On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 12:00:06 +0100, Dave Arquati wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:43:39 +0100, Greg Hennessy
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 19:00:49 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:


If it's not fit for purpose, it's 'niceness' is irrelevant. LT is there to
provide public transport, nothing else, it's assets are not there for the
benefit of train spotters, architecture wonks or unaccountable quangos who
don't have to pick up the tab for specious contradictory regulation.
So LU shouldn't do anything to reflect its heritage, its history and its
design excellence?
A straw man.

We (those LU employees who work there) should just be shoved in some
modern office equivalent of a battery hen shed should we?
There is absolutely no reason why you or any other public sector employee
should be provided with facilities which have higher operating costs than
equivalent ones elsewhere.

Does your logic also apply to the private sector? If this is the case
then I trust we will see bankers and corporate lawyers sharing the same
facilities as privatised dustmen.
(snip)

Paul, your argument has already failed here because you're asking for logic.

Obviously - I don't think I have come across anyone post such utter
patronising clap trap on the group.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Greg, can I just ask, purely as an aside, if you've had a bad personal
experience in the sphere of "planning" (in its broadest sense)?

In message , Greg Hennessy
writes
Not a wholly unaccountable state funded and centrally run quango.
I can't thin of any QuANGOs which are wholly unaccountable (ie most have
to work within powers or areas delegated to them by Parliament).

Ridiculous nanny state interference by the HSE aside, that's only a subset
of the issue. Any major infrastructure project in the UK takes the guts of
a decade to work through a ridiculously complex self inflicted planning
process.
I agree that some things do take far too long. But I don't think that
removing rules in their entirety (or almost in their entirety) would
somehow make our country a "better place". It would, for example, be
much more convenient for many people if the M1 were to continue
southwards from Staples Corner to - say - Marble Arch. The reason we
don't do that is because the advantages of such a thing would be
outweighed by the disadvantages. The same thinking (slowed down by our
planning process, for all its faults) saw the ultimate end of the Inner
Motorway Box, the M11 southwards extension and (I think) something
similar for the M23.

I appreciate that these are extreme examples and I'm not trying to
deliberately pick a fight or bait you, merely to try to illustrate why I
think our planning laws work as they do.

Projects such as the Great Central would be strangled at birth in today's
planning regime.
Well that applies to *many* things. I suspect that the London Eye
would never have been permitted if they'd asked for it to be placed
there permanently; instead it was allowed for five years and became
loved on the way.......

Perhaps you'd prefer a French-style system?

Not entirely.

I am in favour of mandatory levels of CPO compensation set at say 1.5-2
times the market value.

I am in favour of putting the compensation regime on a sliding scale with a
tight timescale, so that if someone wants to be bloody minded, feet
dragging comes with a price attached.

I am in favour of setting a tipping point, such that those who refuse to
take the generous compensation on offer will end up facing 'compensation'
at market clearing rates once say 2/3rds of properties have signed up.

I am in favour of simplifying the process such that it doesn't entertain
the notion of taking 'evidence' from druids or anyone else unconnected with
reality.

I am in favour of terminating with extreme prejudice the careers of
qunagocrats who sabotage planning decisions ex post facto. English Nature
comes to mind in this instance.
You know, Greg, these are all ideas or prospective rules being put
forward by an unelected and unaccountable source....... :-)

these happen to be the rules that would suit your way of looking at the
country but of course different people (bodies, authorities, etc.) all
have their own points of view. That's why planning involves so many
different people in consultation processes. What's good for one isn't
necessarily good for another.

and if you are in the way of the national interest and the
glory of the state, then tough luck? Kent is a rather different
environment to Pas de Calais.

Kent is mostly empty space.
Boggle
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

In message , Steve
Dulieu writes

Trust me I'm a DMT, would I lie to you?

*snort*
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 13:46:10 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 12:00:06 +0100, Dave Arquati wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:43:39 +0100, Greg Hennessy
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 19:00:49 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:


If it's not fit for purpose, it's 'niceness' is irrelevant. LT is there to
provide public transport, nothing else, it's assets are not there for the
benefit of train spotters, architecture wonks or unaccountable quangos who
don't have to pick up the tab for specious contradictory regulation.
So LU shouldn't do anything to reflect its heritage, its history and its
design excellence?
A straw man.

We (those LU employees who work there) should just be shoved in some
modern office equivalent of a battery hen shed should we?
There is absolutely no reason why you or any other public sector employee
should be provided with facilities which have higher operating costs than
equivalent ones elsewhere.

Does your logic also apply to the private sector? If this is the case
then I trust we will see bankers and corporate lawyers sharing the same
facilities as privatised dustmen.
(snip)

Paul, your argument has already failed here because you're asking for logic.

Obviously - I don't think I have come across anyone post such utter
patronising clap trap on the group.

Pointing out logical fallacy after logical fallacy posted in lieu of
addressing the point is now 'patronising clap trap'. ROTFL!

Neither of you have proved capable of explaining why LT or any other
publicly funded organisation should be somehow immune from minimising their
overheads and maximising the return on what are in the case of St James
exceedingly valuable assets.



Strawmen about dustmen and ambulance chasers not withstanding.



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.

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:06:20 +0100, Ian Jelf
wrote:

Greg, can I just ask,

Of course you can mate.

purely as an aside, if you've had a bad personal
experience in the sphere of "planning" (in its broadest sense)?

When it's easier quicker and cheaper to build bigger better designed
houses in Holland and Belgium, then there is something exceedingly wrong
with the UK system.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../01/do0102.xml

"The average size of a new dwelling in Britain is 82.7 square metres. That
compares with 115.5 square metres in the Netherlands, whose population
density is much greater than our own.

Our house prices over the past 30 years have risen by 3.9 per cent per year
above the rate of inflation: in Switzerland and Germany, they have remained
static. Another way of putting this is that people have to pay more for
less.

The chief reason for this is that it is very hard to build new houses.
Planning law gives enormous power to the public authorities. They combine
the horror (John Prescott) of imposing centrally determined, much-too-large
blocks of development in a few places with much too strict micro-control of
building everywhere, particularly anywhere that can be described as
"green". "


In message , Greg Hennessy
writes
Not a wholly unaccountable state funded and centrally run quango.
I can't thin of any QuANGOs which are wholly unaccountable (ie most have
to work within powers or areas delegated to them by Parliament).

That's the point, once the powers have been delegated usually directly by
ministries through secondary legislation, parliament never gets a look in.

Parliament does not have the power to amend any of the 3000 odd SI's passed
each year, all it can do it reject or pass them. Needless to say any notion
of proper parliamentary scrutiny is academic.

Govt's change, civil service empires do not.


Ridiculous nanny state interference by the HSE aside, that's only a subset
of the issue. Any major infrastructure project in the UK takes the guts of
a decade to work through a ridiculously complex self inflicted planning
process.
I agree that some things do take far too long. But I don't think that
removing rules in their entirety (or almost in their entirety) would
somehow make our country a "better place".

The answer to over regulation is never more regulation.

It would, for example, be
much more convenient for many people if the M1 were to continue
southwards from Staples Corner to - say - Marble Arch.

By removing the power to do that from Whitehall to Localities, the
likelihood of that part of the Abercrombie box being resurrected is rather
low.

The reason we don't do that is because the advantages of such a thing would be
outweighed by the disadvantages. The same thinking (slowed down by our
planning process, for all its faults) saw the ultimate end of the Inner
Motorway Box, the M11 southwards extension and (I think) something
similar for the M23.

It also caused horrendous congestion in the SE by delaying the completion
of the M25 by 15 odd years.


I appreciate that these are extreme examples and I'm not trying to
deliberately pick a fight or bait you,

If you were, we wouldn't be having this conversation :-).


merely to try to illustrate why I
think our planning laws work as they do.

Projects such as the Great Central would be strangled at birth in today's
planning regime.
Well that applies to *many* things. I suspect that the London Eye
would never have been permitted if they'd asked for it to be placed
there permanently; instead it was allowed for five years and became
loved on the way.......

Which is why the current system should be excised in a root and branch
reform.

You have to remember the origins of the existing planning mess. It's only
by the grace of INSERT DEITY HERE that the 1945-51 socialist govt didn't
completely nationalise land. It was seriously considered.

What did end up being enacted in 1947 was to appease the statist control
freaks in the party.

The permanent installation of a ferris wheel on the South Bank, should have
stood on it's own merits, if it's detractors didn't want it to built, they
should have been able to consult Londoners directly through a proposition
system.

I am a firm believer in the wisdom of crowds, give the electorate enough
information and they will generally make the right decision.

That scares the men at the ministry silly.


Perhaps you'd prefer a French-style system?

Not entirely.

I am in favour of mandatory levels of CPO compensation set at say 1.5-2
times the market value.

I am in favour of putting the compensation regime on a sliding scale with a
tight timescale, so that if someone wants to be bloody minded, feet
dragging comes with a price attached.

I am in favour of setting a tipping point, such that those who refuse to
take the generous compensation on offer will end up facing 'compensation'
at market clearing rates once say 2/3rds of properties have signed up.

I am in favour of simplifying the process such that it doesn't entertain
the notion of taking 'evidence' from druids or anyone else unconnected with
reality.

I am in favour of terminating with extreme prejudice the careers of
qunagocrats who sabotage planning decisions ex post facto. English Nature
comes to mind in this instance.
You know, Greg, these are all ideas or prospective rules being put
forward by an unelected and unaccountable source....... :-)

Not really, repealing the post war planning mess can only come from
parliament. Returning those powers back to where they belong and allowing
the people to have the ultimate say through a proposition system is
inherently accountable and democratic.

these happen to be the rules that would suit your way of looking at the
country but of course different people (bodies, authorities, etc.) all
have their own points of view. That's why planning involves so many
different people in consultation processes. What's good for one isn't
necessarily good for another.

Which is why radical simplification is necessary. With limited terms of
reference and stringent binding time lines to prevent ****ing contests
between competing quangos.

As per the example above, quangos such as English Nature should never have
had the power to veto all development within 5km of it's fiefdom.

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...icle361324.ece

"it is certainly the case that the 5km zone is producing some bizarre
effects. David Ullathorne, who runs Rectory Homes, based in Haddenham,
Buckinghamshire, has been caught in the planning freeze over two
developments in Sunningdale and Ascot, in Berkshire. He said: "I have one
site, developing 12 apartments in Ascot High Street, which is 4.6km from
the SPA, as the Dartford warbler flies, and that has been stopped, yet it
is surrounded by alternative open space. It is only a couple of minutes
from Ascot racecourse, which is open to the public.""

The National Trust should never have had the power to subvert the planning
process for long overdue improvements to A303 after the fact.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...8/nwaste18.xml


and if you are in the way of the national interest and the
glory of the state, then tough luck? Kent is a rather different
environment to Pas de Calais.

Kent is mostly empty space.
Boggle

There are parts of Kent poorer and less accessible from London via public
transport than the allegedly disadvantaged 'oop north'.

The notion that it's some untouched idyll is long past it's sell by date.



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.

Greg Hennessy wrote:
On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:06:20 +0100, Ian Jelf
wrote:
(snip)
Ridiculous nanny state interference by the HSE aside, that's only a subset
of the issue. Any major infrastructure project in the UK takes the guts of
a decade to work through a ridiculously complex self inflicted planning
process.
I agree that some things do take far too long. But I don't think that
removing rules in their entirety (or almost in their entirety) would
somehow make our country a "better place".

The answer to over regulation is never more regulation.

It would, for example, be
much more convenient for many people if the M1 were to continue
southwards from Staples Corner to - say - Marble Arch.

By removing the power to do that from Whitehall to Localities, the
likelihood of that part of the Abercrombie box being resurrected is rather
low.

The reason we don't do that is because the advantages of such a thing would be
outweighed by the disadvantages. The same thinking (slowed down by our
planning process, for all its faults) saw the ultimate end of the Inner
Motorway Box, the M11 southwards extension and (I think) something
similar for the M23.

It also caused horrendous congestion in the SE by delaying the completion
of the M25 by 15 odd years.

Rubbish. The same logic would say that not building the Motorway Box or
any other road scheme has "caused" congestion. Congestion has arisen
because too many people want to use too little roadspace, which is
because the cost of travel is suboptimal. Building new roads merely
lowers the cost of travel and encourages people to travel more, and the
result in a dense region like the south east is a congested equilibrium
- just as before.

So whilst the south east may have had "horrendous congestion" before the
M25, it still has "horrendous congestion" after the M25, and may well
always have horrendous congestion unless someone optimises the cost of
travel - i.e. introduces road pricing.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 16:23:36 +0100, Greg Hennessy
wrote:

Neither of you have proved capable of explaining why LT or any other
publicly funded organisation should be somehow immune from minimising their
overheads and maximising the return on what are in the case of St James
exceedingly valuable assets.

It's very simple - I just completely disagree with your premise that the
public sector has to do the minimising and maximising that you believe
it has to do.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 19:01:19 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 16:23:36 +0100, Greg Hennessy
wrote:

Neither of you have proved capable of explaining why LT or any other
publicly funded organisation should be somehow immune from minimising their
overheads and maximising the return on what are in the case of St James
exceedingly valuable assets.

It's very simple - I just completely disagree with your premise that the
public sector has to do the minimising and maximising that you believe
it has to do.


Of course you would.

Being a public sector employee you dont have to pay for it.




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.

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 17:33:07 +0100, Dave Arquati wrote:


The same logic would say that not building the Motorway Box or
any other road scheme has "caused" congestion. Congestion has arisen
because too many people want to use too little roadspace,

My, you are a bright one.

which is because the cost of travel is suboptimal.

ROTFL! Oh really. How about, there is 'too little roadspace' (sic).

Building new roads merely lowers the cost of travel

As does adding capacity to any service, your point ?

and encourages people to travel more,

Gawd, we wouldn't want that now would we.

They might want cheap flights too.

and the result in a dense region like the south east is a congested equilibrium
- just as before.

I just lurve how the 'logical' trot out this fallacious article of eco
dogma.

The demand for road space is clearly not infinite.



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.

Greg Hennessy wrote:
On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 17:33:07 +0100, Dave Arquati wrote:


The same logic would say that not building the Motorway Box or
any other road scheme has "caused" congestion. Congestion has arisen
because too many people want to use too little roadspace,

My, you are a bright one.

which is because the cost of travel is suboptimal.

ROTFL! Oh really. How about, there is 'too little roadspace' (sic).

Ooh, argument through sarcasm, you must be right.

If travellers paid for the cost of congestion they impose upon other
users, then there wouldn't be "too little roadspace", it would be
optimal for the volume of traffic using it. Go and look it up.

Building new roads merely lowers the cost of travel

As does adding capacity to any service, your point ?

I'm sorry, I thought it was quite obvious, but I need to spell it out;
new capacity does not automatically relieve congestion.

and encourages people to travel more,

Gawd, we wouldn't want that now would we.

Well, you're obviously in favour of having people bear the costs of the
things they want; apply your own principles to demand for travel.

They might want cheap flights too.

Yep, apply your principles there too.

and the result in a dense region like the south east is a congested equilibrium
- just as before.

I just lurve how the 'logical' trot out this fallacious article of eco
dogma.

Who said anything about eco dogma? This is simple economics. Try looking
it up on something like Google Scholar; the few thousand articles it
returns on road pricing, written by people who know more about this than
you, might help.

The demand for road space is clearly not infinite.

No, but there's an awful lot of suppressed demand. Really, go and look
it up.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London