Whenever Tories and developers get together the consequences for both taxpayers and the environment are almost always detrimental.
According to media reports property developers have been briefed by a government minister to the effect that planning legislation will be slackened, yet again, to allow them to begin a massive immigration driven house-building programme.
This follows Budget announcements relating to new homes and first-time home owners, proposals that will see a lot of money, both private and public, flowing into construction company coffers – at no small cost to both the environment and the greenbelt.
This follows the disclosure that the government’s planning minister attended a meeting with some of the country’s biggest developers within hours of Budget announcements.
If the media reports are accurate then the government is poised to remove planning permission requirements for many developments – allowing developers to ride roughshod over local opposition – as we have already seen in respect of the controversial landscape wrecking HS2 rail link project.
Furthermore it is claimed that the £15.5 billion government package to support homebuyers is to create a building boom that, inevitably, will generate huge profits for developers at the expense of the taxpayer.
In the Budget, Osborne announced that the Government would offer five-year interest-free loans at up to 20% of the value of new homes; claiming the scheme will help over 600,00 people buy homes over the next three years.
The meeting spelling out further deregulation of the planning system, was held in a plush Mayfair location, with some 150 representatives of the construction industry present.
One consequence of the proposals is that wealthy homeowners will be able to use state subsidised mortgages to buy multiple homes.
The minister reportedly claimed that the Government had already proposed allowing home owners to build larger extensions and to make it easier to convert commercial properties for residential use. Furthermore, in a statement that has a clear and detrimental countryside impact, he went on to say: “The Government will consult on allowing further flexibilities between use classes to support change of use from certain agricultural and retail uses to residential use.”
There are now fears of a planning free-for-all because fewer than half of the councils in England have developed local plans necessary to protect the environment from developers shortly having, more or less, free rein to build anywhere they please. The impact on the countryside could be ruinous particularly considering that councils not having “five years’ supply of immediately developable and deliverable sites” would not “get to make the decisions”. If they haven’t, which is the situation in the majority of cases, then “you will have to accept that the (Government) inspector, reluctantly, will make those decisions and will make those decisions according to the policies in the NPPF and the presumption of sustainable development.” So much for local democracy.
A few weeks ago the chairman of the National Trust, warned of a “war” between developers and local residents because of the loosening of planning rules.”
The bottom line is quite clear; the Government intends to push its huge home building programme through – a programme made necessary substantially through mass immigration, regardless of how local residents feel about it. There will be winners and losers – the winners being the Government’s friends and party backers in the construction industry and the losers local residents and the countryside.
Postscript: From the Daily Telegraph, September 2011: “Dozens of property firms have given a total of £3.3 million to the party (Conservative) over the past three years, including large gifts from companies seeking to develop rural land. Developers are also paying thousands of pounds for access to senior Tories through the Conservative Property Forum, a club of elite donors which sets up “breakfast meetings” to discuss planning and property issues. The disclosures are likely to provoke a new “cash-for-access”
row and will give rise to fears that planning policies could have been influenced by powerful figures from the property industry.”
2
And with the 1000s of Acres of diseased ash trees that land has now become available for development so that the Government can build the 1000s upon 1000s of houses need to house the millions of Immigrants.
Plus they are going to subsidise Mortgages for Immigrants who want to buy their own homes.