On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:58:26 +0100, Arthur Figgis ]
wrote:


Mistakes which were entirely driven by central planning with SFA direct
local decision making.

You seem to be confused about slightly different issues here.

No, I am detailing why development in post war Britain ended up in the
current mess that it did.

Are you
really saying that having fewer restrictions on what people could do
to existing buildings would stop people demolishing the same existing
buildings?

Why should existing buildings merit centrally planned protection in the 1st
place ?

Planning + protection is a local issue.

Localities had that abrogated by Whitehall in 1947.

Give local electorates the power to protect their own buildings and they
will.


The 1947 T&C planning act abrogated planning from localities.

So why does the council keep sending me letters about flats which
someone wants to build up the road?

Because they are mere messenger boys in the process.

If we ignored everything under 100 years, we could all too easily find
ourselves with nothing - or only inferior examples - left by the time
the most important buildings were "old enough". For example, 100 years
would rule out listing anything related to the two world wars,

So.

I'd prefer it not to be simply swept away because someone who can
afford to wants to build a car park, or a Tescos or whatever. YMMMV.

Fine, make your case to the local electorate and let them decide if it
merits the cost of paying for it.

The costs of listing should not be free, if the local electorate take a
decision to impose development restrictions on private property, then its
only right and proper that the owners be compensated by the same local
electorate for loss of utility.

I've just seen too many crap buildings to be happy with letting
developers and others get on with whatever they think will maximise
short term profits

Maximised profits which only exist as a consequence of ridiculous post war
restrictions on supply.

~1.5 million semis were built entirely by the private sector between the
wars for the equivalent of 25k in today's money.

4-5 bed detached cost 30-40k.

and sod the public who will have to use and look at
the results for decades.

I'll take 220 houses spread over 20 acres of metroland over 220 flats in
the trellick tower any day.

snip

The Victorians often flattened what went before to build their
railways.

Which are now run far beyond capacity, expansion completely hamstrung by
ridiculous planning regulation.

Not really - even if you are counting things like accessibility and
safety as planning, the cost explosion brought by the
post-privatisation structure of the rail industry is hardly a planning
matter.

That's a separate issue.

Critical capacity issues existed long before privatisation. The ridiculous
process to get the CTRL through Kent is a prime case in point.

...

There was loads of victorian building too. Without needing Whitehall to
manage it.

"There was a valley between Buxton and Bakewell, once upon a time as
divine as the vale of Tempe... You enterprised a railroad through the
valley - you blasted its rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale
into its lovely stream. The valley is gone and the Gods with it, and
now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and
every fool in Bakewell at Buxton; which you think a lucrative process
of exchange - you Fools everywhere."


Ruskins privileged existence meant he never had to experience the realities
of living in the real world by going out to work for a living.

That line between Buxton and Bakewell like thousands of others, put food on
tables, carried people to/from work they couldn't possibly have reached
before and provided opportunity for the whole country.

Only an effete patronising snob (which pretty much sums up Ruskin) could
decry progress in such a manner.


greg

--
Müde lieg ich lieg in der Scheisse,
und niemand weiss, wie ich heisse.
Es gibt nur einen, der mich kennt,
und mich bei meinem Namen nennt.