banks, maliciously spread a campaign of misinformation
to protect their ill gained profits amounting to £billions annually.
They inflate the cost of the largest item in household expenditure-
housing, and via mortgages they influence the amount of consumer
spending - which regulates the economy. They have more control than
the Exchequer ! The myth is that there is a shortage of land, that
the green belt is in danger, that the countryside will be concreted-
over if the required houses are built, that development is spoliation
and that they are custodians and guardians of something called '
heritage..' There are infinite variations of this theme. Land
arrangements are no more ancient than the Tudor pillagers and lordly
enclosers of the 1800's
This group long ago captured political power in Parliament and now
concentrate on manipulating their monopoly of landownership (see
Kevin Cahill's book, ' Who Owns Britain?') in our arrested democracy.
This coup was achieved by promoting advantageous laws shifting the
burden of tax from Land tax to Income tax, now to Council tax. This is
done through securing massive state subsidies to agriculture, and
increased land values through both EU grants and by manipulating the
Planning Laws in their favour.
The CAP Regime now replaces the Corn laws. Exploiting housing need is
the latest scam. Plus ca change
Exercising a monopoly (on land with p.p.) against the public interest
is illegal. Although (so far) it escapes the prosecution of the
Competition Commission this is not a reason to preserve misdirected
Planning regime and the private taxation system dependent on it which
operate in exactly the opposite fashion to which it was intended
and is an affront to open democracy. The truth is that there is
plenty of land, that houses of appropriate design complement the
landscape as John Constable showed, that it is the developers'
ghastly commercial non-designs in which the minimum architectural
input and maximum environmental damage is involved which are
inappropriate and attract valid nimby resentment. Their universal
product sits ill at ease with vernacular designed houses ,
themselves a well-loved feature of the British landscape.
Exploiting vulnerable people is a vicious and illegal abuse of the
monopoly of land, wealth and privilege. Changing the planning regime
and promoting self and community build housing with the help of an
amended Sustainable Communities Bill can right this pernicious abuse
which will be changed because democracy cannot survive entrenched
injustice. 900words James Armstrong, 3rd Feb 2006
james36armstrong at hotmail.com
Features Editor
Planning Magazine.
Dear Sir,
4th Feb 2006
I enclose an article of 792 words, ' Local Works- without houses for
local workers?'
On the subject of the Sustainable Commuities Bill For consideration
for your publication 'Planning'.
A further 900 word article 'The £300million sticking plaster' , the
1947 T & C P Act '
goes on to trace the original intention of the present planning
regime and suggest radical changes.
The message is :
"A scarce resource, building land with planning permission, is being
used to make profit, not to meet needs.
This scarce resource, land with p.p. or with potential planning
permission, has been bought up long ago..
This is where the name 'spec. builder' comes from. .
Monopolies used against the public interest are illegal under UK and
EU law..
The monopoly (land with p.p.) of an existential need (shelter-houses)
used against the public interest ( to raise prices ) is illegal, evil,
unpardonable and unsupportable in a democracy- yet this is the
result of the present planning regime. "
You will have seen that Messrs Sainsbury have appealed to the
Competition Commission against the monopoly of out of town sites for
supermarkets. Last year I followed the same thinking and asked CC to
consider the monopoly of building land.
I made a submission to the Barker Report and have found glaring
oversights in the method and findings.
Yours faithfully,
James Armstrong
22 Harveys Terrace,
Dorchester DT1 ILE tel 01305 265510
More information about the Diggers350
mailing list