The Liberal Democrats have held onto power in the city of Liverpool.

Old Council

LD 59, LAB 27, LIB 3, GRN 1


New Council

LD 56, LAB 30, Lib 3, GRN 1

In terms of the development of the city will this result have any effect on the built environment, transport systems etc?

What would the city be like if Labour had won?

What would the city be like if the Tories had won?

What would the city be like if the Greens had won?

Given the determining influence of the unelected technocrat, Machiavelli, sorry, Davey Henshaw in recent years (sorry about the value judgement here) does it make a real difference anyway who is in control?

Any change - or business as usual?

The Liberal Democrats have held onto power in the city of Liverpool.

Old Council

LD 59, LAB 27, LIB 3, GRN 1


New Council

LD 56, LAB 30, Lib 3, GRN 1

In terms of the development of the city will this result have any effect on the built environment, transport systems etc?

What would the city be like if Labour had won?

What would the city be like if the Tories had won?

What would the city be like if the Greens had won?

Given the determining influence of the unelected technocrat, Machiavelli, sorry, Davey Henshaw in recent years (sorry about the value judgement here) does it make a real difference anyway who is in control?

Any change - or business as usual?

I suppose it all depends on who was elected /unelected.
Will there be more Munby like figures around or not.
I don't suppose the lib dems losing just three seats will make much difference really.
Although many people dislike the Tories it wouldn't do too much harm to see them represented on the council,if only to keep the others on their toes.

There are real (shouldn't that be) imbalances inherent in the current system. The powerful CEO mentioned who meddles in the democratic process is not so much down to the personality but to the system. There are other major problems in the city with so many agencies being responsible for vitally important strategic areas, but unacountable to anyone, and charged with delivering outside of government dictated programmes. Often the elected members are powerless to make drastic change or halt unpopular programmes. In THEORY they can, as with the governments 'New heartlands' programme, but if they complain or hold up proceedings 'money' is lost to the city.

It was interesting looking at the excuses given by local councillors to Liam Fogarty's campaign for a referendum on change to a mayoral system in the city. Most talked of extra costs and beauraucracy (highlighting a fundamental misunderstanding of the way a mayoral set up works) or fatalism, saying a mayor would be as powerless as the current cabinet as most decisions are made in Westminster or their proxys (NWRA/DA etc).

I can't say how much things will have changed if Labour had won, except they may possibly be more developer friendly, as stated by Joe Anderson in his objections to WHS (said before the arguments against had been well rehearseed in public) but more generally anti enterprise.

Intersting possibility of a Tory revival in the city, thogh my feelings on the reality of that would be that they would be even more chaotic than the Lib Dems who, we must remember, had massive success thrust upon them, to such an extent that most 'councillors' are 'mates' or relatives of the core group, so sudden and so large were the gains... the tories in Liverpool are completely unprepared for power... though they generally do run good councils.

I was disapointed that the Greens or the Liberals didn't make the slightest gains... and extremely sad that the anti demolition allience really fucked up by standing under the Liberal banner... a few people I spoke to didn't know this and assumed that in their ward the group weren't standing. I think they may have had more success if they would have at least made mention of the candidates platform in brackets behind the Liberal title on ballot papers.

With Labout only gaining three wards I don't think there will be any changes forced by reslults... so, nothing changes that would not have happened anyway!

Local government in this country is far too weak for this to make any real difference. British governance is very centralised for a western state.

The only exception to this rule is in the regulation of land use, where local authorities do have a lot of control over planning in their areas. Although even this is limited by national and regional guidance, and funding controls at Westminster. And in Liverpool's case, this is also WHS which handicaps local government (depending on your view point), as well as a plethora of quangos lurking in the mist somewhere between central and local government.

Labour may have been a little more pro-development. I agree with Tony there. I don't think an awful lot of the lib dems, even if they have managed to make some good achievements. There are very basic matters where they show the utmost incompetence. The pavements are still disgustingly covered in chewing gum, and litter is far worse than it should be in a western city. It is on basic matters like this where any worthy local council should be successful IMO.

Out of interest. Does anybody know what the turn out was?

The Liberal Democrats have held onto power in the city of Liverpool.

Old Council

LD 59, LAB 27, LIB 3, GRN 1


New Council

LD 56, LAB 30, Lib 3, GRN 1

In terms of the development of the city will this result have any effect on the built environment, transport systems etc?

What would the city be like if Labour had won?

What would the city be like if the Tories had won?


A bigger mess. The Tories are nowhere to be seen in Liverpool - quite rightly and the sooner they are cast into histiry the better for the whole country.

Of 22,000 seats nationwide the Tories gained 250 despite a press onslaught against the government because Johnnny had a shag with slag (that is his business alone). The Tories made no ground at all in the big cities, being dropped below the Greens Liverpool. The bumpkins tend to vote Tory because the local squire said so.


Any change - or business as usual?


Business as usual, locally and nationally, and be prepared for the government to be returned at the next election, unless there is a major economical disaster, which doesn't look on the cards.

Charles Clark has just been sacked.

Out of interest. Does anybody know what the turn out was?

Round about or less than 20%! Central ward - 11%!

Out of interest. Does anybody know what the turn out was?

When I was voting in Halton the people at the voting thingy during one of the quieter moments calculated it to be 9%, that was just after 6PM...

If, instead of being consigned to history, there was a revival in tory fortunes as a local party here the city may finally undertake the renaissance we all wish for?

Did you know John, that they are supportive of looking seriously at the land value tax?

Local government in this country is far too weak for this to make any real difference. British governance is very centralised for a western state.

The only exception to this rule is in the regulation of land use, where local authorities do have a lot of control over planning in their areas. Although even this is limited by national and regional guidance, and funding controls at Westminster.


The planning system is Stalinist. It has centralised dictated quotas which councils have to adhere to. The planning act was laid down in 1947 with the blessing of the Council for the Protection of Rural England – who acted as consultants. CPRE is a body of mainly very large wealthy landowners, a self interest group, who wanted the shanty towns taken out of the countryside. Yes Britain was full of shanty towns, we called them “plotlands”, and attempt to airbrush this out of our recent history. CPRE pushed teh act to suit themselves and retain their luctrative acres - 0.66% of the population own 70% of the land (a legacy of the Normans which has not been rectified), with only 7.5% of the land settled and 2.5% paved. In no other western nation is there such an imbalance. Countries which have an even spread of land ownership and a fair planning systems have higher qualities of life than the UK.

It could be argued that the centralised system was necessary to get people housed after WW2, as the private sector certainly could not house the country in homes of basic facilities. Despite being Stalinist in nature, Thatcher reinforced the act.

It is worth reading these recent reports from the Policy Exchange Think Tank. First is:

Unaffordable Housing (http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/uploads/media/Unaffordable_Housing_-_final_text_-_10_June_2005.pdf>)

This document hits the nail right on the head. From the document:

"Planners have created a system that has led not only to higher house prices but also a highly volatile housing market"

"Compared with other countries, the standard of living in terms of housing has fallen over the years, both relatively and sometimes absolutely "

"We are living in crowded and dense cities, not a crowded and urbanised country"

"It is a feature of central planning that in fulfilling the production target planners may lose sight of the ultimate aim "

"Over the years the difference between prediction and constraint has become increasingly blurred, and nowhere has this been truer than with housing"

The follow up document, Better Homes, Greener Cities. Planning is heavy in the report.

The Link:
Better Homes Greener Cities (http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/uploads/media/BetterHomes_GreenerCities_2_.pdf)

Here are the Conclusions and Recommendations of the report

Over the past 50 years town planning has lost sight of its original objectives, those of providing decent homes and a decent living environment for the people of Britain. Particular groups have been able to get policies favourable to themselves adopted because the economic costs they impose on others have not been seen. So, as we have just said, Green Belts – which were intended to be relatively narrow and primarily used for recreation – were put in place and expanded in width, but continued to be used for farming. The shire counties used Green Belts to hold back the influence of the nearby city. The recreational uses disappeared and the Green Belts became green blankets – or more accurately green barriers – designed to keep urban inhabitants from spoiling the lives of those living in the countryside. And often they were not even very green, i.e. not places of `unspoilt' nature but of industrialised and intensive agriculture.

Development came to be increasingly restricted, so that everywhere controls were imposed to prevent what was labelled `urban sprawl' – a settlement pattern that we now know provides the best foundations for an environmentally friendly and healthy lifestyle. In consequence land prices rose, and house prices too, as demand increased but the supply of land did not. The increase certainly gratified existing house owners, but they failed to realise that what they were getting for their money, as generation succeeded generation, was both more expensive and smaller. So, in the end, Britons found themselves with the smallest, oldest and most expensive new homes in Western Europe.

In our report we have shown that there are ways to improve this situation. We believe that it is possible for Britons to enjoy stable house prices, affordable accommodation, green cities and modern, spacious houses – very much like their neighbours on the continent. To sum up, we believe that two major sets of reforms are required to tackle Britain's housing crisis. The first is reform of the planning system itself:

• Planning is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Therefore we think it is necessary to get rid of the presumption of plan-led development. Development must be possible where it is necessary, and it should not be impossible just because it was not previously envisaged in the plan.

• Planning should include land buffers which could easily be activated when more land is needed than the amount that was thought necessary at the time the plan was set up.

• The presumption of a right to development should be introduced into planning. It would then be necessary for the authorities to demonstrate why development was undesirable and not the other way around.

• The economic benefits of development should be recognised to a far greater degree as a material factor in the planning process.

• The planning system should be localised, with local authorities being placed in charge of densities, brown vs. green field ratios, design codes and Green Belt designation, with freedom to vary the Social Cost Tariff downwards if they wish to `go for growth'.

• The planning system should be made more flexible, with greater freedom to change between planning designations and an extension of permitted development rights.

The second set of reforms should be applied to the existing fiscal incentives and the system of local government finance:

• VAT should be equalised at 5 per cent for both new building and refurbishment.

• Local authorities should be confronted with the results of their planning activities through budgets that reflect the degree of development in the local
community. This can be achieved through either more local taxes (e.g. a localised income tax) or government grants directly linked to local population
figures or tax revenues. This will shift the balance between local and central taxation and budgets, but it should not increase the overall level of
taxation as such.

• Receipts from existing taxes associated with new development, such as Council Tax and business rates, should be hypothecated to the local authority.

• Formalised Section 106 agreements could give an extra incentive to local communities to allow development.

• The introduction of a system of Social Cost Tariffs would provide an even better incentive, and compensate local communities for their loss of amenity. They would internalise the costs of development, provide an incentive to `go for growth' and be entirely retained locally. Social Cost Tariffs would replace all other charges associated with new development, including Section 106 agreements.

In this paper we have put forward a number of proposals to try to free up the planning process in Britain. The aim is to make it more responsive to the needs and demands of the population as a whole. And while this book has made a number of technical and legislative proposals to bring about the required change, we must not lose sight of why this change is needed. A localised, incentivised planning system will bring many benefits – more affordable homes, better neighbourhoods, less pressure on social housing – benefits that our centralised planning system has failed, and will continue to fail, to deliver.

There is a challenge for house builders too. A leap in the supply in housing must not mean more boring boxes in drab neighbourhoods. Their goal must be diversity, innovation and a real desire to satisfy communities' needs.

What has been provided over the past 30 or 40 years has increasingly diverged from this. As we demonstrated in our first paper, we have had a Soviet style centrally planned system of housing provision imposed on us because it suits various interests. And we know from our experience with the Soviet Union how successful a centrally planned economy can be in providing what consumers want! Our hope is that it is not too late to change.

Some good links herer. Just received it from some of those in the anti demolition groups.

*
Some of you may know that*anti-demolition pro-refurbishment candidates ran in yesterday's local elections in Liverpool, under the old 'real Liberal' party banner.
*
They made a huge impact in the press and on*the campaign trail, changing the result in two key marginals to unseat ruling party councillors who had voted for mass*CPOs.*
*
*
Kensington and Fairfield - Community candidate Elizabeth Pascoe scores "One Hundred and Eighty" to unseat the Liberal Democrat councillor of 17 years and beat the Greens and Tories into 4th and 5th place.* Labour have opposed the demolition scheme here as "social cleansing" and "municipal vandalism", and have pledged to reverse Pathfinder blight throughout the area.
*
http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.asp?XXR=0&ID=21&RPID=35756&J=9
*
*
Prince's Park, Toxteth*- Anti-Demolition Coalition of Welsh Streets resident Nina Edge, the Green Party and Respect together score*737, to push out the sitting Lib Dem*Councillor whose vote collapsed from over 1,000 to 645.
*
http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.asp?XXR=0&ID=28&RPID=36674&J=23
*
*
Picton -*anti-demolition candidate Griff Parry takes almost 10% of the vote and with the greens and Labour carve over 500 off the Lib Demolition majority.
*
http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.asp?XXR=0&ID=27&RPID=36155&J=11
*
*
St. Michaels - Peter Allen,*a principled Lib Dem*who opposes Pathfinder demolition policies, saw his vote increase to 41%, with a strong showing for the Green Party's Jean Hill, who took 25% of the vote in a ward that now enjoys Liverpool's first Green councillor following senior Lib Dem John Coyne's defection to them over the demolition issue last week.
*
http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.asp?XXR=0&ID=31&RPID=37811&J=33
*
*
Anfield - Anti-demolitionist and Stanley*Park campaigner Mike Butler takes 17% of the vote:
*
http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.asp?XXR=0&ID=9&RPID=36403&J=14
*
*
Clubmoor - Liberal 'Stop Demolishing' candidate David Maher doubled his vote to 27% to push the Lib Dems into third place.
*
http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.asp?XXR=0&ID=14&RPID=37670&J=27
*
And in case you haven't seen:
*
John Prescott remains Deputy Leader but loses his departmental responsibilities at the ODPM.
Mr Prescott will continue to chair Cabinet Committees and will work on Environmental issues with the new Defra Secretary. The new ministerial team at Mr Prescott's old department has not yet been announced.
*
Charles Clarke leaves*his job as Home Secretary. He will return to the backbenches.
*
Jack Straw is no longer Foreign Secretary. Neither his replacement nor his new job has been confirmed. It is being reported that he will become Leader of the House of Commons. This is not confirmed.
*
Geoff Hoon moves from Leader of the House of Commons to become Secretary of State for Europe.* This is a new position with full Cabinet status.
Margaret Beckett replaces Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary.
Her replacement as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has not yet been confirmed.
*
Jack Straw*is confirmed as Leader of the House of Commons.
*
John Reid replaces Charles Clarke as Home Secretary.
His replacement as Defence Secretary has not yet been confirmed. Mr Clarke has confirmed that he was sacked.
*

Some of you may know that*anti-demolition pro-refurbishment candidates ran in yesterday's local elections in Liverpool, under the old 'real Liberal' party banner.


This is very naive. Older buildings cannot, or cannot be economically, be brought up to high insulation standards, making them expensive to run, which with rising fuel prices and a drive to lesser emissions is unwise. In many cases is cheaper to demolish and build a modern replica on the same site. Many older buildings are just not fit for purpose and do not fit modern lifestyles.

I'm going to report you to ICOMOS!

Actually there are two intersting elements in that report John posted and the motives driving these anti demolition folk.

many of the groups are not anti demolition on heritage grounds as such, but that what is being wiped out is the infrastructure of a good urban neighbourhood that will be lost along with the housees. There is still a huge anti city bias within the planing and design professions that suburban 'homesteading' is the idea and so they try to build as near to that as possible.

the report posted says as much, but I particularly like this one
"Development came to be increasingly restricted, so that everywhere controls were imposed to prevent what was labelled `urban sprawl' – a settlement pattern that we now know provides the best foundations for an environmentally friendly and healthy lifestyle"

It then descends into some embarrassingly subjective stuff about theft and keeping people out.

What they propose is completely the opposite direction to what cities need..... we do not see continued urbanisation, what we actually witness is the ongoing anti urbanisation..... environmentally devastating and car based development that damages cities as much as it does the countryside.

Essentially they recommend that we continue to strip populations from 'crowded' districts and put them in modern equivelants of Dovecot, Hillside and Speke... utopian ideals of the TCPA!

I'm going to report you to ICOMOS!

Actually there are two intersting elements in that report Johnposted and the motives driving these anti demolition folk.

many of the groups are not anti demolition on heritage grounds as such, but that what is being wiped out is the infrastructure of a good urban neighbourhood that will be lost along with the housees. There is still a huge anti city bias within the planing and design professions that suburban 'homesteading' is the idea and so they try to build as near to that as possible.

the report posted says as much, but I particularly like this one
"Development came to be increasingly restricted, so that everywhere controls were imposed to prevent what was labelled `urban sprawl' – a settlement pattern that we now know provides the best foundations for an environmentally friendly and healthy lifestyle"

It then descends into some embarrassingly subjective stuff about theft and keeping people out.

What they propose is completely the opposite direction to what cities need..... we do not see continued urbanisation, what we actually witness is the ongoing anti urbanisation..... environmentally devastating and car based development that damages cities as much as it does the countryside.

Essentially they recommends that we continue to strip populations from 'crowded' districts and put them in modern equivelants of Dovecot, Hillside and Speke... utopian idels of the TCPA!

The reports gave the results of a survey. Most people don't want to live in flats, yet flats are being built in suburban settings, so we don't expand on subsidised empty green fields.

Flats are fine in centres and the likes – they are perfect and suit many people and their lifestyle. I knew one man who had a small house in the town he worked in and a flat at the coast. People said he was irresponsible. He said I could have one big house or two small homes in different locations – I know people in Chicago who have flats in the centre and homes out by the lakes. The UK can have as many so-called holiday/weekend homes as it wants, as only 7.5% of the land is settled – if London, Liverpool, Glasgow and every town village and city was doubled in size the settled area would still only be 15% of the land. This would create many jobs too. The UK has a land surplus, we are not short of land at all despite propaganda saying the opposite - read Who Own Britain by Kevin Cahill. In short, people can have the best of both urban and country

As much as many of us hate it, the cars is here to stay and environments designed to cater for them are much more pleasing and practical – Milton Keynes does this wonderfully and is the model of many planners world-wide. A grid road system with no homes on the grid road system, with trees and bushes hiding the suburbs behind – traffic speeds up to 60-70mph on the grid. In each cell of the grid is a suburb which tend to be like a village in itself, greenery, parks, lakes traffic calming measures – many were existing villages. That idiot Prince Charles has parts of Dorchester laid out in a Victorian fashion – him being the Lord of the Manor and his plebs in tiny congested homes around him indicates the mentality of the fool. There are always problems with parking and neighbour disputes.

We do not have de-urbanisation at all. We have the opposite. We have a highly urbanised country, more so than any other in the western world. We have a split country, where city kids know nothing of the British countryside as they are effectively kept out. As a Liverpool 8 kid I know sweet FA of the English countryside. There was nowhere I could just walk out into it. We wee holed up in an urban hellhole that resembled a war zone.

"The vast majority of the British people have no right whatsoever to their native land save to walk the streets or trudge the roads.
- Henry George

"Stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land got hold of it. They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers to provide them with title-deeds. In the case of the enclosure of the common lands, which was going on from about 1600 to 1850, the land-grabbers did not even have the excuse of being foreign conquerors; they were quite frankly taking the heritage of their own countrymen, upon no sort of
pretext except that they had the power to do so."
- George Orwell.

Who ordained that the few should have the land of Britain as a perquisite; who made 10,000 people owners of the soil, and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?
- David Lloyd George

The land, the earth that God gave to man for his home, his sustenance and support, should never be the possession of any man, corporation, society or unfriendly government, any more than the air or water - if as much. An individual or enterprise requiring land should hold no more in their own right than is needed for their home and sustenance, and never more than they have in actual use in the prudent management of their legitimate business, and this much should not be permitted when it creates an exclusive monopoly. All that is not so used should be held for the free use of every family to make homesteads, and to hold them so long as they are occupied. A reform like this will be worked out some time in the future. "
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865):

"Except for the few surviving commons, the high roads, the lands of the National Trust, and the sea shore below the high-tide mark, every square inch of England is 'owned' by a few thousand families. These people are just about as useful as so many tapeworms. It is desirable that people should own their own dwelling houses, and it is probably desirable that a farmer should own as much land as he can actually farm. But the ground-landlord in a town area has no function and no excuse for existence. He is merely a person who has found a way of milking the public while giving nothing in return. He causes rents to be higher, he makes town planning more difficult, and he excludes children from green spaces: that is literally all that he does, except to draw his income"
- George Orwell

Now what had the landowner done for the community; what enterprise had he shown; what service had he rendered; what capital had he risked in order that he should gain this enormous multiplication of the value of his property! I will tell you in one word what he had done. Can you guess it! Nothing.
- Winston Churchill

The report correctly says: “"We are living in crowded and dense cities, not a crowded and urbanised country". It does not enter into the land ownership question which is fundament to quality of life, the economy and just about every aspect that effects us.

Essentially they recommend that we continue to strip populations from 'crowded' districts and put them in modern equivelants of Dovecot, Hillside and Speke... utopian ideals of the TCPA!

The TCPA tend to be in favour of market forces, and it is for this reason that they tend to prefer lower density, suburban-style development. Their view is that if most consumers want to live in houses with gardens in pleasant, open areas then there is little point adopting planning policy that forces people to do the opposite.

Ask people with families where they'd sooner live: lower density, suburban areas, in semi (or) detached homes with gardens near decent schools. Or in terraced/high rise housing in more built-up, urban areas. Over 99% will opt for the former. Here lies the problem for the future of Britain's cities. Apart from young professionals, more well-off and retired culture buffs, and those in the gay and lesbian community, most people do not want to live in cities and either don't realise or don't care whether this is unsustainable.- this is the market!

This makes it difficult to persuade developers to build decent family housing in central areas, and this is why they usually build 1 and 2 bedroom apartments (which are themselves very expensive.) To get families into the centre there will need to be a massive building programme of literally thousands and thousands of very large, high quality and secure dwellings near decent schools and with adequate, private outdoor space. There will need to be thousands to make it worth while for developers and affordable for families.

British people, particularly those with or planning to have families, are obsessed with suburbia.

"The report correctly says: “"We are living in crowded and dense cities, not a crowded and urbanised country". It does not enter into the land ownership question which is fundament to quality of life, the economy and just about every aspect that effects us."

But we are not. Our cities are not overcrowded... in places like Liverpool vast swathes are underdeveloped and with population levels and density at a dysfunctional level.

Blabbs points were right about the 'market' situation though, the only way people will ever be attracted to live in different modes is for us to build some proper urban districts and let people see for themselves, the ONLY way.

We could make it extremely expensive to maintain a suburban life by tolling roads, putting fuel up 10x etc but this will not be done. It is important to note though that the dysfuntionality of suburbs are plain to see in places like I mentioned before... when people do not have access to subsidies and sufficient incomes to mask deficiencies... that is why perfectly sound housing on estates across the inter war suburbs are being deserted... you cannot live in them without the financial or state aided means to mitigate the disadvantages!

Issues of land ownership are different issues... the basic pattern of urban development has a simple logic... density may intensify bu small towns in Europe conform to the same patterns and 'logic' as the bigger cities.. more sustainable, and we can argue, as we go to these places on holiday... more amenable... Has anybody ever been to Cantril Farm on a package tour?

Ask people with families where they'd sooner live: lower density, suburban areas, in semi (or) detached homes with gardens near decent schools. Or in terraced/high rise housing in more built-up, urban areas. Over 99% will opt for the former. Here lies the problem for the future of Britain's cities.


Chicago has a wall to wall high rise financial district. The zone ends and the other side of the road virtually low rise suburbs start. It seems to work.


This makes it difficult to persuade developers to build decent family housing in central areas, and this is why they usually build 1 and 2 bedroom apartments (which are themselves very expensive.) To get families into the centre there will need to be a massive building programme of literally thousands and thousands of very large, high quality and secure dwellings near decent schools and with adequate, private outdoor space. There will need to be thousands to make it worth while for developers and affordable for families.


Firstly, flats are cheap to build, as so much is packed onto one plot. Family homes can be terraced 3 high town houses with a garage on the ground floor, garden out the rear. These really do work and can increase density quite easily. A digression: British building regs are very poor on sound insulation and this should be upgraded ASAP, to improve the quality of life in terraces and flats.


British people, particularly those with or planning to have families, are obsessed with suburbia.

Because the maligned and despised suburbia works.

Getting back on topic, here's the results for the whole city.

Ellesmere Port & Neston - LAB Hold - LAB 27, CON 13, LD 2
Halton - LAB Hold - LAB 35, LD 14, CON 7
Knowsley - LAB Hold - LAB 52, LD 11
Liverpool - LD Hold - LD 59, LAB 27, LIB 3, GRN 1
Sefton - NOC Hold - LD 26, LAB 21, CON 19
St Helens - NOC Hold - LAB 23, LD 19, CON 6
West Lancs - CON Hold - CON 29, LAB 25
Wirral - NOC Hold - LAB 26, CON 21, LD 18, UKIP 1

"The report correctly says: “"We are living in crowded and dense cities, not a crowded and urbanised country". It does not enter into the land ownership question which is fundament to quality of life, the economy and just about every aspect that effects us."

But we are not. Our cities are not overcrowded... in places like Liverpool vast swathes are underdeveloped and with population levels and density at a dysfunctional level.


Cities ARE overcrowded, the facts do not tell lies. Some facts:

SOME FACTS:

* The UK has 60 million acres of land in total – 1 acre for each person.
* 70% of the land is owned by 0.66% of the population.
* Just 6,000 or so landowners - mostly aristocrats, but also large institutions and the Crown - own about 40 million acres, two thirds of the UK.
* Britain's top 20 landowning families have bought or inherited an area big enough to swallow up the entire counties of Kent, Essex and Bedfordshire, with more to spare.
* Big landowners measure their holdings by the square mile; the average Briton living in a privately owned property has to exist on 340 square yards.
* Each home pays £550/ann. on average in council tax while each landowning home receives £12,169/ann. in subsidies. The poor subsidising the super rich. In Ireland where land redistribution occurred, there is no council tax.
* A building plot, the land, now constitutes between half to two- thirds of the cost of a new house.
* 60 million people live in 24 million "dwellings".
* These 24 million dwellings sit on approx 4.4 million of “settled” acres (7.7% of the land).
* Of the 24 million dwellings, 11% owned by private landlords and 65% privately owned.
* 19 million privately owned homes, inc gardens, sit on 5.8% of the land.
* Average dwelling has 2.4 people in it.
* 77% of the population of 60 million (projected to be more in new census) live on only 5.8% of the land, about 3.5 million acres (total 60 million).
* Agriculture only accounts for a paltry 3% of the economy, yet consumes 70% of the land. We could afford to virtually get rid of it and import cheap food from elsewhere. We in reality, with subsidies, support a country lifestyle for the chosen few.
* Average density of people on one residential acre is 12 to 13.
* 10.9 million homes carries a mortgage of some kind.
* Average value of an acre of development land is £404,000. High in south east of £704,154, low in north east of £226,624. London is in a category of its own.
* Reservations of land have been place by builders to a value of 37 billion to build the 3-4 million homes required. The land reserved is almost wholly owned by aristocrats; with none of it on the land registry. This land is coming out of subsidised rural estates, land held by off-shore trusts and companies and effectively untaxed.

The above money figures are from 2001, and would have risen since.

The failure to re-distribute land in the UK is one of the prime factors why the UK under-performed during most of the 20th century. The artificial land shortage in the UK ramps up land prices, seriously affecting the availability and quality of homes, commercial space, etc. Under 0.66% of the population own 70% of the land, something you expect from a third world dictatorship -- an absolute disgrace in a modern educated country. This situation led the Sunday Times editorial on the publishing of the first UK "Rich List" to equate the UK with a banana republic.


Blabbs points were right about the 'market' situation though, the only way people will ever be attracted to live in different modes is for us to build some proper urban districts and let people see for themselves, the ONLY way.


That makes sense.


We could make it extremely expensive to maintain a suburban life by tolling roads, putting fuel up 10x etc but this will not be done. It is important to note though that the dysfuntionality of suburbs are plain to see in places like I mentioned before... when people do not have access to subsidies and sufficient incomes to mask deficiencies... that is why perfectly sound housing on estates across the inter war suburbs are being deserted... you cannot live in them without the financial or state aided means to mitigate the disadvantages!


The private suburbs do not have the problems at all of public owned estates.


Issues of land ownership are different issues... the basic pattern of urban development has a simple logic... density may intensify bu small towns in Europe conform to the same patterns and 'logic' as the bigger cities.. more sustainable, and we can argue, as we go to these places on holiday... more amenable... Has anybody ever been to Cantril Farm on a package tour?


Who wants to live in the dense centre of a city? Single people, childless people, older people, etc. NOT families for obvious reasons.

It will be a case of the young man living in a flat then selling and buying a house in the suburbs when a family is planned. Or sort out land ownership and planning and let the market sort itself out. Advocating dense centres is social engineering. I personally want no restrictions where anyone can build – next to industrial estates, national parks and special areas like the Lakes, etc, excepted, but the rest should have no restrictions whatsoever. The land is to be used for the benefit of the people, not to keep a few aristocrats stinking rich.

We are now in the time of the autonomous off-the-grid house. Properly designed and built it needs:

- no heating or cooling system
- small Combined Heat and Power units provide electricity and heat for hot water.
- PV cells on the roof can provide much electricity,
- mobile phones mean no telephone land lines,
- septic tanks or reed beds means no sewers,
- water can be delivered into a stainless steel tank,
- ultra low energy appliances are already here.

People now no longer need be attached to urban communities to obtain basic utilities. Fast comms make hoemworking much easier fior millions. This is great flexibility for individuals and developers who are then not tied to existing communities and services.

We should have a situation where people can have two homes, one city one rural/suburban, or dense cities and spread out communities outside the centres - local centres could also be dense.

That is why making a dense city on water out of Liverpool’s waterways makes sense, as whether we like it or not low rise spacious suburbs and homes further out and remote will only become more popular. What will attract people to a waterbound city is the shear quality of life and just the attractiveness of such an environment. Liverpool may end up with a dense, hopefully attractive, waterways city on the riverbanks and not much else further inland.

I personally would like to live in the sticks and have an apartment in Liverpool’s dock waterways. The best of both.

People in Halton will vote Labour because their dog does.

People in Halton will vote Labour because their dog does.

Just as people in Heswall will vote Tory come what may. I met one girl who said "I have no need to vote Labour as I live in Heswall". I asked to expand on the comment. He said "only people who live in council houses vote Labour". And on the surface she appeared quite intelligent.

I know a couple of 'Dogs' who voted. :)

John MK 'This is very naive. Older buildings cannot, or cannot be economically, be brought up to high insulation standards, making them expensive to run, which with rising fuel prices and a drive to lesser emissions is unwise. In many cases is cheaper to demolish and build a modern replica on the same site. Many older buildings are just not fit for purpose and do not fit modern lifestyles.'

You are talking utter shit, older buildings are generally built to very high standards and are very insulated due to a number of factors such as the use of Engineering bricks - if you didnt know these bricks have the highest U Values (means they retain the most heat). People love living in them and dont want to move and why the fuck should they.

This is very naive. Older buildings cannot, or cannot be economically, be brought up to high insulation standards, making them expensive to run, which with rising fuel prices and a drive to lesser emissions is unwise. In many cases is cheaper to demolish and build a modern replica on the same site. Many older buildings are just not fit for purpose and do not fit modern lifestyles.

John, why doesn't this restoration principle apply to ... docks?

As much as many of us hate it, the cars is here to stay and environments designed to cater for them are much more pleasing and practical – Milton Keynes does this wonderfully and is the model of many planners world-wide. A grid road system with no homes on the grid road system, with trees and bushes hiding the suburbs behind – traffic speeds up to 60-70mph on the grid. In each cell of the grid is a suburb which tend to be like a village in itself, greenery, parks, lakes traffic calming measures – many were existing villages. That idiot Prince Charles has parts of Dorchester laid out in a Victorian fashion – him being the Lord of the Manor and his plebs in tiny congested homes around him indicates the mentality of the fool. There are always problems with parking and neighbour disputes.



From my experience of Milton Keynes, I think it is correct to say that the village areas can be quite pleasant but there is little sense of a city. In fact, Milton Keynes is not really thought of as a city.

The idea of an urban area with the car as its main form of accessing central attractions is rather anti-urban.

The car may be here to stay but the fact remains that a very large part of the community, often the majority, do not have access to one. These include the young, the elderly, those on low incomes, sick and disabled and those who just do not choose to have one.

Living in a city is not the only way to live but those who choose to do so want the advantages that urbanity brings - easy access to shops, workplaces, pubs, clubs, theatres, cinemas, restaurants, churches, sports facilities etc. that is the idea of Downtown.

By the way, the majority of people in modern Britain do not live in family units (i.e. the traditional family of husband wife and 2.4 children). There is a huge demographic of single, divorced and widowed people, childless couples, gay couples, 'empty nesters', the elderly etc. for whom urban living is an attractive option. I am sure that the 15,000 that we now have living in central Liverpool is just scratching the surface.

That is not 'social engineering', quite the reverse. It is developers, not government planners who are pushing the city centre living agenda, certainly in Liverpool.

I'm not saying there is anything at all wrong with living in suburbs or villages both of these can have their attractions (and will probably remain the mainstay of family living) but it should not be confused with urbanity, which is a quality of dense towns and cities and is demonstrated at its best in great continental cities such as Barcelona.

What has gone wrong in Liverpool is that this village idea has been adopted for social housing in the central area, which has resulted in these low density estates of two storey houses and bungalows with walls round them, which are completely anti-urban and which blight large sections of the city centre.

Whilst these can have quite pleasant enclosed environments, they contribute nothing to the vitality of the Downtown area, do not have the density to sustain shops, public transport or adequate policing and have road layouts that do not permit the easy access in all directions that is the essence of a succesful urban area.

Blocks of apartments with active street fronts and a grid network of streets are far better suited to an urban setting.

John, why doesn't this restoration principle apply to ... docks?

Because the dock waterways do not pollute as they are being used. 40% of the UKs emissions come from domestic homes. Also, the dock waterways are more than fit for purpose in creating a city on water.

John MK 'This is very naive. Older buildings cannot, or cannot be economically, be brought up to high insulation standards, making them expensive to run, which with rising fuel prices and a drive to lesser emissions is unwise. In many cases is cheaper to demolish and build a modern replica on the same site. Many older buildings are just not fit for purpose and do not fit modern lifestyles.'

You are talking utter shit, older buildings are generally built to very high standards and are very insulated due to a number of factors such as the use of Engineering bricks - if you didnt know these bricks have the highest U Values (means they retain the most heat). People love living in them and dont want to move and why the fuck should they.

You clearly haven't a clue. Engineering brick are very hard bricks and generally used in foundations – blue engineering brick (Staffordshire blues) are used on railway bridges. Older house are not built of engineering bricks.

Older buildings are not built better than today at all - the opposite is true. Materials are better today and regulations on foundations are light years away from the Victorian crap they dished up – building regs are light years away from the 1800s.

The U value one brick, any brick, is negligible. A modern home can be built of SIP panels, a sandwich of OSB board and foam insulation which hold up the building, a cavity and then a brick outer wall. Then you will most likely not require a full heating system at all.

BTW, the term "Jerry Built" came from a Victorian Liverpool builder called Jerry Bros who made houses that looked good on the outside but underneath were a disaster.

They was 1000s of people who didn’t want to move from the slums in the 1960s, but they were saved from their own ignorance.

You clearly haven't a clue. Engineering brick are very hard bricks and generally used in foundations – blue engineering brick (Staffordshire blues) are used on railway bridges. Older house are not built of engineering bricks.

Older buildings are not built better than today at all - the opposite is true. Materials are better today and regulations on foundations are light years away from the Victorian crap they dished up – building regs are light years away from the 1800s.

The U value one brick, any brick, is negligible. A modern home can be built of SIP panels, a sandwich of OSB board and foam insulation which hold up the building, a cavity and then a brick outer wall. Then you will most likely not require a full heating system at all.

BTW, the term "Jerry Built" came from a Victorian Liverpool builder called Jerry Bros who made houses that looked good on the outside but underneath were a disaster.

They was 1000s of people who didn’t want to move from the slums in the 1960s, but they were saved from their own ignorance.

Obviously some sort of code involved with this last sentence.

Most of the energy we use right now is not lost through the buildings themselves, but rather, as a consequence of the spatial arrangements we place them in and then having to engineer in techonlogical and tax subsidies to overcome the inherent urban and environmental dysfunctionalism of them... i.e SUBURBS!

Private suburbs only 'work' because of 3 basic reasons
*the fact that working people tend to understand the direct investment they have made in an area... and the area will contain lots of like minded and similarly obligated people

* the obvious one, that they have the incomes to mitigate the socialy stultifying consequences of being made to live in a dormatory suburb when your needs are for much more than a bed.

*Suburbanisation nescecitates (and currently gets) massive input of resources and subsidies in order to let people skewer the 'market' to live in their perception that a semi is thier ideal.


The Right in the US promotes suburban development as if this is some sort of statement of individuals rights, Wendel Cox is the most prominent of those who debate on urbanism and freedom, but they miss that basic point. If people want to live in suburbs, miles away from services and jobs then let them, but let the costs of roads, sewerage, waste, drains, transport, energy etc be borne by those living in those who 'chose' to do so?

Would soon change the financial relationship between the individual and the State! There is not an environmental or urban argument to be made for suburbs, they are horrifically wasteful of resources... and we kill our cities to allow folk to drive all over them unhindered by other suburbanites driveing their SUV's to services that in a healthy city would be at the end of their block... madness!

UK town and country Planning is based on silly notions that are explicitly anti city. Blabbs, one of the reasons why TCPA currently 'back the market' is that it conforms more (after years of seeping application that influences insurance, fire regs etc) to their anti city notions... it is a marraige of convenience, rather than a philosophy that advocates the free market! remember the hooror about 'town cramming' they spewed the instant the government started the whole Toward and Urban renaissance stuff in the late 90s'... nothing about markets... all about ideology... they hate cities!


Cities are not overcrowded.. it is a pretty sweeping statement anyway...
Are NYC, HK and Liverpool all 'overcrowded' in the same way? If Liverpool is 'overcrowded' (with the implication that this is undesirable and uncomfortable?) then how do people even manage to exist (never mind desperately wish to live in) in places like NYC and HK? Overcrowding is completely different to density however, the nobs in mid manhattan live at much higher densities (and much more comfortably) than those in the overcrowded slums of Calcutta and Mumbai.

Just imagine the consequences of delivering your fancy. As I have repeatedly stated, these issues do not exist in their own little bubbles, they are inter-connected.

the only conclusion I can come to john is that you want 'your' acre of land?

From my experience of Milton Keynes, I think it is correct to say that the village areas can be quite pleasant but there is little sense of a city. In fact, Milton Keynes is not really thought of as a city.


It is actually bigger than Preston which is a city. MK is still being built and has the youngest population in the country – and it is getting younger while all others are getting older. In Milton Keynes they have a “city centre”. In 10 years time it is expected to be bigger than Sheffield. MK has a reasonable sized centre which is being extended and with some talls as well. The original concept was not to have tall buildings. MK is the largest retail place in the south east after London with an indoor shopping mall as big as Albania. They are a number of department stores. MK has a longer shoreline than Jersey, when the lakes are added up, with four SSI woods.

MK does not feel like a city because of the grid does not have buildings on it. Outsiders go into culture shock when they enter. The locals love the place.


The idea of an urban area with the car as its main form of accessing central attractions is rather anti-urban.


It is not. The car has been an aspect of urban life for 100 years.


The car may be here to stay but the fact remains that a very large part of the community, often the majority, do not have access to one. These include the young, the elderly, those on low incomes, sick and disabled and those who just do not choose to have one.


That is true, but the majority do have a car, and most homes two these days.


Living in a city is not the only way to live but those who choose to do so want the advantages that urbanity brings - easy access to shops, workplaces, pubs, clubs, theatres, cinemas, restaurants, churches, sports facilities etc. that is the idea of Downtown.


Yep and all towns and cities have one.


By the way, the majority of people in modern Britain do not live in family units (i.e. the traditional family of husband wife and 2.4 children). There is a huge demographic of single, divorced and widowed people, childless couples, gay couples, 'empty nesters', the elderly etc. for whom urban living is an attractive option. I am sure that the 15,000 that we now have living in central Liverpool is just scratching the surface.


Populating Centres does make sense to a degree, but not to the point that any entertainment disturbs the residents, then the concept of the centre is destroyed.


That is not 'social engineering', quite the reverse. It is developers, not government planners who are pushing the city centre living agenda, certainly in Liverpool.


In Liverpool it is the city/planners who are pushing it. Large out of town shopping malls are discouraged.


I'm not saying there is anything at all wrong with living in suburbs or villages both of these can have their attractions (and will probably remain the mainstay of family living) but it should not be confused with urbanity, which is a quality of dense towns and cities and is demonstrated at its best in great continental cities such as Barcelona.


You need the balance. The city may have to concentrate on the centre while private enterprise deals with the suburbs and beyond. The fact remains that most people do not want to live in flats. IMO, this is mainly due to the poor quality of flats we have dished up. It can be totally miserable when there is a noisy neighbour – high sound insulation can solve much of that. Also the style and type and the surrounds have always been poor too.


What has gone wrong in Liverpool is that this village idea has been adopted for social housing in the central area, which has resulted in these low density estates of two storey houses and bungalows with walls round them, which are completely anti-urban and which blight large sections of the city centre.


I agree. But they were a stop gap top eradicate the urban hell hole that were there before.


Whilst these can have quite pleasant enclosed environments, they contribute nothing to the vitality of the Downtown area, do not have the density to sustain shops, public transport or adequate policing and have road layouts that do not permit the easy access in all directions that is the essence of a succesful urban area.


Too true.


Blocks of apartments with active street fronts and a grid network of streets are far better suited to an urban setting.


With adequate open spaces. Liverpool centre is desperately short of open green space and tree lined roads.

Milton Keynes really scares me. My ex used to live nearby and we'd go shopping in "Centre M-K", which is basically the city centre, but actually looks more than the Trafford Centre.

I always got the feeling it was designed by some insane genious who, with the greatest possible intentions, engineered a utopia for the masses, only to create a monster.

I always got the feeling that I was in an industrial estate and that, soon, I'd get into the city centre. Then I realised I was already there.

Saying that though, the housing stock is of a high quality and its clean. Not many cities can say that.

UK town and country Planning is based on silly notions that are explicitly anti city. Blabbs, one of the reasons why TCPA currently 'back the market' is that it conforms more (after years of seeping application that influences insurance, fire regs etc) to their anti city notions... it is a marraige of convenience, rather than a philosophy that advocates the free market! remember the hooror about 'town cramming' they spewed the instant the government started the whole Toward and Urban renaissance stuff in the late 90s'... nothing about markets... all about ideology... they hate cities!


I'm sure it is a marriage of convenience. But their point is also that it is unwise to adopt strict policies that encourage inner city development that will not appeal to the people it is aimed at.

I agree with your pro-city, pro-urban ideas. However, it is a mistake to think that this style of growth is consistent with the market. The planning system is needed to encourage pro-city growth, and so there is no point blaming planning (per se) for the lack of this. It is the market left unhindered that contributes to suburbanisation more than anything else. Hence why we had so much of this during the 1980s when the planning system was all but dismantled by the Thatcher governments.

The reason there is so much inner city development at the present time is becuase planning and regeneration policy have placed so much emphasis on encouraging this as part of a sustainable development agenda.

Despite what Martin suggested earlier, there is not a large number of people wanting to settle in city centres, and developers are well aware of this. Most of the young professionals do not forge long-term links with central areas and give up their tiny, expensive, 1or2 bedroom flats within 2 years (usually less.) And there are lots of young professionals who prefer the suburbs they grew up in. The kind of sustainable urban communities that are required for long-term, sustainable cities require families and numeorus other types of consumer to settle in them long-term.

Sadly, British people have a culture of preferring houses with gardens in Howard-esque, pseudo-rural environments. This is predominantly the case. And any compromise on this (i.e. people moving into city centres) would entail superior urban environments to those we see in most British cities, which are dirty and unruley, and lack parks, decent schools, etc. As well as homes suited to a wide range of consumers and affordable.

It is the market that is pro-suburbia, because the bulk of consumers, for most of their adult lives, are pro-suburbia. The planning system is needed to achieve pro-city development. Some planners agree with this, such as Lord Rogers and the Urban Task Force. Others, such as the TCPA are opposed. Hence why these two keep getting into spats. In any case, there is no point being anti planning if one desires urban renaissance.

Post-Edit:

Cities will benefit if the planning system prevents development in green belts, and in peripheral locations. These type of policies force developers to look to the centre. The TCPA are represent only one school of thought in planning terms.

Most of the energy we use right now is not lost through the buildings themselves, but rather, as a consequence of the spatial arrangements we place them in and then having to engineer in techonlogical and tax subsidies to overcome the inherent urban and environmental dysfunctionalism of them... i.e SUBURBS!


Fact: 40% of all energy used is by domestic buildings. What you are saying is that less energy can be used if we all live in high rises and only need to walk everywhere or via a rapid urban transport. Good point and Paris, a very tight city proves that.


Private suburbs only 'work' because of 3 basic reasons
*the fact that working people tend to understand the direct investment they have made in an area... and the area will contain lots of like minded and similarly obligated people

* the obvious one, that they have the incomes to mitigate the socialy stultifying consequences of being made to live in a dormatory suburb when your needs are for much more than a bed.

*Suburbanisation nescecitates (and currently gets) massive input of resources and subsidies in order to let people skewer the 'market' to live in their perception that a semi is thier ideal.


Suburbs work because people like the environment they produce – very simple. It works.


The Right in the US promotes suburban development as if this is some sort of statement of individuals rights, Wendel Cox is the most prominent of those who debate on urbanism and freedom, but they miss that basic point. If people want to live in suburbs, miles away from services and jobs then let them, but let the costs of roads, sewerage, waste, drains, transport, energy etc be borne by those living in those who 'chose' to do so?


Quite right too. Although the autonomous house may make this sort of living more prominent.


Would soon change the financial relationship between the individual and the State! There is not an environmental or urban argument to be made for suburbs, they are horrifically wasteful of resources... and we kill our cities to allow folk to drive all over them unhindered by other suburbanites driveing their SUV's to services that in a healthy city would be at the end of their block... madness!


You are way behind. I have already highlighted the autonomous house. Electric cars are on the way – Mitsubishi has an all electric range in a bout 3 to 4 years time coming out. Hybrids are already here. Battery technology, prompted by mobile phones, has increased amazingly over the past 5 years to the point that the all electric car is here right now.

In a petrol car 75% of the energy in the tank is wasted as only 25% of the fuel is used to propel the vehicle. In a battery car less than 5% of the stored energy is wasted. It is now cleaner and more efficient to burn the fuel at a power station with advance stack scubbers, drive high efficient turbines, make electricity, send it via lines to the cities and charge the car, than burn the fuel directly in the car. Electric cars are simple with few parts and very quiet, so will last twice the time, at least, as internal combustion cars, which again will save on manufacturing resources too.


UK town and country Planning is based on silly notions that are explicitly anti city. Blabbs, one of the reasons why TCPA currently 'back the market' is that it conforms more (after years of seeping application that influences insurance, fire regs etc) to their anti city notions... it is a marraige of convenience, rather than a philosophy that advocates the free market! remember the hooror about 'town cramming' they spewed the instant the government started the whole Toward and Urban renaissance stuff in the late 90s'... nothing about markets... all about ideology... they hate cities!


The 1947 T&C planning act is a Stalinist joke and needs scrapping ASAP. I believe in having as little planning as possible and a free reign over the land. Then private enterprise and the market will meet housing demand. Council and subsidised housing will be a thing of the past. The perpetual housing crisis the UK is always in will disappear and the taxpayer pays none of this.


Cities are not overcrowded.. it is a pretty sweeping statement anyway...



They are. We are all rammed into urban areas. 95% of the population live in urban areas of some sort. Most would like far more space around them. We live in the pokies and most expensive homes in the western world.


Are NYC, HK and Liverpool all 'overcrowded' in the same way? If Liverpool is 'overcrowded' (with the implication that this is undesirable and uncomfortable?) then how do people even manage to exist (never mind desperately wish to live in) in places like NYC and HK?


HK, and Singapore are an artificial unnatural city states so not applicable.


Overcrowding is completely different to density however, the nobs in mid manhattan live at much higher densities (and much more comfortably) than those in the overcrowded slums of Calcutta and Mumbai.


That is a good point. Much of NY apartments are big, while in the UK they are pokey holes.


Just imagine the consequences of delivering your fancy. As I have repeatedly stated, these issues do not exist in their own little bubbles, they are inter-connected.


It is not a fancy. Cities and areas of Germany and France are very successful at delivering attractive cities with vibrant centres and spacious suburban and rural homes.

Read and hard what I write and take it in – you have been introduced to new concepts and technology. Do not accept the status quo as that is what the large land owners want.

The ease in which to build in suburbs and beyond which new technology can offer will ensure that centres are planned, designed and run well - competition. This is why Liverpool's waterways are the key for the future - an attractive appealing city environment.


the only conclusion I can come to john is that you want 'your' acre of land?

An acre I wouldn’t mind at all, if the bastards would let me build on it of course. An acre of agricultural land can be purchased for £2,000, a complete eco kit home for £20,000, yet the average price of a house in the UK is near to £200,000. Obtaining planning permission to erect a house in the countryside in a country with a land surplus is currently near impossible.

I would like my acre and a waterway city apartment too. I want the best of both and there is no reason why most of us cannot have both.

This is quite a circular argument blabbs as I have agreed with your points. I have said that the only way in which 'urban living' could become popular is for the market to be allowed to provide for the small numbers who WOULD wish to move into good quality, good sized family apartments in properly deisigned urban neighbourhoods (windsor scheme?) so that perceptions could be changed by practical examples of how it works. Toad came out with a good point at tonights meeting, he said that people are being turned onto this type of living by experiencing first hand how it works in places like Barcelona when they go there on easyjet! this is right and is the only way people will ever want it!

I have never tried to make out that my ideas of how cities work best are actually frustrated market and popular demand - I have made the 'pioneer' plea a few times on here... what I HAVE said is that our planners currently (again I hope the Windsor scheme displays a crack in the mindset) are the ones who deny planing proposals for downtown family apartments on their OWN notions that there isn't demand... if the market wants to make a punt with specualtors own money then let them try I say! That is the way we will get our urban renaissance... when people want it!

I was involved in promoting some really interesting research done by RICS in the late 90s' about these 'perceptions' of the market.. some interesting results I can post up if I am reminded to.... too knackered now.

Funnily enough it was in London, at the presentation seminar on the results where I last met Walter Bore... he had some interesting things to say on the mistakes he made implementing the Shankland plan... he also reminded me that he always loved the city... then he snuffed it about 2 weeks later!

Hence why we had so much of this during the 1980s when the planning system was all but dismantled by the Thatcher governments.


Read the two documents I gave links to. These clearly explain that Thatcher did no such thing. She actually reinforced the Stalinist planning system we have.


The reason there is so much inner city development at the present time is becuase planning and regeneration policy have placed so much emphasis on encouraging this as part of a sustainable development agenda.


Central quotas have to be met and building flats is the easiest way of supplying the units to satisfy Whitehall.


Despite what Martin suggested earlier, there is not a large number of people wanting to settle in city centres, and developers are well aware of this. Most of the young professionals do not forge long-term links with central areas and give up their tiny, expensive, 1or2 bedroom flats within 2 years (usually less.) And there are lots of young professionals who prefer the suburbs they grew up in. The kind of sustainable urban communities that are required for long-term, sustainable cities require families and numeorus other types of consumer to settle in them long-term.


It depends on what the centres offer. Enough green spaces, spacious flats instead of pokey holes, amenities around, etc. Flat on a water city would be quite in demand and people would hag onto them. People get rid of flats near central London as many of the areas don’t offer much at all.


Sadly, British people have a culture of preferring houses with gardens in Howard-esque, pseudo-rural environments. This is predominantly the case. And any compromise on this (i.e. people moving into city centres) would entail superior urban environments to those we see in most British cities, which are dirty and unruley, and lack parks, decent schools, etc. As well as homes suited to a wide range of consumers and affordable.


Yep. You hit it.


It is the market that is pro-suburbia, because the bulk of consumers, for most of their adult lives, are pro-suburbia. The planning system is needed to achieve pro-city development. Some planners agree with this, such as Lord Rogers and the Urban Task Force. Others, such as the TCPA are opposed. Hence why these two keep getting into spats. In any case, there is no point being anti planning if one desires urban renaissance.


The planning system is needed to allow planners to plan properly and the market to decide what is the way. If a well designed attractive waterway city is built then there is competition to suburbs. It focuses the mind on quality of life all around.

In the two reports I gave links to, Rogers gets a slagging – a rightly so too.


Post-Edit:

Cities will benefit if the planning system prevents development in green belts, and in peripheral locations. These type of policies force developers to look to the centre. The TCPA are represent only one school of thought in planning terms.

Quite wrong. In England the area of greenbelt has doubled since 1980, with nearly 21 million acres absorbed in total. The UK actually has greenbelt sprawl.

Greenbelts, extensively introduced in the 1950s, were intended to be narrow and primarily used for recreation by the inhabitants of the towns and cities they surrounded. The belts were expanded in width, but continued to be used for farming. The shire counties used greenbelts to hold back the disliked populations of nearby towns and cities. Recreational uses disappeared and the greenbelts became green barriers to keep large numbers of urban inhabitants from mixing with a very small number of rural residents. This is a clear case of the few exercising their will over a massive majority. Often these greenbelts were not even green, containing industry and intensive industrial agriculture.

Greenbelts should be put to their originally intended use or got rid of.

Some very important and interesting points John, though you must still keep in mind the holistic environment with regards to housing. if everyone had an electric car they would still need the roads on which to drive around and access the services now miles away by dint of everyone having a car and seperate 'autonomous' home. You still need the extra miles of cables and drains (and their ongoing mainainence). You would still suck out that energy provided by close proximity... plus you would still destroy the countryside as well as the city... if we all live in the suburbs then any notion of the real city dies.

Suburbs do not work. They seem to have worked for the middle classes but like I say, this is a flase notion as they are heavilty subsidised... remove the subsidies and let them bear all of the real 'costs' of suburban living and you would soon see a rush back to the inner core... as is largely the case in Europe, where govs did not to decide to rip cities apart and then stump up the massive on costs of doing this.

I will also mention again that suburbs are chronically failing, even in our own city, where poor people (without the personal income to mitigate the dysfunctionality) are vacating vast swathes of sound but low density housing because of the simple fact that the suburbs do not work... they are impossible to live in without the dosh and the massive subsidies.

I do not see the slightest sense in promoting a system that destroys both city and countryside... nationalise the countryside and leave it to the birdds and hedgehogs... and use the moneies raised from taxes on improving services in what would then be our healthy, vibrant, compact cities instead of wasting it on attempting to keep suburbs habitable.

As I've said, the TCPA and Liverpool's planners (and planning committee of elected members) represent one of many strands of thought in the planning system. I don't go in for these broad brush statements about the planning system.

Windsor's development, which I am all for, will have emerged from the fact that the planning system is not allowing them to develop family housing in other places that they would traditionally choose to develop. National and regional planning guidance has encouraged this. The fact that LCC disagree with it does not say anything about the planning system as a whole.

Regarding Toady's comments. Research suggests that high density living is more popular amongst latino/hispanic communities than amongst the more individualist, anglo-saxon peoples of the UK, USA, Australia, amongst others.
Will yourself and Toad be pioneers per chance?
This is not to say that high density, inner city living is not possible in the UK in the future. Maybe the UK will move towards the Barcelona example, but the planning system IS needed to achieve this. I believe it can happen if:

a) the planning system continues to discourage development in the periphery,

b) the planning system continues to encourage development in the centre, and development that is consistent with the needs and wants of consumers,

c) this can be profitable to developers.

No matter what way you look at it, and this is my point, the planning system is necessary to achieve this in the UK. So I disagree with broad brush statements that suggest the planning system is the barrier. LCC are a disgrace and known to be a dreadful local authority in numerous respects- but their bad practice should not be used to attack necessary planning tools in principle.

Milton Keynes really scares me. My ex used to live nearby and we'd go shopping in "Centre M-K", which is basically the city centre, but actually looks more than the Trafford Centre.

I always got the feeling it was designed by some insane genious who, with the greatest possible intentions, engineered a utopia for the masses, only to create a monster.

I always got the feeling that I was in an industrial estate and that, soon, I'd get into the city centre. Then I realised I was already there.


That is the point of MK. You don't see much of the houses from the main grid roads, only trees and bushes – people are away from the high speed driving. There are few traffic jams in MK and it has the best road system in Europe. People think nothing is there. It is all behind and isolated. MK is a great success and many planners from all over the world regularly visit the place.

The centre is being revamped and extended too making one of the boulevards into a pedestrian road.

Harold Wilson took a great interest in MKs design. Each suburb was to have its own community hall, local shops, etc, just like a village. The big stuff you bought in the centre. The hall was also a bar and could be rented for weddings and the likes. They have abandoned this idea for local shopping malls serving many suburbs, because the large supermarkets, forcing people into cars, had sway. Each suburb has its own community house, which is used for many events. You can rent it for kiddies parties and the likes, vote there, play groups, old people’s drop in centres, etc. MK has the country’s biggest ASDA, Tesco and DIY stores.


Saying that though, the housing stock is of a high quality and its clean. Not many cities can say that.

As I said blabbs, this is a circular argument.. and there is no harm in broad brushes on a forum like this either! I agree with your points... I did so when you posted them below too.

Being fatalistic and projecting current perceptions onto future potential is not conducive to an ideas thread, we are not in whitehall setting policy for the next generation, we're just on a forum discussing 'stuff'.

How do we get from 'here' to where we want to be as good urbanists? What, beynd 'housing' provision is the value of good urbanism for unleashing more entrepreneurial opportunity and amenity.... if we want to promote the benefits then we have to root the housing within this wider context of added value for families.

Good neighbourhoods are about much more than housing, as we all know, the extra benefits need to be expanded upon and the information diseminated thoroughly....

If someone on this forum can get me £300k I will be downtown with the wife and kids in a shot, like a pioneer... one of those you see in the mad wagon land grab races they used to re-enact!

That is the point of MK. You don't see much of the houses from the main grid roads, only trees and bushes – people are away from the high speed driving. There are few traffic jams in MK and it has the best road system in Europe. People think nothing is there. It is all behind and isolated. MK is a great success and many planners from all over the world regularly visit the place.

The centre is being revamped and extended too making one of the boulevards into a pedestrian road.

Harold Wilson took a great interest in MKs design. Each suburb was to have its own community hall, local shops, etc, just like a village. The big stuff you bought in the centre. The hall was also a bar and could be rented for weddings and the likes. They have abandoned this idea for local shopping malls serving many suburbs, because the large supermarkets, forcing people into cars, had sway. Each suburb has its own community house, which is used for many events. You can rent it for kiddies parties and the likes, vote there, play groups, old people’s drop in centres, etc. MK has the country’s biggest ASDA, Tesco and DIY stores.

MK without the international inward investment and proximity to London would be an unemployment hell hole... exactly the same as Skem or Cumbernauld! It is not a real place.. it doesn't generate a tap of it's own and it is a cultural and creative desert! All this stuff about being inside out and 'behind', pretending the place doesn't exist is my idea of hell, I would much rather have County Rd or a revived Park Rd!

John MK... is this where you live?

Some very important and interesting points John, though you must still keep in mind the holistic environment with regards to housing. if everyone had an electric car they would still need the roads on which to drive around and access the services now miles away by dint of everyone having a car and seperate 'autonomous' home. You still need the extra miles of cables and drains (and their ongoing mainainence). You would still suck out that energy provided by close proximity... plus you would still destroy the countryside as well as the city... if we all live in the suburbs then any notion of the real city dies.


Autonomous means 100% off-the grid. Also local Combined Heat and Power plant can be built which utilise over 90% of the energy in providing heat and power, as in Sweden and Denmark.


Suburbs do not work.


THEY DO. They are a great success. Not what you want to hear but that is fact.


They seem to have worked for the middle classes but like I say, this is a flase notion as they are heavilty subsidised... remove the subsidies and let them bear all of the real 'costs' of suburban living and you would soon see a rush back to the inner core... as is largely the case in Europe, where govs did not to decide to rip cities apart and then stump up the massive on costs of doing this.


Many French and German cities have very successful suburbs.


I will also mention again that suburbs are chronically failing, even in our own city, where poor people (without the personal income to mitigate the dysfunctionality) are vacating vast swathes of sound but low density housing because of the simple fact that the suburbs do not work... they are impossible to live in without the dosh and the massive subsidies.


Not much of anything worked in Liverpool – Liverpool is atypical as it went through an economic collapse. The 1930s private suburbs: Childwall, Woolton, etc are a great success.


I do not see the slightest sense in promoting a system that destroys both city and countryside... nationalise the countryside and leave it to the birdds and hedgehogs... and use the moneies raised from taxes on improving services in what would then be our healthy, vibrant, compact cities instead of wasting it on attempting to keep suburbs habitable.


Destroy the countryside? We only settle 7.5% of it, with about 2.5% paved. There is just too much of it to ruin. It can’t be ruined at all. – well not by building houses on it.

It clear you are lacking on this topic.

MK without the international inward investment and proximity to London would be an unemployment hell hole... exactly the same as Skem or Cumbernauld! It is not a real place.. it doesn't generate a tap of it's own and it is a cultural and creative desert! All this stuff about being inside out and 'behind', pretending the place doesn't exist is my idea of hell, I would much rather have County Rd or a revived Park Rd!


MK was originally a London overspill, but with a difference. You clearly haven't a clue what you are talking about. It is no dormitory town. Mercedes Benz, Abbey National Bank, Argos, etc, all have their headquarters there and employ many people. Marks and Spencer were going to move but changed MDs. They are also building a 30,000 seater international class stadium right now.

I haven’t a clue what a cultural and creative desert means, because the place has identity that is clear. Remember the first house was only built 30 years ago and the city is still being built. A group of orthodox Jews want one of the unbuilt grid cells to build their own community. They are ultra serious too and have bottomless pot of money to fight the appeal too. Pop culture? The MK bowl is the biggest venue in the south east. The new stadium should take most of the concerts in the future. Sport? Wimbledon FC have moved there, the national hockey stadium is there too. A top basketball team too. The place is on the M1, near the M40, the north west main rail line runs through, including the grand union canal. BTW, the original smoked glass city centre buildings are now listed as of architectural importance.

County Road? MK is a city not a rundown suburb. Retail is a major part of the economy with park and ride from the motorway for outsiders. Not officially a city but a city in size, yes. It also swallowed up existing adjoining towns too, which are traditional in makeup. MK is a real thriving, prosperous and active place. It is no Skem’. It is clear you have never been to MK to come out with such crap.

The people who live there love it. And they are the ones that matter. MK is a major success story. And how to build new towns.


John MK... is this where you live?

Some of the time.

This will put many of you right......

HOW LAND AFFECTS THE AVERAGE PERSON

Contents:

INTRODUCTION
PROBLEMS
THE UK HAS A LAND SURPLUS
QUESTIONS
PLANNING
SOLUTIONS
1. Nationalise Land
2. Redistribute Land.
3. Land Value Tax
THE WAY FORWARD
DATA ON LAND USAGE


INTRODUCTION

The UK has a very big problem that lies at the root of many of its problems; it is the usage and ownership of “land”. Most people are not aware that land is a big problem that affects just about every man, woman and child in the UK. This problem has been effectively suppressed.

PROBLEMS

The value of land accounts for 2/3 of the value of the average home in the UK - a very big problem.

Some points relating to high land prices:

a) House Prices Are Far Too High - The people of the UK pay very high prices for very small high density homes. UK house prices are amongst the highest in the world in comparison to comparable countries. The more land is a greater part of the total house price the higher house prices become. An acre of agricultural land can be purchased for £2,000, a complete eco kit home for £20,000, yet the average price of a house in the UK is near to £200,000. Obtaining planning permission to erect a house in the countryside in a country with a land surplus will be near impossible. Few people realise that the high land value is the reason why their homes are so expensive.

In the United Kingdom the average home costs seven times the average annual income. In the U.S.A. people pay three and a half their annual income on a home. In the United Kingdom the average size of the home will be 330 square feet per person, while Americans occupy 750 square feet per person. In the UK, on average, homes cost twice as much and are half the size as in the U.S.A.

Over a period of thirty years, real house prices in the UK rose up by around 3% per annum while remaining stable in Germany and Switzerland.

b) High Land Prices Disrupt Family Life - High land values cascading into high house prices entails that both parents of homes in the vast majority of families need to work to pay mortgages to keep a very small roof over their heads. Only about 8% of UK families have the wife at home full time. This breakdown in traditional family life results in the latch-key kids, who all too often end up as delinquents and in trouble. Vandalism and graffiti is rife in the UK giving the country a very poor image.

c) People Priced Out of Housing Market - The problem of not allowing people to build on land is surfacing in parts of the country where people with low incomes and in some cases not so low, are being priced out of the housing market. Many cannot afford to live in the towns, villages and city districts where they were born and brought up, having to leave splitting family groups. Many of these towns and villages are surrounded by low grade land which lays idle through public subsidy. Small builders and individual selfbuilders are eager to build on this land to fill the local housing gap; however they are prevented from doing so.

This artificial shortage of available building land reduces home ownership. Home ownership in the UK is at 68% which is lower than Spain, Finland, Ireland, Greece, Australia and New Zealand and very close to rates in Italy, Portugal and Luxembourg.

The land is not serving the people. Not only that, it financially penalises the people.

d) Houses Far Too Small - The averaged sized home in the UK is a paltry 120 square metres. In Japan, a country notorious for small homes, the average sized home is 140 square metres. The averaged size living room in the UK is a miniscule 13 foot by 15 foot; a room which has to function as TV room, children’s play room, entertainment room and relaxation room. If the averaged sized man stands in the middle of a typical British living room and stretched out an arm he will hit either a wall or ceiling. British TV has many programmes dedicated to giving a larger feel to a room by careful choice of furnishing and colour co-ordination. People attempt to create an impression of space in undersized homes.

New homes in the United Kingdom are an average of 76 square metres, while in Germany with a similar population density new homes are 109 square metres. In Australia the average sized new homes is 205.7 square metres.

The housing charity, Shelter, estimate 500,000 households are officially overcrowded.

e) Consumer Debt Is Mainly Mortgages - The media is full of tales of high consumer debt in the UK. Few state that 80% is actually mortgages, not debt for luxury goods; giving the impression the people of the UK are financially reckless and decadent. In short, people pay extortionate amounts for a tiny roof to keep themselves warm and dry.

f) High Land Prices Discourage Commerce and Industry - High land prices result in high rents, which are passed onto commerce and industry. Many foreign investors and companies have been discouraged from establishing in the UK because of uncompetitive rents.

g) People Prevented From Building Affordable Homes - Preventing people from building affordable homes in the countryside forces them into urban areas where many will be given publicly owned or subsidised homes, paid for from taxes. We pay from public money, which could be better spend on needy projects, to house people who would otherwise pay for and build their own homes. This is obviously a ludicrous situation. Taxpayes money keeps land idle and is also used to house people. Better use can be made of public money.

h) Land is at Root of Traveller Problems - Approximately 300,000 people the UK travel the roads in caravans, effectively homeless. Some traveller societies, mainly the original Gypsies, have deep routes and traditions of travelling, most do not. Many have become a nuisance to the wider society and are firmly unwanted and unwelcome wherever they set up camp. The root cause that initially forced theses people onto the roads was access to land to live on. The Irish travelling communities originated when Ireland’s land was owned by a handful of people forcing these people off the land they lived on. Many of the travellers in the UK originate from Ireland. Most traveller families want a permanent place to live. The evictions of Travellers caravans from land they actually own when attempting a permanent settlement clearly demonstrates this. If travellers were allowed to build permanent homes the problem would be alleviated.

- Strange that land can be the root of excessive house prices, however very true.

- Strange that land can be the root cause of much child and teenage vandalism, however very true.

- Strange that land can be the root cause of forcing people out of their home towns and villages, splitting up families, however very true.

- Strange that land can result in homes being far too small, however very true.

- Strange that land can be the root cause of disrupted families, however very true.

- Strange that land can discourage business and growth, however very true.

- Strange that land accounts for vast profits by financial institutions lending money for homes with inflated prices, however very true.

- Strange in that land increases the tax burden on subsidised homes, however very true.

- Strange in that land created, and maintains, the problem of the travellers, however very true.

The above is all very true.

THE UK HAS A LAND SURPLUS

Contrary to popular belief, the UK has approximately only 7.5% of its land settled upon. The Urban plot of 4 million acres is only 6.6%. The UK actually has a surplus of land. Despite claims of concreting over the South East of England, only 7.1% is settled with the Home Counties being underpopulated. The North West of England is densest with 9.9% settled.

Question 1. So why does land account for 2/3 of the value of the average home, with all the negative spins offs, if we have all this land available?

Quite simply, the deliberate creation of an artificial land shortage, which ramps up land prices.

Question 2. What creates this artificial land shortage?

The 1947 Town and Country Planning act, introduced by a “Labour” government, who promised land nationalisation during the 1945 general election, herds people into small isolated highly dense pockets of land in urban areas. Amazingly the Labour government allowed the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) to be involved in drafting the act. CPRE was formed by large landowners. They influenced the act to suit themselves. The naïve Labour administration at the time accepted their input. Over 90% of the population now live in urbanised areas, the second highest percentage in Europe, leaving the countryside virtually empty, because of this draconian act. This crams near 55 million people into around 7% of the land, which is only 4.2 million acres out of a UK total of 60 million acres. 60 million people own just 6% of the land.

The act prevents us from building on the countryside, even though much of it is being paid to remain idle by taxpayers money. A countryside that has lost people at an alarming rate over the past 30 years. The people of the UK are forced into tight urban pockets paying extortionate prices for land, and subsequently houses. Their taxes are used to reinforce this bizarre situation by paying to:

1. Keep land unused to maintain an artificial land shortage inflating house prices.
2. House people unnecessarily in public funded housing.
3. Overwhelmingly control where people can live

This adds insult to injury. A contemptuous slap in the face.

The Town & Country Planning act is in effect an act to control people, rather than ensure adequate agricultural land is available, protect areas of natural beauty or promote first class habitation. The latter it certainly does not do.

Question 3. Who are the biggest benefactors of this artificial land shortage?

a) Primarily Large Landowners.

The ludicrously small figure of 0.65% of the UK population own 68.3% of the land, many are aristocratic families dating back many hundreds of years. Despite propaganda stating that the British aristocracy is poverty stricken and exists no more, they have managed to hang on to their lucrative acres very well, and in many cases expand their empires.

The root of this situation came about from the Norman conquest. The Normans gave land to people who were favourable to them. In short, many of these families were traitors to their own kind conspiring with invaders. The Saxons had a very different approach to land, its ownership and usage. Later, the enclosures of common lands and the Highland croft clearances completed the land rout. The situation has never been rectified.

The UK still has this landowning aristocratic legacy, which still, despite propaganda stating otherwise, has a large effect and influence on the British people. Large landowners are part of the British establishment and do everything in their power to keep the status quo. The late Enoch Powel described the British establishment as “the power that need not speak its name”. A very astute description.

Most of these landowners produce little making their vast profits by taking rent. When the media reports that times are hard for farmers, they omit the word “tenant”. It should be “tenant farmers”. When times are bad the landowner always gets his rent, or takes the farm back, paying no taxes on it when idle, and leaves it until times are better.

To justify their monopolies in land ownership, large landowners state they are only custodians of the land and only they can maintain the land properly. “Maintaining the land properly” is rather open and vague, if they ever do such a thing of course. If these people are only custodians and looking after the land for our benefit, then why aren’t the public allowed on uncultivated land? These “custodians” fence off all their lands and only allow on people when forced to by law. Their claims clearly do not hold water.

The UK has never had a revolution and no political party has had the stomach to face up to large landowners, who are a legacy of our totally unjust past. Landed families infiltrate the top brass of the military. In the 1960s, there were many rumours of military coups against the reforming Wilson government as many in the British establishment thought, amongst other things, he would nationalise land. After all, in 1945 Atlee promise land reform, but ran out of time, so Wilson, a major part of the Atlee government, should carry out the promise when the Labour party returned to power, which he mysteriously never did.

Tony Blair ejected from the House of Lords 66 hereditary peers, who between them owned the equivalent of 4.5 average sized English counties. The Royal family controls approximate the size of one average sized English county. The Duke of Argyle owns vast tracts of Scotland. Historically landowners have been a problem; the Irish famine was a direct result of large landowners. The problem is still with us and in many respects even greater. With large landowners being omnipresent in the Palace of Westminster, land reform would always be difficult if near impossible. Tony Blair ejecting hereditary peers is the first step in land reform, as one barrier has been partially dismantled.

"Stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land got hold of it. They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers to provide them with title-deeds. In the case of the enclosure of the common lands, which was going on from about 1600 to 1850, the land-grabbers did not even have the excuse of being foreign conquerors; they were quite frankly taking the heritage of their own countrymen, upon no sort of pretext except that they had the power to do so." – George Orwell.

"Except for the few surviving commons, the high roads, the lands of the National Trust, a certain number of parks, and the sea shore below high-tide mark, every square inch of England is `owned' by a few thousand families. These people are just about as useful as so many tapeworms. It is desirable that people should own their own dwelling houses, and it is probably desirable that a farmer should own as much land as he can actually farm." –
George Orwell.

b) Large Construction Companies.

Approximately 80% of all homes built in the UK are built by about only 20 companies. In no other country in the western world does such a monopoly exist. The sort of situation seen in banana republics. The House Builders Federation influences the building regulations so heavily in order to maintain the status quo that the UK is backwards in house building technology compared to large parts of Western Europe, Scandinavia and North America. The House Builders Federation opposes any increase in building regulations that they perceive will eat into their members vast profits. They opposed all increases in insulation standards and in 1990 described the proposed insulation increase as “a cosmetic exercise”.

Graham Chapman, the founder the Lotus motor car company, wanted to make the best sports cars, and aimed to do so. Large house developers only want profit not caring about the poor quality dross they serve up. None want to build the best designed and constructed houses. As no Graham Chapman is present in the British construction industry, they will have to be legislated into leading edge advanced designs and construction.

The deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has verbally ordered developers to adopt advanced technology and improve the renowned poor quality of new homes. Otherwise he says he will intervene. However, there is no legislation to force the issue, although Prescott’s famed left hook might. If there is a change of government or minister would the successor have the same drive as Prescott? All encouraging, however without firm legislation as the driver, quite hollow.

It comes as no surprise that amongst the richest people in the UK are landowners and construction company owners. The richest man in the USA is Bill Gates a creator of software products that people benefit from – he is productive, he produces. In the UK, the richest man is the Duke of Westminster, who primarily takes in rent.

c) A Poor Performing Industry

Far too much land is given over to agriculture, which only accounts for about 2.5% of the UK economy. This poor performing over subsidised industry is absorbing land that could be better used economically in commerce and for much needed spacious higher quality homes for people. Much of the land is paid to remain idle out of our taxes. The UK could actually abandon most of agriculture and import most of its food, as food is obtainable cheaper elsewhere.

50% of the EU budget is allocated to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). CAP is supporting a lifestyle of a very small minority of country dwellers in a poor performing industry. In effect that is its prime function.

The city of Sheffield, a one industry city of steel, was virtually killed by allowing imports of cheaper steel from abroad. This created great misery and distress to its large population. Yet agriculture is subsidised to the hilt having land allocated to it which clearly can be better utilised for the greater good of British society.

The justification for subsidising agriculture is that we need to eat. We also need steel and cars in our modern society, yet the auto and steel industries were allowed to fall away to cheaper competition from abroad, and especially the Far East. Should taxpayers money be propping up an economically small industry that consumes vast tracts of land that certainly could be better used? What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

The overall agricultural subsidy is about £4.5 billion per year, up to £6 billion if BSE and Foot and Mouth is taken into account. This is £6 billion to an industry whose total turnover is only £15 billion per annum. Unbelievable. This implies huge inefficiency in the agricultural industry, about 40% on the £15 billion figure. Applied to the acres agriculture absorbs, and about 16 million acres are uneconomic. Apply real economics to farming and you theoretically free up 16 million acres, which is near 27% of the total UK land mass.

This is land that certainly could be put to better use for the people of the UK. Allowing people to spread out and live amongst nature is highly desirable and simultaneously lowering land prices. This means lower house prices which the UK desperately needs. Second country homes could be within reach of many people, as in Scandinavia, creating large recreation and construction industries, and keeping people in touch with the nature of their own country. In Germany few people do not have access to a large forest which they tend to walk in at weekends. Forests and woods are ideal for recreation and absorb CO2 cleaning up the atmosphere. Much land could be turned over to public forests.

Question 4. Why is this artificial land shortage tolerated by the people of the UK?

Quite simply the large landowners have waged a subtle highly successful propaganda campaign that has convinced the people of the UK that they do not have enough land and that nothing should be built on open countryside and that sterile greenbelts should keep them accessing the countryside. Propaganda may appear too strong a word, however propaganda it certainly is. Large landowners point to very large countries like the USA and Australia as proof the UK is small with open countryside scarce. When viewing the UK in isolation it is not small and can easily support its 60 million people and even lots more. Open countryside is in abundance. In persons per square kilometre the UK is about equal to Germany, yet Germany is not viewed as being small and short of land. The propaganda campaign has been so successful, you will find poor people in inner city sink estates agreeing that the countryside should not be built on; people who probably have never even stepped on a field.

Emotive terms have been formed and liberally used such as “concreting over the countryside” and “urban sprawl”. With only about 7.5% of the land settled, we can’t concrete over the countryside even if we wanted to. About two thirds of all new housing is built within existing urban areas with the remainder mainly built on the edge of urban areas. Very little is built on open countryside.

Cities have a natural footprint limit. The generally accepted limit is that if it takes over an hour to travel from one side to the other its expansion naturally tails off. In olden times this hour was on foot or on horseback, now it is in cars or on public transport. So we can’t “sprawl” too far either. In England the area of greenbelt has doubled since 1980, with nearly 21 million acres absorbed in total. The UK actually has greenbelt sprawl.

Greenbelts, extensively introduced in the 1950s, were intended to be narrow and primarily used for recreation by the inhabitants of the towns and cities they surrounded. The belts were expanded in width, but continued to be used for farming. The shire counties used greenbelts to hold back the disliked populations of nearby towns and cities. Recreational uses disappeared and the greenbelts became green barriers to keep large numbers of urban inhabitants from mixing with a very small number of rural residents. This is a clear case of the few exercising their will over a massive majority. Often these greenbelts were not even green, containing industry and intensive industrial agriculture.

The biggest propaganda organs are: the Council for the Protection of Rural England and the Countryside Alliance. Green movements like Friends of the Earth have been accused of being fronts for large landowners. Large landowners use green groups to keep people out of the countryside. The former is an organisation formed by large landowners and the latter is funded by large landowners. Their angle is keep the status quo by keeping townies out of the countryside, and also keeping villagers in villages. A Cabinet Office report described the countryside as, “the near exclusive preserve of the more affluent sections of society.”

The Council for the Protection of Rural England have protected little of the character of the English countryside since world war two, despite their claims. In 1940 the German air force took photo reconnaissance photos of largely southern England. The captured photos, when compared to the ordnance survey maps of 1870, 70 years before, clearly indicated there was little difference in topology. When compared to the ordnance survey maps of today, there are vast changes. The 1947 T&C planning act just allowed landscape raping agriculturalists, who contribute no more than around 2.5% to the UK economy, to go wild.

The Council for the Protection of Rural England claim to be acting in the interest of the land, wildlife and the countryside in general. This is far from the case. It is the obscene profits of large landowners they are primarily interested in, protecting little of rural England.

PLANNING

Land reform must mesh with decent relaxed planning laws that allow people to build on all land. Laws passed relating to land are rendered sterile if relaxed planning laws are not implemented. Areas of natural beauty, SSSI's, national parks, industrial and commercial sectors etc, of course should have restrictions, which still leaves a vast amount of subsidised field Britain to build on. Building on a larger mass of land will eliminate the unappealing high density, high impact developer estates; the sort that make people shudder, with many having to buy as they have Hobson’s choice. When people are weary of building on the countryside they envisage high density, high impact developer estates. The vision of these estates stirs negative emotions. That clearly would not occur if the people are allowed to spread out on the land. With cheaper land, people would build larger houses on larger plots for less money. Having the large developers curtailed will result in a mixed assortment of higher quality homes.

The autonomous house is virtually here. Superinsulation, septic tanks, combined heat & power units, grey water re-cycling, rainwater harvesting, wireless communications, mobile phones, amongst others, are all here. These houses have a low impact on the environment. Connection to urban utilities is no longer necessary. Locating homes with all modern conveniences, just about anywhere in the UK is now feasible. Herding people into urban communities because they offered basic utilities no longer need be the case.

A farmer can build a 40 foot ugly concrete barn structure without planning permission. The agricultural industry in some areas has blotted the landscape as far as the eye can see with polythene tunnels to grow fruits of which some are not native to the UK. If a good looking house was built to the local vernacular visually enhancing the countryside, without planning permission, it would be pulled down by the authorities. Houses are deemed to blot the countryside and undesirable, yet raw concrete and polythene is not, and is accepted.

We should be living amongst nature, not having to drive out to see it. Walking on land is another matter, as most of it is fenced off.

"The vast majority of the British people have no right whatsoever to their native land save to walk the streets or trudge the roads” – Henry George.

Countryside organisations are demanding all city brownfield sites be built on. We now have an ideal opportunity to leave most of these sites vacant, cleaned up and made natural again by turning them into parks, woods and encouraging wildlife for the local people to enjoy. This is an ideal opportunity to improve brownfield areas, improving the quality of life of urban dwellers righting the wrongs of the incompetent planners of the past. Areas like Hampstead Heath should be actively encouraged. Woods in towns and cities would also be a great bonus. The deliberate differentiation between town and country requires abolition as the Town & Country planning act attempts to divide. Using the words town and country sets the tone. It creates conflict. It creates two separate societies. It creates distrust.

When presenting an advanced German Huf Haus house on TV, Quentin Wilson stated that modern architecture in Britain ceased after world war two. Quentin was totally correct. The 1947 Town & Country Planning act curtailed advancement in design, being hostile to change. Top British eco architects Brenda and Robert Vale left the UK to practice abroad, disillusioned at a planning system that firmly restricts advancement.

The 2004 PPS7 planning law, may hopefully pave the way for people to live back in the countryside and build individual homes on greenfield sites. The proviso is that it must be an eco house, well designed, modern, with advanced construction techniques. Taken from the act:

Planning Policy Statement 7: Sustainable Development in Rural Areas

“11. Very occasionally the exceptional quality and innovative nature of the design of a proposed, isolated new house may provide this special justification for granting planning permission. Such a design should be truly outstanding and ground-breaking, for example, in its use of materials, methods of construction or its contribution to protecting and enhancing the environment, so helping to raise standards of design more generally in rural areas. The value of such a building will be found in its reflection of the highest standards in contemporary architecture, the significant enhancement of its immediate setting and its sensitivity to the defining characteristics of the local area.”

The PPS7 law, which on paper actively encourages advanced eco design and construction, is a positive step. If PPS7 is implemented anything like the previous PPG7, Gummers law, which permitted building houses in the countryside, then hope is lost rendering this law a cosmetic exercise. Approximately 100 houses were built in the countryside under Gummers law from 1997 to 2004, a figure is so low not worth considering. Theoretically you could build, however the planners would block proposals at every angle and opportunity rendering the law virtually useless.

A planning policy based on the French approach is worth pursuing. There are no central quotas for housing, with houses being built almost anywhere provided the local community supports the proposal. The system works well and caters for the needs of communities. The British planning system does little to assist in alleviating the perennial British housing crisis.

SOLUTIONS

1. Nationalise Land
2. Redistribute Land.
3. Land Value Tax


1. NATIONALISE LAND

In theory, the Queen, the state, owns all the land in the UK. A nation state has sovereignty over its own territory. In short, it owns all the land. So how can individual people own its land too? Sounds like horse trading. A workaround was to grant an infinite lease on the land, the title, and the ability to sell on the lease. Effectively this is land ownership by individuals or organisations.

For the state to take direct control of land would be a difficult task to undertake. It would not be generally accepted by the people, although they own it anyhow. Compensation would be demanded by landowners. Compensating large landowners would be akin to compensating slave traders when slavery was abolished; as the British government did. The concept of “land ownership” has been in the western psyche for hundreds of years, and redirecting their mindset would be difficult and lengthy.

The Labour Party’s 1945 manifesto, stated “Labour believes in land nationalisation and will work towards it” and “as a first step the State and the local authorities must have wider and speedier powers to acquire land for public purposes wherever the public interest so requires”. Labour took that ‘first step’, however future governments have been unwilling to take the second and much larger one. Nationalising land would mean some form of lease back arrangement, in which the government would receive rents. Of course, a relaxed planning system must accompany such nationalisation, to allow people to freely live on the land.


2. REDISTRIBUTE LAND.

Most major western nations have re-distributed land having laws preventing large areas of land being in the hands of a few people. These countries generally have a higher quality of life than the UK because of their sensible land laws. The British government started the ball rolling in the late 1800s to re-distribute land in Ireland. It was accomplished in 2000 with the Irish Land Commission being disbanded completing the task. The land had to be bought from the larger landowners, none was confiscated. Land re-distribution in Ireland has been attributed as one of the platforms of its economic success. Large landowners were a direct cause of the Irish famine, which eventually resulted in the Irish rebellion. Land being in the hands of a few is not ideal from many aspects.

The British government is to pay for land re-distribution in Zimbabwe - using British taxpayers money. The British government can re-distribute land elsewhere in the world, but fails to do so in its own backyard. A backyard screaming out for land and planning reform.

In 1945 the USA assessed Japan and how it should cope with the future. They assessed that land ownership was a major obstacle, being in the hands of a few people. To great effect land re-distribution was forced on the Japanese, being attributed as one of the keystones of their post war economic miracle.

Land re-distribution is effective. It may mean large landowners will have to sell parts of their estates, with laws capping land ownership levels. Of course, a relaxed planning system must accompany such re-distribution, to allow people to freely live on the land.

"We need to unlock and allot land on a far wider scale than anyone in this country has so far contemplated." - Ferdinand Mount (ex head of Margaret Thatcher's policy unit)


3. LAND VALUE TAX (LVT)

Henry George, an American, the man who devised LVT, initially proposed government ownership of all land, as the people owned it anyhow. Getting it across and accepted would have been virtually impossible. If you say, redistribute land, people cry, “communism, taking away from me what is mine". Henry George realised that people will not accept that you cannot own land. It is in the western worlds, especially the Anglo Saxon, psyche. That is where LVT excels. Own land by all means, but if you own half of Scotland just to shoot birds on, tax will be due on that land, which currently is not the case. LVT will force large landowners to sell land and not hoard it. It will also encourage them to make productive use of the land; if they cannot then they sell it to someone who can make productive use of it.

LVT taxes only the "value" of the land, which is based on the market value of the land. LVT, regards property as the items on the land, not the land itself. Someone in northern Scotland on one acre will pay very little as the land is not worth so much. Someone in central London with one acre pays substantially more.

LVT does not tax an individuals labour, and hence their productivity, which the current system does, holding back advancement.

Currently people's labour and lifestyle is taxed. The more you work, the more tax you pay. If I build a nice extension to my house so my family can enjoy and improve their quality of life, the council tax is raised. Totally ludicrous. There can be two one-acre plots side by side. I want to build an eight-roomed house for my family to enjoy and the man next door a two-bedroom bungalow, so he can enjoy the land for gardening. Under the current system, I pay more than next door in council tax. Under LVT we pay the same as the bricks on the land is not regarded as taxable, only the land is. A large house creates jobs in building the structure and ongoing maintenance, yet the current system suppresses job creation and curtails the quality of life by penalising people who build larger houses. The word large is all relevant. A large house in the UK would be an average house in the USA.

LVT spreads the proceeds of a society’s productivity more evenly than at present. It does not penalise a person’s effort to advance.

“Land should be taxed as much as possible, and improvements as little as possible.” - Milton Friedman (economist)

“I have made speeches by the yard on the subject of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter I am of that policy.” - Winston Churchill

THE WAY FORWARD

Sort out the land and planning systems and many problems that appear unrelated in British society disappear. It is not a panacea to right all the country’s ills; however it will be a superb base on which to spring from, as other countries have effectively demonstrated, and right many, many of the problems of our unfair and uneven society.

A stumbling block to any reform by the general public is that many home owners perceive that planning and land reform will devalue their homes and result in negative equity. The country appears obsessed with house price values. Value is an abstract concept with cash being the reality. In some areas negative equity may be the case, although some opinion is that this would not occur. A fund taken from LVT taxes could compensate those who drop into the trap. As land prices rise with time, negative equity would cease to be a problem, just a transitional problem from changing from one system to another.

Clearly the public need to be informed that land, the God given stuff under their feet, without which we cannot survive, is the major problem in their own advancement and actually curtails their current living standards and quality of life. That is the man in the inner city sink estate, the man in the terraced house, the man in the box semi, the man in the executive home and the country villager. Once the public is aware and this suppressed problem becomes an open issue, then the road is clear for land reform no matter what method is selected. Until then land and land tax reformers are sailing into the wind. Emphasis must be moved to educate and alert the average man and how he is directly affected.

DATA ON LAND USAGE

The land cover of Great Britain is 23.5m hectares. Taken from the Office of National Statistics, in 2002, usage was as follows:

 Settled land - 1.8m hectares. 7.65% of the land mass.
 Agricultural land - 10.8m hectares. 45.96% of the land mass.
 Semi-natural land, with much uses as agricultural land - 7.0m hectares. 29.78% of the land mass.
 Woodland - 2.8m hectares. 11.91% of the land mass
 Water bodies - 0.3m hectares. 1.28% of the land mass.
 Sundry, largely transport infrastructure - 0.8m hectares. 3.42% of the land mass.

Note 1:
Many people question the accuracy of the above figures as government departments present differing figures. Nevertheless the figures are a good guide.

Note 2:
The settled land figure includes gardens and other green spaces, which are estimated at around 5%. When adjusted a figure of only 2.5% of paved land emerges.

I'm intruiged by the idea that Liverpool going Tory is the solution to Liverpool's relative poverty and lack of prosperity. I think it completely misses the point of to why people vote for cenrtre right parties: to protect the assets they see as their's by right. If no one in the inner 'City' has much in the way of assets then why would they vote for a party that protects those that do at their own expense?

That isn't to say that certain aspects of Liverpool life wouldn't benefit from Conservative government (growth at the expense of rising inequality and crime for example leading to an American city of towers and ghettos poerhaps). However that's not really relevent as it is economics that leads politics and not the other way round, and people will only vote in the Tories when they feel they have something to protect.

The fact that the Tories have hardly made any headway in the Northern cities demonstrates if anything how superficial our regenerations have been.

The fact that the Tories have hardly made any headway in the Northern cities demonstrates if anything how superficial our regenerations have been.

What a condescending statement. Maybe the people are not as stupid as you think. Maybe they see an outdated party with petty snobbery as its core for vote winning. Maybe they see a party that keeps in place a ruling privileged class of public school/Oxbridge/royal family. Maybe they see a party that is basically incompetent as its record has shown. You think Tory policies will result in growth – forget it.

Find out what they are about, what they uphold and represent. When you do you would not look at them in a million years.

John-MK.
You appear to have the answer to the problems of the world.
Are you in fact 'GOD'?
You have a seemingly incredible amount of knowledge about every subject thrown up on this forum.
Are they your original ideas or do you google and then print what comes up?
If you are 'GOD' then please can we have our 'Brunswick Tower' passed at the public hearing.

On which day did you create Milton Keynes?

:) :hahaha: John-MK.
You appear to have the answer to the problems of the world.
Are you in fact 'GOD'?
You have a seemingly incredible amount of knowledge about every subject thrown up on this forum.
Are they your original ideas or do you google and then print what comes up?
If you are 'GOD' then please can we have our 'Brunswick Tower' passed at the public hearing.

On which day did you create Milton Keynes? :)

John-MK.
You appear to have the answer to the problems of the world.


Thank you.


Are you in fact 'GOD'?


Not far off.


You have a seemingly incredible amount of knowledge about every subject thrown up on this forum.
Are they your original ideas or do you google and then print what comes up?


Research, knowledge, being around a lot of the world and looking at the problems that are apparent and seeing how others do it better, and using the logic God gave me. Sorry I’m God, so the logic I gave myself.


If you are 'GOD' then please can we have our 'Brunswick Tower' passed at the public hearing.


I’ll do what I can.


On which day did you create Milton Keynes?

Some fine day in 1975.

God of Google more like it.

Thank you.



Not far off.



Research, knowledge, being around a lot of the world and looking at the problems that are apparent and seeing how others do it better, and using the logic God gave me. Sorry I’m God, so the logic I gave myself.



I’ll do what I can.




Some fine day in 1975.

Thank you but there really was no need for such a humble reply. :)

The art of cut and paste - a beautiful thing. :|

I'm intruiged by the idea that Liverpool going Tory is the solution to Liverpool's relative poverty and lack of prosperity. I think it completely misses the point of to why people vote for cenrtre right parties: to protect the assets they see as their's by right. If no one in the inner 'City' has much in the way of assets then why would they vote for a party that protects those that do at their own expense?

That isn't to say that certain aspects of Liverpool life wouldn't benefit from Conservative government (growth at the expense of rising inequality and crime for example leading to an American city of towers and ghettos poerhaps). However that's not really relevent as it is economics that leads politics and not the other way round, and people will only vote in the Tories when they feel they have something to protect.

The fact that the Tories have hardly made any headway in the Northern cities demonstrates if anything how superficial our regenerations have been.

Not being a tory myself I would still say this is a bit of a generalised and sweeping statement. It also perpetuates (or is it actively peddling) the conceit of the left that if you have any desire to see social progress then you havfe to fully and exclusively subscribe to the bizarre policies of state wonership and command of the economy. We have been discussing this on another thread, but I think that the market led liberal approach has shown to be the most succesful at redistribution, social support and raising more people out of poverty than all of the other 'alternatives'?

People tend to vote for parties that espouse a more liberal approach to business development because they understand that this is the most effective system of poverty eradication, social justice and progress.... rather than some defference to the old order/royalty or notions of 'knowing ones place'

Now there's a debate!

People tend to vote for parties that espouse a more liberal approach to business development because they understand that this is the most effective system of poverty eradication, social justice and progress....


No. They know that may create wealth, but not necessarilly distribute it fairly.


rather than some defference to the old order/royalty or notions of 'knowing ones place'


So that precludes the Tory party.

No. They know that may create wealth, but not necessarilly distribute it fairly.



So that precludes the Tory party.

It certainly does preclude the Tory party. One of the problems in the UK is the absence of a 'right of centre' party that is not mired in old establishement aleigences.

It all depends upon your interpretation of 'fairness'... the west distributes most efficiently IMO... could always be improved of course, but most other political ideas thend to destroy the main engine of wealth production in order to create 'fairness'/// all that bollocks about the workers controlling the means of production stuff....?

The most effective nations are those who understand that enterprise is simply part of a creative process, rather than stilted notions of 'them and us'... in some sort of perpetuity... a mindset that is completley 19th C mid european... which, for me shows that far from being an internationalist Marx was actually a bitter, parochial prick as it was in those little empires where money and business was controlled by the small establishment elite and the police where created as a specific tool of state oppresssion. Neither was the case in the UK, but then socialism with it's one size fits all dogmas has had a profoundly negative influence, both here (seeking to destroy a system that does not exist here) and around the world.

I am really in a negative mood tonight!

I take it your not a Marxist Tony.What's your view on the imperialist land grabbing trade wars of the last hundred years that've killed tens of millions of pursuit of free enterprise.

Despite what Martin suggested earlier, there is not a large number of people wanting to settle in city centres, and developers are well aware of this. Most of the young professionals do not forge long-term links with central areas and give up their tiny, expensive, 1or2 bedroom flats within 2 years (usually less.) And there are lots of young professionals who prefer the suburbs they grew up in. The kind of sustainable urban communities that are required for long-term, sustainable cities require families and numeorus other types of consumer to settle in them long-term.


What I said was that there is a large demographic of people for whom city centre (downtown) living is suited. By no means are these all 'young professionals'. We are now looking at a Liverpool city centre population of 20,000 by 2008. That represents less than 5% of the population of Liverpool and close on 1% of that of the city region. There may not be infinite scope to expand downtown but we could see a far greater population than we have at present.

I do agree with what people have said about the importance of issues such as provision of parks, schools, larger apartment sizes and better sound attenuation between apartments. However, I believe that we are only in the early stages of the emergence of a true Liverpool Downtown and these issues will come to the fore as the area develops.

Also, I don't understand this argument that you need to have families in an area for it to be sustainable in the long term. You might as well say that as old people die, old peoples homes are not sustainable.

I am presently living in the fifth place that I have called home. The idea that people are born, grow up, have children and die in one location has probably not been true for a century or two.

I would like to see more families living in the city centre, but lets not take our eye off the ball and end up with estates of bungalows with walls round them.

What I said was that there is a large demographic of people for whom city centre (downtown) living is suited. By no means are these all 'young professionals'. We are now looking at a Liverpool city centre population of 20,000 by 2008. That represents less than 5% of the population of Liverpool and close on 1% of that of the city region. There may not be infinite scope to expand downtown but we could see a far greater population than we have at present.


Apartments must be limited in the centre and families discouraged. The quality of life offered is not that good due to limited open space. High concentrations should be on the dock waterways, which they are ideally suited.

It certainly does preclude the Tory party. One of the problems in the UK is the absence of a 'right of centre' party that is not mired in old establishement aleigences.


All three claim to be left of centre. The Tories are an anachronism that should have disappeared years ago.


It all depends upon your interpretation of 'fairness'... the west distributes most efficiently IMO... could always be improved of course, but most other political ideas thend to destroy the main engine of wealth production in order to create 'fairness'/// all that bollocks about the workers controlling the means of production stuff....?


All this requires government interference. A system such as Land Value Tax would distribute more fairly and not require government meddling.


The most effective nations are those who understand that enterprise is simply part of a creative process, rather than stilted notions of 'them and us'... in some sort of perpetuity... a mindset that is completley 19th C mid european...


The problem of capitalism is that is the winner takes all. It is also cyclic in nature too.


which, for me shows that far from being an internationalist Marx was actually a bitter, parochial prick as it was in those little empires where money and business was controlled by the small establishment elite and the police where created as a specific tool of state oppresssion. Neither was the case in the UK, but then socialism with it's one size fits all dogmas has had a profoundly negative influence, both here (seeking to destroy a system that does not exist here) and around the world.

I am really in a negative mood tonight!

Communist parties were not around when Marx and Engels did their writings. Have a look at the abject poverty of 19th century UK when it was stinking rich.

Apartments must be limited in the centre and families discouraged. The quality of life offered is not that good due to limited open space. High concentrations should be on the dock waterways, which they are ideally suited.

The late Jane Jacobs had some interesting comments on 'open space'. It is often seen as a panacea for all the ills of downtown environments but needs very careful planning and positioning to ensure it works.

Its an interesting point that docks may provide open space but they do not provide useable open space (except for the boat owners). This proves that the idea of open space is more subtle than just the provision of an area of grass, it is a feeling of openness that can be acheived in quite high density neighbourhoods.

Of course, we do need more parkland, sports fields etc. It would be interesting to have a debate on how that could be provided whilst maintaining the integrity of downtown.

I take it your not a Marxist Tony.What's your view on the imperialist land grabbing trade wars of the last hundred years that've killed tens of millions of pursuit of free enterprise.

Abslolutely appalling mate, but not half as devestating as what has gone on in the name of Marx, international socialism or communism in the following 80 years or so! Why you would even begin to feel able to pose that question in response to what I said is extremely interesting... I like your thoughts when you post on here and I would never take you for one of these 'black or white' philosophers? I didn't for a second deduce from your post that you must therefore be ready to defend the excesses of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot... you're not are you?

Bad tactic to try and impose a pendulum swing to any debate with these issues. I would also not assume if I were you that, because I often ramble on against socialism that I am some 'far right' neo imperialist or 'class traitor'... politics, and the world are much too sophisticated for such infantile categorisation....

Imperialism is the very antithisis of 'free enterprise', the only link is in the minds of the visceral, anti west, anti capitalist left, they took a lot of governmental organisation after all.

I'm intrigued though. What are your thoughts on all the other empires there have been in the world... many of which only ended when they succumbed to the more benign version as pursued by Britain? Are you against imperialism or capitalism, both or just European imperialism? Is there some ideological imperative that marks a difference in acceptability between the imperialism of those nations that were ostensibly 'capitalist' and the imperialism pursued in the name of socialism? What about all those religious empires, or the purely aggressive ones? Are al empires in the history of the world equally bad, or just more modern ones? They are not all one and the same. You only selected the western ones to highlight however! How many of those were actually claimed in the name of free trade? (not many actually, most European nations where quite brazen in stating the exploitation for the home nation motive, generally asset stripping instead of 'market creation')

I am more for open and fair markets and international trade (and relations, cultural and community) based on the activities of entrepreneurs, than unfetted 'free markets' and/or imperialism, which are mainly anything but. Not very imperialsit I think... I mean, you need command from the centre to make empires based on economic dogmas work don't you... the Warsaw Pact would be a good example of such a dogma based empire don't you think?



John - your interpretation of 'capitalism' is so one dimensional. What is 'capitalism'? Surely the market principle has been shown to be the best way to build money, advance commerce and society? Without the profit motive where would 90% of the inventions we have, have come from? Who could ever defend the lack of any distributive efforts that as was the situation in the 19th C.. systems that we have built in the west... as well as the most progressive and equitable and fair societies... yet it is the west that is demonised by the left, the anti globalisers and third worldists!

It would be a mistake to put me into any of your hackneyd and cliched boxes. I am not a defender of old privilages and keeping everything private action creates, but I firmly state that the 'western way'.... or maybe the anglo saxon system if you are some rabid gaulist is not only the most efficient system, but also the most socially just.... market liberalisation (not 'free' markets or unfetted capitalism... you may need to re-read this again J) gives the baseline from which to build fairer systems of aid and support. India and China are only now beginning to be able to tackle their huge problems of poverty now that they have dropped the notions of 'equal distribution' and closed markets and are liberalising their economic structures. You can regulate a market, check it's excesses and tap it's wealth, but you must have the market. You also need to be responsive to it, rather than attempt to command what direction it goes in.

Being a passionate urbanist I would say that my habit is more individualist, meritocratic and communitarian, than collectivist at heart; the 'bottom up' rather than the 'up the bottom' (i.e. exploitative and selfish) approach. I believe that individuals should be able to create, and to benefit ftom the fruits of that creativity... one of the consequences of this is that some succeed and grow, provide jobs by providing people with what they want and make money... business... some of these get bigger, so just where do you stop this growth?


I am also a firm believer that systems must be sustainable, socially as well as environmentally, hardly a proscription for exploitation.... for good measure I hate corporations and the corporate (collective?) mentality... and I'm a republican (UK, anti royal, not US political party!) to boot!



Lastly John - How can the tories be an anacronism? Don't parties ever change their outlook and philoshies? The tories have never been a party of rigid dogma, so if they dropped their addled notions of royalty and the landed gentry and went in for Land value Tax and retaining old docks would you not support them then?




I know I have asked a lot of questions and raised some contentious points, but I'm all economy and politiked out now so I am not bothered about pursuing this theme, but if anyone else does, it may be better to continue it over on the 'thatcherism' thread?

marx started it all... dumbkopf!

Abslolutely appalling mate, but not half as devestating as what has gone on in the name of Marx, international socialism or communism in the following 80 years or so! Why you would even begin to feel able to pose that question in response to what I said is extremely interesting... I like your thoughts when you post on here and I would never take you for one of these 'black or white' philosophers? I didn't for a second deduce from your post that you must therefore be ready to defend the excesses of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot... you're not are you?

Bad tactic to try and impose a pendulum swing to any debate with these issues. I would also not assume if I were you that, because I often ramble on against socialism that I am some 'far right' neo imperialist or 'class traitor'... politics, and the world are much too sophisticated for such infantile categorisation....

Imperialism is the very antithisis of 'free enterprise', the only link is in the minds of the visceral, anti west, anti capitalist left, they took a lot of governmental organisation after all.

I'm intrigued though. What are your thoughts on all the other empires there have been in the world... many of which only ended when they succumbed to the more benign version as pursued by Britain? Are you against imperialism or capitalism, both or just European imperialism? Is there some ideological imperative that marks a difference in acceptability between the imperialism of those nations that were ostensibly 'capitalist' and the imperialism pursued in the name of socialism? What about all those religious empires, or the purely aggressive ones? Are al empires in the history of the world equally bad, or just more modern ones? They are not all one and the same. You only selected the western ones to highlight however! How many of those were actually claimed in the name of free trade? (not many actually, most European nations where quite brazen in stating the exploitation for the home nation motive, generally asset stripping instead of 'market creation')

I am more for open and fair markets and international trade (and relations, cultural and community) based on the activities of entrepreneurs, than unfetted 'free markets' and/or imperialism, which are mainly anything but. Not very imperialsit I think... I mean, you need command from the centre to make empires based on economic dogmas work don't you... the Warsaw Pact would be a good example of such a dogma based empire don't you think?



John - your interpretation of 'capitalism' is so one dimensional. What is 'capitalism'? Surely the market principle has been shown to be the best way to build money, advance commerce and society? Without the profit motive where would 90% of the inventions we have, have come from? Who could ever defend the lack of any distributive efforts that as was the situation in the 19th C.. systems that we have built in the west... as well as the most progressive and equitable and fair societies... yet it is the west that is demonised by the left, the anti globalisers and third worldists!

It would be a mistake to put me into any of your hackneyd and cliched boxes. I am not a defender of old privilages and keeping everything private action creates, but I firmly state that the 'western way'.... or maybe the anglo saxon system if you are some rabid gaulist is not only the most efficient system, but also the most socially just.... market liberalisation (not 'free' markets or unfetted capitalism... you may need to re-read this again J) gives the baseline from which to build fairer systems of aid and support. India and China are only now beginning to be able to tackle their huge problems of poverty now that they have dropped the notions of 'equal distribution' and closed markets and are liberalising their economic structures. You can regulate a market, check it's excesses and tap it's wealth, but you must have the market. You also need to be responsive to it, rather than attempt to command what direction it goes in.

Being a passionate urbanist I would say that my habit is more individualist, meritocratic and communitarian, than collectivist at heart; the 'bottom up' rather than the 'up the bottom' (i.e. exploitative and selfish) approach. I believe that individuals should be able to create, and to benefit ftom the fruits of that creativity... one of the consequences of this is that some succeed and grow, provide jobs by providing people with what they want and make money... business... some of these get bigger, so just where do you stop this growth?


I am also a firm believer that systems must be sustainable, socially as well as environmentally, hardly a proscription for exploitation.... for good measure I hate corporations and the corporate (collective?) mentality... and I'm a republican (UK, anti royal, not US political party!) to boot!



Lastly John - How can the tories be an anacronism? Don't parties ever change their outlook and philoshies? The tories have never been a party of rigid dogma, so if they dropped their addled notions of royalty and the landed gentry and went in for Land value Tax and retaining old docks would you not support them then?




I know I have asked a lot of questions and raised some contentious points, but I'm all economy and politiked out now so I am not bothered about pursuing this theme, but if anyone else does, it may be better to continue it over on the 'thatcherism' thread?

marx started it all... dumbkopf!
I don't defend state murder by any system either directly by oppressive totalitarian regimes or supposedly democratic states that indirectly murder through market domination (third world debt) or slaughter millions to proctect their interests.You seem to think that capitilism is a philanthropic system,where wealth creation benefits everybody.The relative prosperity that western nations enjoy was only arrived at after a period of unfettered exploitation(child labour,etc) suffrage ,better working condition and higher wages,weren't granted,they were conceded were certains conditions were arrived at.ie: organised labour,with access to information(incidentally,Britain in the 19c introduced a newspaper tax,to keep the masses in ignorance)In order for capitalism to function certain trade offs have to be made,concessions such as livable wage are seen as a necessary evil to have a stable society.That is why in South America and elsewhere,where there is abject poverty and exploitation revolutions and coups are common place.

Personally I think ideologies are fine but I wouldn't want to be eaten up by one. :eat:

The late Jane Jacobs had some interesting comments on 'open space'. It is often seen as a panacea for all the ills of downtown environments but needs very careful planning and positioning to ensure it works.

Its an interesting point that docks may provide open space but they do not provide useable open space (except for the boat owners). This proves that the idea of open space is more subtle than just the provision of an area of grass, it is a feeling of openness that can be acheived in quite high density neighbourhoods.

Of course, we do need more parkland, sports fields etc. It would be interesting to have a debate on how that could be provided whilst maintaining the integrity of downtown.

Martin,

Regarding open space and urban living I have always liked `London` not just for it`s major parks (Green Lungs) but also it`s many commons and smaller green spaces and `residents squares and gardens` (Visually, though not by total exclusion.) and the many many trees. Abercromby Square in Liverpool would have worked well in it`s day.

Over the last decade or more Liverpool has lost many fields and open spaces to low density housing - better to have increased the density perhaps and kept the space as much as possible - there again we did that with all of those council flats in the 60`s and 70`s and ended up with a no mans land.

Planning in some common open space and residential open space in Liverpool City Centre is going to be difficult but not impossible - pubs with a small green work for a lot of people, pavement cafes - somewhere to go for a walk.

Commercial roof gardens, ie Cafes, resturants etc, public viewing points and meeting points, balconies.

Somewhere to be (and feel) included not isolated, somewhere to have a bit of `personal` peace and quiet yet watch the world go by.....even if it`s a busy world.

Does `Liverpool Downtown` have a top twenty or even thirty locations now that might be applicable.

If not we need to start planning them and more.

Lastly John - How can the tories be an anacronism?
Don't parties ever change their outlook and philoshies?


The basic core of what they uphold and maintain stays the same, no matter what gloss they try to put on it. Sort out the privileged predominately southern based ruling class, which they support and uphold (the Tories shouted loud to keep hereditary peers for God’s sake – how dumb) and the country will be on a firmer more representative footing.


The tories have never been a party of rigid dogma, so if they dropped their addled notions of royalty and the landed gentry and went in for Land value Tax and retaining old docks would you not support them then?


Thatcher came into power shouting she was to make the country a meritocracy. This was so un-Tory it had to be a con, but many sucked this in. Parts of the British establishment were frightened their gravy train was to be taken away, or knew it was a ruse. At the end of her stint the system was exactly as it was. She broke down nothing except had a hate campaign against trade unions. Unions were the cause of all our problems she said. They neutralised them and the country and economy still dropped, so it wasn't unions then.

LVT was to be implemented by the Liberals just before WW1, Winston Churchill a big supporter. The offices were setup. The war got in the way and it was never implemented after. Tories hate LVT as it will strip the wealth from the large landowners who were their traditional funders.

Liverpool LibDems have wanted to implement LVT to eliminate the abandoned and boarded up properties.

The Tories keep old docks? They would like to raze and concrete over all of Liverpool. They sooner they are blown away from British politics the better for all.

I don't defend state murder by any system either directly by oppressive totalitarian regimes or supposedly democratic states that indirectly murder through market domination (third world debt) or slaughter millions to proctect their interests.You seem to think that capitilism is a philanthropic system,where wealth creation benefits everybody.The relative prosperity that western nations enjoy was only arrived at after a period of unfettered exploitation(child labour,etc) suffrage ,better working condition and higher wages,weren't granted,they were conceded were certains conditions were arrived at.ie: organised labour,with access to information(incidentally,Britain in the 19c introduced a newspaper tax,to keep the masses in ignorance)In order for capitalism to function certain trade offs have to be made,concessions such as livable wage are seen as a necessary evil to have a stable society.That is why in South America and elsewhere,where there is abject poverty and exploitation revolutions and coups are common place.

No GV I don't seem to think that capitalism is some sort of philanthropic sytem, You seem to think you can sum up my core philosophies from a few glib statements on a web forum though... how strange?

I did actually explain my view that liberal markets provide a baseline that can actually be utilised for social and civic progress however, so you may have my take on these things a smidgen correctly.. just a smidgen mind!

You make two fundamental mistakes that is common amongst many who do not subscribe to the market as the best basic building block of wealth production and provision for social wellbeing.

Money is not a finaite commodity, it is completely false and only counts as to the value we put on it and items at the time. It is expandable... and by the same dint, retractable... so all the money floating round that we pay each other and buy products with is not the same blob we created in ye olde bad days! It is brand new and continually refreshing.

All, or even a significant portion of our wealth is not provided at the expense of the third world. As we all know we would all be better off if the thrid world could rise from poverty, but many have corrupt, kleptocratic and 'establishment elite' based economies.. the reason for much of the poverty in S America is down to small elites keeping all of the excess generated by quite inefficient economies... Africa is largely corrupt.

If western 'capitalism', western firms and western foreign activity was solely or even mainly responsible then how come the countries that have taken up the models (there are a variety) are growing wealth and improving the lot for their people? The Asian Tigers, post iron curtain countries (Russia possibly the exception as it is a klepto/plutocracy!) and as I mentioned, most notably India and China? If money is a finite commodity to be hogged and controled by local, national or global elites, then where is all this extra dosh coming from? Africa could do the same as are most in S America are doing (even Chavez et al are building wealth on basic market principles, and I think the current nationalisation is acceptable in their rudementary economies , but only mid term)

I could say that you seem to be too eager to undergo the same self flaggelation that the left are so fond of. "It's all our fault". We're all sitting here utilising the net on our computers, paying our cable bills... all aiding and abetting 'capitalism'... that naughty beast that gains only for our elites at the expense of the workers... or for the local masses at the expense of the international downtrodden. Western 'capitalism' is mainly based on people making things and selling goods, ideas and services to consumers who can afford them... i.e the vast majority of us.

There are great inequalities in this country a well as around the world... some evil policies that do indeed exacerbate poverty and misery in some of the poorest countries, there are awful foreign policies that maintain some of the worst criminals (the 'West' are not the only ones paying these vile games) but these are specific policies, not a core function of a neutral tool.

Not to sound so much like certain people on this forum I would, though urge you to read throgh my post again as I actually covered points that if you had taken them on board properly would have disuaded you from your 'seemingly' line.

We all want a better world, an end to starvation and a decent life for all.. why the harsh insistence that any claim for anything other than pure evil eminating of the west and it's ideasl and practices means you then have to be a baby murdering, country starving elite supporting troll? All the evidence shows that the oppisite is largely true. Open, liberal market based economies genreate more wealth for a greater proportion of a nations or blocs people than other sytems... not being dogmatic they can be managed and utilised.. other systems cannot.

Can you be a bit more clear as to which economic system you are a proponent of. Is it lassiez-faire capitalism,you seem a bit vague on this.I'm in favour of a mixed economy,or democratic socialism.instead of getting personal,which i will do if you persist.What do you actually stand for.Do you believe in the minimum wage,do you believe in interventionism.Answer these and the miasma might clear a bit.By the way your contempt for views of a left perspective are nearly equalled by mine of the right :) :)

You seem to have gotten personal from the start GV.. all those 'seemings'... clever catch all and a cop out at the same time. I don't understand what you mean though by my 'persisting'... persisting in what? Making a case for something you may not agree with?

There is a lot of stuff written below and others will be able to read it too. I don't mind you gettng personal at all if that is how you handle disagreement... it will be a one way slanging match though.

I do believe in a minimum wage but I do not believe in interventionism... not in the slightest. I also believe in income and corporation tax, social security, a decent pension, health care free at the point of use. I believe in social housing. I believe that social housing should be provided for those (like me) who need it. I firmly believe in all these things, the only reason I wish to see a liberal market functioning as this is the surest way of getting these things. I do not believe that centralised control and command of economic structures delivers is a much less efficient method of rasing the finance to pay for social protection (if democratic socialism raises anything at all)

However, I despise the public sector leaches who perpetuate poverty in our poorest communities to maintain their own carreer paths based on managing this poverty.

I have actually made clear what my views are... how can you say I am being vague... I said that you surely cannot come to a fundamental conclusion of where I stand on all matters (nor I you, as I said) but there is enough to grasp the direction I am coming from, how I see things can work, surely?

Good. That's a few things cleared up.

They always were!



Seeing as you specifically asked me if I support a lassiez-faire approach to the economy then I will state again - I do not. As liberal as possible, but comlpete freedom serves no human purpose at all... lassiez-faire tends to reduce economies to the lowest common denominator. I do not subscribe to any model or system so confined it could be described as one. I am not a dogmatist... how economies work is incredibly fluid and complex... best left that way. The consumer based broad approach is best though as this depends on wealth distribution in order to maintain growth (within sustainable perameters as I mentioned in my first post) The 'market' is a mechanism, not a school of thought or narrow dogma.

Anyway, lets not fall out over a forum dispute about things we do not control or even have a real say?

Agreed.One thing Tony i think you're just as passionate about the city as me, even if our politics are different.

Agreed.One thing Tony i think you're just as passionate about the city as me, even if our politics are different.

Deffo GV... As I stated right off, I always enjoy your posts and take on things. As I also said I am usre that we all have the same goals in mind, i.e improvement across the board for ordinary people, just different ideas about the methodologies about how we best achieve these goals!

Folk who are passionate about the city are usually passionate in most things!

No insult intended to you, so my apologies to you if I did so.

Same as. Cheers.

John MK
'You clearly haven't a clue. Engineering brick are very hard bricks and generally used in foundations – blue engineering brick (Staffordshire blues) are used on railway bridges. Older house are not built of engineering bricks. '

Think I do bitch as alot of houses the LCC want to demolish are actually made of Engineering bricks so shut up if you dont know the area or the facts.

If you lived round here then you would understand the social fabric and architecture at risk, never mind the needless vandalism of peoples homes.

John MK
'Liverpool LibDems have wanted to implement LVT to eliminate the abandoned and boarded up properties.'

Again if you knew the facts you would know that the council and RSL's own the majority of empty houses as they want to get rid so they can make a killing on the land and also get rid of undesirable people and replace with richer residents. Partownership schemes are in small numbers at prices people cant afford anyway so all the local people are moved out and replaced with buy to lets or a small group of people on high wages. So again alittle bit of so called knowledge can do a great deal of damage, FUCK OFF.

What I said was that there is a large demographic of people for whom city centre (downtown) living is suited. By no means are these all 'young professionals'. We are now looking at a Liverpool city centre population of 20,000 by 2008. That represents less than 5% of the population of Liverpool and close on 1% of that of the city region. There may not be infinite scope to expand downtown but we could see a far greater population than we have at present.

I do agree with what people have said about the importance of issues such as provision of parks, schools, larger apartment sizes and better sound attenuation between apartments. However, I believe that we are only in the early stages of the emergence of a true Liverpool Downtown and these issues will come to the fore as the area develops.

Also, I don't understand this argument that you need to have families in an area for it to be sustainable in the long term. You might as well say that as old people die, old peoples homes are not sustainable.

I am presently living in the fifth place that I have called home. The idea that people are born, grow up, have children and die in one location has probably not been true for a century or two.

I would like to see more families living in the city centre, but lets not take our eye off the ball and end up with estates of bungalows with walls round them.

The so-called downtown population you refer to predominatly consists of a very narrow class of people. Predominantly young professionals renting (remote) investor owned homes. Yes, there are other types of person living in town- older and more well-off home owners
with first homes in suburbia. Also members of the gay and lesbian population. All the research I have read suggests that these types of people are preodminantly the occupiers of inner city homes. More to the point, most of these will not form long term links with the inner city community. People who have no roots with the place and will happily move on as soon as some other place offers them cheesy leisure experience (-think about the term "sustainability.")

I'm sorry Martin, but to say "we have 20,000 people living downtown by 2008", means nothing.

Try out this article, I think it makes some interesting points about the sustainability of the cities we are creating.
http://www.joelkotkin.com/Urban_Affairs/LAT%20The%20Ephemeral%20City.htm

You seem to have this belief that cities can regenerate themselves and sustain this regeneration, based on the inward migration of predominantly temporary residents seeking some thrills. Whether you happen to like or not, these represent the largest group of people living in downtown. However, these people are mainly temporary, thrill-seekers, following a trendy life style. Students, young professionals, affluent older people starting a second home, and members of the gay community.

You don't see why families and other groups are required? Working classes, middles classes, white collar, blue collar, families, young people, old people. These are all required to create a wholesome and sustainable community. Why have schools, nurseries, parks if there are no children, but only predominantly affluent 21-35s (and spatterings of other demograhpic groups) to make demands on a city's services? A city is more than a physical construct, it is also very much a social entity- if a city's residents do not grow up in an area, and people do not develop attachments to their home places- then what will cities be, other than mere Benidorms where people move in for a while to get their kicks, and then fuck off elsewhere? Hardly sustainable places.

The Liverpool of old had an incredibly diverse population and an incredibly diverse economy- of rich, poor, old, young, families, couples. A myiad of services were sustained.

What will young professionals and older culture buffs (the main downtown residents and generally very affluent) sustain downtown?

Take a look at Barcelona and Paris. Attracting families and other long-term residents does not necessarily entail building "estates of bungalows with walls around them."

Well said.

Unless we provide a genuine and rich mix of housing in the centre, the benefits of re-population will not sustain. That needs to be real mixing, not allowing a whole clutch of mono-tenure, mono-class and mono-ageband developments to go up without a thought about who else should live in and near the centre. I've nothing against the new towers and residential developments, except that they are not even attempting to create social mix. Each one is another precious opportunity wasted.

But it's more than that. Genuinely talented and creative people will go where they want to go. Where are the parks? It's fine giving over sites to developers to provide cheap flats for accountants and marketing professionals spending a few years based in Liverpool, but those people will not revive the city. Genuinely talented, creative and entreprenuerial people need to be attracted and retained. We need to see some public investment, and requirement on the part of developers to contribute to that. Squares, parks and genuinely good quality public spaces are required. It is an absolute disgrace that there are no plans for a new and large park to serve the residents in the new north-central residential district, or indeed in the new south-central one.

Part of my "Toxteth" plan (on the Axis of Desire thread) was about creating another city-centre experience, more suited for long-term and family habitation. That is essential. Otherwise, the new tower dwellers move on, are replaced by more of the same, and nothing sticks or grows. Bits of the centre become like a giant long-term hotel rather than a new urban community.

John MK
'Liverpool LibDems have wanted to implement LVT to eliminate the abandoned and boarded up properties.'

Again if you knew the facts

Idiot, the facts are the council appplied for LVT, it was reported in the national press. Boy you are thick.

^^ Carry on insulting well-liked and respected forum members such as Dreamer like that, John, and people will be PMing mods to get you banned.

Do you like being on this forum? If so, behave.

^^ Carry on insulting well-liked and respected forum members such as Dreamer like that, John, and people will be PMing mods to get you banned.

Do you like being on this forum? If so, behave.

Oh another intellectually challeged poster here. Insult me and you get it back. This Dreamer is an idiot. Boy you are slow.

:banned:

Thanks Awayo I owe you one mate.
John you said 'Idiot, the facts are the council appplied for LVT, it was reported in the national press. Boy you are thick.' You do not live round here and do not know the facts and how this is affecting the lives of local people. Its social cleansing and you are a twat with no knowledge of Toxteth and its issues.

Thanks Awayo I owe you one mate.
John you said 'Idiot, the facts are the council appplied for LVT, it was reported in the national press. Boy you are thick.' You do not live round here and do not know the facts and how this is affecting the lives of local people. Its social cleansing and you are a twat with no knowledge of Toxteth and its issues.

Idiot, I was born in Toxteth and many of my family still live there. Now run along and be nice little idiot.

Clearly you dont live here now and understand the issues of people being threatened with loosing their homes...
....so FUCK OFF

Clearly you dont live here now and understand the issues of people being threatened with loosing their homes...
....so FUCK OFF

....another intellectually challenged person here. Amazing eh!

Thanks for your kind comments

Thanks for your kind comments

Thanks for your kind comments

Any time.