A BBC Radio 4 item this morning suggested that leading UK house builders Persimmon have adopted a moratorium on projects which are not already under construction. It also seems that house builders are looking to the Government to bail out UK banks to the tune of £200 billion (rather that a mere £50 billion !) if the levels of housing construction envisaged in its grand central plan are to be achieved. The fact is, of course, that this kind of grand centralised planning doesn’t work, as Stalin could no doubt have told Gordon Brown and Ms New Bolshevikism herself, Yvette Cooper (former Housing Minister, now Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Wife of Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, and leading architect of New Labourism etc etc) had he been alive today.
This brings me to the subject of local and regional planning in South Worcestershire and the West Midlands. Unfortunately, delusions akin to central planning are by no means restricted to those of a New Labour bent. Although, to be fair this Government, like Stalin, very well understands that if you can get middle glass professionals, like planners, on side you can get away with almost anything. At a recent meeting, for example, two Wychavon planners, both bearing a striking resemblence to Ms Cooper-Balls, consoled a more mature (and rather more experienced !) group of local councillors with the information that the Government’s plans for higher levels (ie than those in the proposed Revision to the Regional Spatial Strategy) of housebuilding would just be in the order of a continuum of the housebuilding trajectory for South Worcestershire since the mid-1980s.
The fact that such unsustainable growth has brought gross over-development to this part of the country, and left large areas of the West Midlands conurbation derelict, had clearly escaped the notice of our two lovely planning ladies, although not that of the local councillors, or the West Midlands Regional Assembly (now facing abolition). The current West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy is intended to tackle this problem of “dispersion” of population and economic activity from the Major Urban Areas, although the likes of the South Worcestershire local authorities (particularly Wychavon and Worcester City), and the County Council, have done their best to ignore it, preferring a more market-led approach, which mainly consists of cow-towing to housebuilders and other speculative developers.
The serious consequences of the current “credit crunch” will, therefore, deliver a much needed reality check to both the proponents of centralised planning, and those of laissez faire development, in the form of market-led moratoriums on housebuilding of the kind adopted by Persimmon. What we also need, of course, is much better regulation of both the economy, and through the spatial and land use planning systems. On the question of planning, it is noteworthy that correspondence in the construction press has called for the re-creation of a Department of (or for !) the Environment. Might I also suggest that the Planning Inspectorate needs to become a much stronger entity with access to its own independent “evidence-base” so that the wool cannot be pulled over the eyes of Inspectors by an unholy alliance of Stalinist policy-makers and construction interests (even if such “cohabitation” has always gone on !).
The Witch of Worcester 