ES Views: Nimbyism is not to blame for our planning crisis

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More than 270,000 approved homes in London are not being built
Rui Vieira/PA Wire
20 October 2017
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Sir Mark Boleat’s comments about communities in London were insulting and wrong [“Bonfire of the Nimbys”, October 18].

Residents in London put effort into getting their council’s local plan to define what housing developments of what type will be delivered and where. They want the right kind of affordable homes for their children and grandchildren. They become “Nimbys” only when housing schemes are proposed or approved which do not conform to policy, fail to meet needs and harm their neighbourhood.

More than 270,000 approved homes in London are not being built. How can Boleat say it is a “myth” that building is too slow?

He proposes that young “have nots” who are priced off the housing ladder should be heard but it is developers who are not listening. It is not the planning system that is at fault.

Developers should plan to give what London’s boroughs and their residents want on the land for development that we have, then Nimbyism would fade away and decisions would be quick and low cost.
Peter Eversden MBE, London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies

Sir Mark Boleat’s suggestions on dealing with the housing situation beggar belief. How dare he suggest building on any Green Belt land. It is protected for a purpose. I worked all my life to move to outer London to enjoy more green space. For him to encourage council planners to use this land is abhorrent.

Maybe the answer is for people to stop having so many children and selfishly taking away any benefits that we enjoy at the moment. The world is vastly over-populated — this is the reason for the chronic shortage of housing, overcrowding and pressure on services.
PJ

Sir Mark Boleat is correct when he says we must be radical if we are to meet the housing challenge.

We should start by capping all rents, private and public, to a maximum of a fifth of the minimum wage earned across a working week. That would return housing to genuine affordability. It would also flush out the landlords who do not have any other source of income and help to “get them back into work”, in line with government policies for those being moved on to universal credit.

Of course councils would have to be given the resources to municipalise the glut of flats that would flood on to the market and this will not happen without a cure to the even bigger problem of economic illiteracy at the highest level.

Only today at the dispatch box, Theresa May declared that “the Government has no money of its own”. Perhaps if someone shows her the front of a coin (I don’t suppose she carries her own) then she might be prompted to embark on a course of the reading she failed to do when working at the Bank of England. Is this radical enough for Sir Mark?
Chris Graham


Money is not the issue for Europe

David Davis and Matthew d’Ancona are both wrong about the relative priorities of the three Brexit “blocking issues”: the rights of EU citizens, the Northern Ireland issue and the “divorce bill” for our liabilities.

Davis sees “EU intransigence” as a negotiating tactic, designed to extract more money from us (money, it should be remembered, that we’d have paid anyway); d’Ancona sees this as “the most important [issue] by far”.

Both Davis and d’Ancona are blind to the reality: for the Europeans the EU and its institutional predecessors were never about the money. It was, and is, a political project designed to lay to rest the ghosts of Europe’s grim past. That is why the Europeans’ key issues are political, personal and ethical — the money is secondary.
Simon Diggins


Your front-page headline on Wednesday  — “Brexit wages squeeze: will it ever end?” — was absurd. The wage squeeze has gone on for seven years. It has nothing to do with Brexit.
Gregory Shenkman
 

Matthew d’Ancona said in his Comment piece [October 18] that after the Prime Minister had outlined her plans for Brexit, the other 27 countries would discuss her ideas in her absence. But why was Mrs May excluded from today’s EU meeting?

The UK is still a full member of the EU and will be until at least March 2019. As such, the PM has a right to be at every meeting and should have insisted on being at one as vital as this.
Robert Evans, Surrey County Councillor (Lab)


'Green Fleet Street' is just a cash raid

I agree with Barbara Bayford [Letters, October 18]: the suggestion of turning Fleet Street into a Garden Boulevard is trying to make money out of the Mayor as with the Garden Bridge. How on earth is the Mayor to find the money to beautify Fleet Street?

At this moment in time, we need all the money we could and plan to have to build more council homes to accommodate our people.

Please tackle homelessness before beauty.Home will give opportunity to build a life, which leads us to a better future and security.
Kum Choong


Cemetery plan will affect wildlife too

I am writing regarding your recent article headlined “Families’ fury at council plan to sell off burial plots above paupers’ graves” [News, October 13].

The removal of memorial stones and the mounding over of graves — and/or the actual exhumation of the deceased — are only part of the scandalous plans for Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries in Honor Oak. Ten acres of wild woodland, containing a variety of mature trees, have been sentenced to Southwark council’s axe. And with them will go insect, bird and mammal habitats.

The designation of such a large area of flora and fauna is particularly Philistine, given the endless demands for more housebuilding in London wherever new homes can be squeezed in.

We should be conserving these pockets of green tranquillity, not destroying them.
Christine Robynson

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