Scrutable

Trinucleus wrote: Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:07 pm What they ought to do is every ten years or so, count how many people there are, and where they live. And also to levy developers to pay for the infrastructure improvements.........

There are reasons to suppose that the 10 year census under-counts by a lot, as the experience of vaccinating everyone appeared show a lot more people than the census counts. In some countries, it is common for people to be registered in their home town/village, but be renting a room in the city where they work. For example, I did some work in Prague once, and the local authority reckoned the "overnight population" was 50% higher than the number of people registered as living there.

Though of course in most of our neighbouring countries it is common for people to be registered at an address, and have an identity card with their address on, which it is hard to live without. That would seem like a good idea to me. You'd have a much better idea how many people there were and where they lived in such a case.

We do in fact have two systems of getting developers to pay for infrastructure.

One is the Community Infrastructure Levy. But it only funds transport improvements, and only exists in locations where there is new transport infrastructure being developed.

But more generally any planning application can be subject to a section 106 agreement. This covers any obligation that the planning authority places on a grant of a planning application. For large developments, it tends to involve them building infrastructure. What happens in practice, since it isn't ideal that they build this stuff themselves, is that they hand over an agreed sum of money in lieu of the obligation and the local authority uses it to improve infrastructure.

Section 106 agreements are unusual for small developments. But if councils aren't actively making such arrangements for larger developments, and putting the money towards the needed infrastructure, I would think that is more the council's fault than the developers.

Of course developers are very clever at getting a planning permission and coming back later and saying it is no longer financially feasible, and so getting any "affordable" housing obligations and section 106 obligations reduced. In fact it seems that a common sequence of events is get the permission, hang around until things look worse, renegotiate, then hang around until things are better again.

The town I was referring to is Hemel Hempstead and the development is on the West side. Its two vehicle access roads would send traffic into town through housing estates which were themselves previous expansions, while the obvious location of local jobs would be the industrial estate 5 miles away on the opposite side of town. (There's housing land allocated on that side of town too, for those who want to live conveniently close to the Buncefield fuel depot which famously exploded in 2005.) Before things went quiet there seemed to be a lot of haggling over what facilities would also be built. 900 houses became 1,100. A 10-pitch travellers site got batted around the map like the tennis ball nobody wanted. A good intention to build a doctor's surgery seemed to get dropped. A primary school, a small supermarket, play areas and a community centre were still on the cards last I heard.

Martin Y wrote: Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:09 pm The town I was referring to is Hemel Hempstead and the development is on the West side. Its two vehicle access roads would send traffic into town through housing estates which were themselves previous expansions, while the obvious location of local jobs would be the industrial estate 5 miles away on the opposite side of town.

You'd think Hemel (pop 100k) was a suitable location to help relieve the general housing pressure of the SE, with its well-connected railway station and in the corner between the M25 and M1. But Hemel is probably the cheapest town to buy a house for some distance about, and western Hemel is one of the less pleasant parts of it, albeit more convenient for the railway station than much of Hemel. A classic example of urban sprawl creating a car dependent society, that such a development would only reinforce. I'm not surprised a developer is delaying the start to building houses on the western edge of Hemel in present market conditions, with so much other demand for construction capacity just now that isn't so subject to market risk.

FlammableFlower wrote: Thu Aug 31, 2023 3:10 pm Failing to incorporate decent infrastructure does balls things up.
Edge of E/NE Bristol they built a new housing estate. They did manage to put in a few small shops (bit not many), a community centre and a primary school. And then forgot about it. No planning for a GP surgery then, with the current NHS issues now, has led to a massive knock-on impact on neighbouring areas. Every surgery is massively oversubscribed. Same thing with secondary schooling: the previously at capacity schools are again massively oversubscribed. Overall it leads to really annoyed voters. I do hope they take it out on our incumbent Tory.

Which bit of E/NE Bristol are you referring to? Cos I live in that neck of the woods and it could apply more than one housing estate/neighbourhood in the vicinity . Which only makes it worse but I'm nosey as to which one really gets your goat

Martin Y wrote: Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:09 pm <snip>(There's housing land allocated on that side of town too, for those who want to live conveniently close to the Buncefield fuel depot which famously exploded in 2005.) </snip>

When Buncefield was built, it was surrounded by farmland and had a 2 mile exclusion zone for any development. By 2005, local council planning department had reduced that to 500m from the centre of the site, which essentially allowed non-residential development up to the site boundary, and residential development to within about 200m of the boundary. All while the site owners and operators reminded the council that their risk envelopes hadn't changed during that time (the physics of explosions not having changed!) The council overrode the site's objections every time, usually quoting something along the lines of: "Well, you haven't had an incident since you started operating, so it's all safe, isn't it?"

I raise this as an example of my assessment of the intelligence and forward planning of local councils.

Our LDC refused planning for something like 3000 houses linking two villages, but would have come with S106 for new GP surgery, new secondary school, community centre, etc. But it was cited as too much development and was refused.

The developers came back with a smaller plan for 300 houses on around 10% of the land and that got approved.

They've just got approval for another 300 they're calling phase two. They don't say how many phases there will be but I reckon there will be 10 phases and we'll end up with the same number of houses in the end but without the infrastructure... bonkers.

FairySmall wrote: Fri Sep 01, 2023 8:10 pm

FlammableFlower wrote: Thu Aug 31, 2023 3:10 pm Failing to incorporate decent infrastructure does balls things up.
Edge of E/NE Bristol they built a new housing estate. They did manage to put in a few small shops (bit not many), a community centre and a primary school. And then forgot about it. No planning for a GP surgery then, with the current NHS issues now, has led to a massive knock-on impact on neighbouring areas. Every surgery is massively oversubscribed. Same thing with secondary schooling: the previously at capacity schools are again massively oversubscribed. Overall it leads to really annoyed voters. I do hope they take it out on our incumbent Tory.

Which bit of E/NE Bristol are you referring to? Cos I live in that neck of the woods and it could apply more than one housing estate/neighbourhood in the vicinity . Which only makes it worse but I'm nosey as to which one really gets your goat

Hehe, I know what you mean:

The area i was on about is Lyde Green.

EACLucifer wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 12:50 pm

WFJ wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 8:41 am

FlammableFlower wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 8:24 am So... how long before Points Braverman jumps or is pushed?

Sunak must have been sitting on this story for a while. Hard to believe his team aren't responsible for this story leaking now.

Presumably he feels threatened that Braverman's horrible nationalist rhetoric is an attempt to outflank and replace him, but unable to confront her directly over it.

More from her.


https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66919416

Fearing discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for international refugee protection, according to the home secretary.

jimbob wrote: Tue Sep 26, 2023 3:24 pm More from her.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66919416

Fearing discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for international refugee protection, according to the home secretary.

And so, how very fortunate, Home Secretary, that it is already true that discrimination is not enough to qualify for international refugee protection. It is persecution, not discrimination, that is the qualification for asylum.

But you knew that and were playing this naughty word games, weren't you, Suella. Trying to make people think there was a terrible problem of excessive liberality that needed cracking down on. And this trick has a track record. For it is the trick this conservative government has repeatedly been using this last 13 years to take away people's reasonable legal rights, which have been repeatedly justified by misdescribing them in a way that made them sound unreasonable, so the Daily Mail can make it sound like you were doing us a favour.

Sunak's government is looking even more wobbly and powerless as bonkers Tories do their bonkers Tory thing while everything burns down around them - clicky

Alternatively: Liz Truss II: Truss harderer.

Apparently Rishi wants a brand new type of long-term politics, where he single-handedly defeats all the strawmen.

Politics Joe on this

https://youtu.be/WOJHz3pU7mI?si=DqI8T-jm3eUa6K7z

Not sure whether to put this here or the Starmer thread.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/the-er ... -hastings/

Max Hastings intends to vote Labour. And for the obvious reasons.

Yet he now looks on Conservatism with dismay – and contempt. In his view, the Tory Party is now little more than a hard-right shell, run by delusional third-raters who mistake personal ambition for leadership, and who have brought Britain to the point of disaster. He calls Rishi Sunak’s government “dreadful” and led by a “loser”. Suella Braverman’s policies are “grotesque”; Brexit a “disaster”. And the party membership, who buy the papers Hastings edited and wrote for, are in his view “Flat Earthers” and “almost without exception fantasists”. His view of Boris Johnson is even harsher.

Another regretful supporter of the Leopards Eating People’s Face’s Party.

Anna Soubry too, after her brief experiment with Change UK: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ote-labour

I particularly liked this comment on Tamworth

https://twitter.com/Longshanks1307/stat ... j6iSQ&s=19

Also from Twitter

Gfamily wrote: Fri Oct 20, 2023 11:31 am Also from Twitter

The “can’t win” combined with “yes” is hurting my brain

It's the biggest collapse of support in Tamworth since my attempt to snowboard at the Snow Dome.

I can see the Tories going further right after this one.

They may be thinking "we would have won if it wasn't for people voting for the likes of Reform and Britain first"

monkey wrote: Fri Oct 20, 2023 6:17 pm I can see the Tories going further right after this one.

They may be thinking "we would have won if it wasn't for people voting for the likes of Reform and Britain first"

Yup. Of course that would drive more to the Lib Dems or even Labour, and even they cannot go to the right of Britain First. So it would be really stupid. But given their strategic nous, the stupidity probably increases the likelihood. You'd still have Corbynistas saying that Starmer is Tory lite. And as evidence of this, it's the fact that he's won in strong Tory seats.

Wellingborough and Rushden has noticed that it's been getting its face eaten. Not that I have much sympathy:

Mark Parnell, who voted Conservative and for Leave, is more emphatic. “Brexit hasn’t worked out,” he says simply.

In what specific ways?

“Because of all the migrants,” he explains. “That’s what we voted for, and it’s not happened. It’s just got worse and worse.”

On the whole Little Englanders like that won’t be voting Labour, they’ll go Reform or some other trashy BritFash party.