The London Green Belt Council

Notes: Issue 144 June 2006

This issue of Notes follows fairly soon after the last one because I thought that members should have our views on the Adam Smith Institute's report on Land Economy, and a copy of what we sent to the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office (which at the time was in a state of upheaval for reasons which have no connection with planning - or at least our sort of planning). I hope that members will feel able to send their own views in writing to what is now the Department of Communities and Local Government. The address is, so far, the same i.e. 26 Whitehall SW1A 2WH, a building in which I worked myself fifty years ago.

I take the opportunity of this introductory note to correct one error from the last issue of Notes. The last paragraph included the comment that a leaflet issued by the Thurrock Thames Chase Development Association failed to mention green belt even though in 2005 Thurrock District ‘had hectares of it’. This should have read ‘had 11,980 hectares of it’.

The Adam Smith Institute Report on Land Economy.

Adam Smith was born nearly 300 years ago, and one comment I have read about him quotes an historian as recounting that he wandered the streets of Edinburgh twitching and talking to himself. Be that as it may, Adam Smith had an immense influence in raising economics to the level of a branch of moral philosophy and a vital aspect of management and government worldwide. In 1776 he published the seminal book “The Wealth of Nations”. The institute which bears his name is a twentieth century creation and is also greatly respected, though whether that will survive the document in question here is less certain.

It is not a long document, only about 120 shortish paragraphs and about ten diagrams. Its main argument is that our planning policy is out of date. It protects the countryside at the expense of development and much of the countryside is no longer worth protecting. Rather than buying food from our own farmers we should help developing countries by buying theirs, and we could solve our housing problems by developing much of the land thus released. We should abandon green belt policy, as green belt would be more aptly described as green desert; expand round our cities; and plant much more woodland. That woodland would have housing scattered throughout it. Converting 3% of the farms by building on 5% of their land would enable us to create a million new homes in ten years. Our planning laws would be replaced by an increased reliance on Restrictive Covenants and Nuisance law. The most scenic land would be protected under private management, and conservation groups like the RSPB and the National Trust could buy up land they wanted to preserve from development.

The naivety and ignorance displayed by the author surpasses belief. He is just not living in the real world, and I cannot believe that any political party could swallow this stuff. So I reproduce our own letter to Mr. Prescott in full below, including its appendix which listed and commented on some of the more egregious remarks in the report. Some extra comments follow for the benefit of our members, and finally some comments on the report from other sources.

Our letter was addressed to Mr. Prescott and was sent via our President, while it was in the post Mr. Prescott was replaced by Ruth Kelly, so our President sent it to her.

Letter to Mr. Prescott, dated 1.5.06, and Appendix

‘The London Green Belt Council’s comments on the report are as follows:

1) We totally reject the report, not only for its attitude to green belt but because of its apparent detachment from reality in respect of most of its arguments. They are so much divorced from our national values that we cannot believe that any government could accept them without arousing the greatest resentment right across the political spectrum. As the Head of Planning in the CPRE is reported to have said “It is mad to believe that you can apply market economics in this crude way and achieve long-term public benefits”.

2) Looking first at our countryside in the widest sense, as a nation we value it (agricultural land and other) both for its own sake and because it offers the diversity of landscapes that make Britain what it is. It is not treasured just for its highest quality scenery, and the rest is not there just to be taken over by commercial interests if they feel like it. The idea that agricultural and rural interests can be written off in the casual way that the report does is positively revolting.

3) Turning to green belt issues, the purpose of green belt is to be there, to maintain openness, and to stop the spread of and merging of communities. The quality of the scenery is not a consideration, and the confidence of the millions who benefit from the policy rests on that fact. The report would destroy all that in favour of commercial considerations - and the idea that US experience would lead to better results would be funny if it were not pitiful, as anyone who has seen the endless and drab surroundings of many of its communities knows.

We ask the Government to reject the report as a desirable or practicable way forward for solving our land usage, conservation and housing problems. We shall be grateful if you will also confirm that the report will not lead to any change in existing green belt policy.

An appendix listing and commenting on a selection of the more absurd and objectionable assertions in the report is attached.

APPENDIX

The following is a selection, with comments, of some of the many items and assertions in the report which seem particularly absurd to the LGBC

P5. Para 2. ‘It seems antiquated for us …. to remain so attached to our countryside’ Comment. Why? It shows that what people value in life ranges much more widely than purely economic considerations.

P7. Line 1. ‘It means that much of the countryside is no-go for tourists: indeed, comparatively little of our countryside is available for recreation’. Comment. The countryside is not there primarily for these uses.

P8. Para 1. ‘The government needs to reform planning law to allow sympathetic development where there is a demand for it.’ Comment. We do not believe that the planning system should be abolished or fundamentally reformed. In our crowded island a planning system is essential, and previous experience of loose planning led to too much urban sprawl and loss of both urban and rural character (e.g.from ribbon development, which green belts were invented to prevent).

P12. Para 2 ‘This [a proposal for a cinema rejected by a council] does not strengthen local democracy’. Comment. An extraordinary remark. Refusal could well be because of the operation of local democracy.

P16. Para 3 ‘It is unreasonable to suppose that the majority of the countryside can be left undeveloped.’ Comment. Why?

P19. Para 3 ‘Green Belts are not rich in wild life, indeed, a more accurate term for them might be 'Green Deserts'. Comment. This betrays a breathtaking ignorance of green belt countryside.

P21. Para 2 ‘Conservation groups like the RSPB and the NT would be entitled to buy up land that they wanted to preserve from developing, both for the protection of landscapes, wildlife, and the enjoyment of visitors.’ Comment. The naive assumption that they could afford to do this shows how detached the author is from reality.

P21. Para 4 ‘Liberalising the planning laws would open up new development land, so there would be less pressure to try to build on more sensitive areas’ Comment. This is quite unrealistic. The wealthier people would still want to build on the more attractive areas if they could afford to.

P30. Para 1 ‘Workers spend between 2 and 3 hours a day commuting across green belt’. Comment. This proves that green belt is working. The long-term aim should be to move more work beyond the green belt, not to build on it.

P35. Para 1 ‘Supporters of planning often argue that it is the only means to prevent the disarray the free market would engender. But the market would in fact be better placed to achieve efficiency in the design of cities and countryside. Buildings would spring up precisely where there was demand for them - petrol stations by the side of main roads, cinemas and shopping centres near consumers, housing near to housing, and industry near to industry’. Comment. What an alluring prospect!

P38. Para 1 ‘None of these new homes [on agricultural land converted to woodland] would be overlooked by existing houses. Current home owners would not face a view altered by new buildings’. Comment. Instead the land would be private mansions and estates with no public access; and 'real' countryside would have disappeared.

EXTRA COMMENTS (Not part of letter to ODPM)

a) The quotation from the report referred to in the penultimate item in the appendix to the letter is as follows:

‘Supporters of planning often argue that it is the only means to prevent the disarray the free market would engender. But the market would in fact be better placed to achieve efficiency in the design of cities and countryside. Buildings would spring up precisely where there was demand for them - petrol stations by the side of main roads, cinemas and shopping centres near consumers, housing near to housing, and industry near to industry.’

‘Government money could then follow, rather than lead, development. Roads, buses and rail links would be needed where new housing was being developed, because this is where the demand for such services would be. In essence, market-driven developments would be more efficient than planning and more responsive to consumer demand. Far from being chaotic, development would be responsive and dynamic, continually adjusting to meet changing demand.’

b) ‘For an economic power such as the United Kingdom, businesses and houses are more important to ordinary citizens than the countryside, and our planning policy should reflect this: we could put our land to much more beneficial use’. (From page 5 paragraph 3. Planning has wider horizons, which this report appears to treat with contempt.)

c) ‘Unelected quangos like English Heritage have been able to prevent planning permission in London because new buildings might obstruct the view of St. Paul’s Cathedral. While this may be a worthy objective for many people, it seems bizarre that an unelected body should have such power over the freedom of the market in making what are essentially subjective decisions’. (From Page 9, para. 4. I am not sure that the word 'subjective' is appropriate, but why should it be assumed that the power of the market, which surely reflects commercial self-interest, must have priority over the views, and if so decided the delegated powers, of organisations which reflect other standards and values?)

d) ‘There is a strong case for the planning process to be abolished, and the useful functions it performs replaced by an increased reliance on Restrictive Covenants and Nuisance law. This would ensure that residents remain protected from disruptive developments while at the same time cutting out the red tape and bureaucracy of planning’. (Page 13, para.3. Not surprisingly the RTPI, which has long opposed green belt and welcomes the proposal to abolish it, did not like this comment - see next section).

e) ‘Instead of continuing to force Londoners to live at such high densities, it seems sensible that sympathetic, low-density development should be permitted on unattractive green belt areas'. (Top of page 29. Yet again, the writer assumes that lack of scenic quality is a deciding factor. It is just another example of his ignorance).

f) ‘None of these new homes would be overlooked by existing houses'. (Top of p.38. But the preceding paragraph envisages that there would be about 950,000 of these new houses. Can you envisage 950,000 houses, none of them overlooked by existing houses? The author envisages that they would be in new woodland. But where would the countryside then be, and who would have access to the woodland?).

Some comments from other sources

a) From the head of policy and practice, RTPI; ‘We saw the marketised approach to planning in the 1980s and it did not work... There is evidence that the planning system delivers a quality environment for the majority of people’. He added that abolishing planning laws would leave most people unable to afford to object to developments.

b) From the CPRE. Criticisms include that the proposals are a step backwards; that transforming countryside into low-density suburbia would be unsustainable because it would be completely car-dependent; that the view of green belt was naive - a lot of the unmanicured land is some of the most valuable for wildlife, that with the effects of climate change being so unpredictable losing farmland that cannot be restored to productive use could be a serious matter; and ‘it is mad to believe that you can apply market economics in this crude way and achieve long-term public benefits’.

c) From the Regeneration Practice, London. ‘Anyone who believes that a market-led approach to planning holds any solution is blind to reality. A more powerful and proactive government-led regeneration strategy holds the only hope of delivering sustainable growth. We cannot continue to grow using free-market principles and end up with anything other than a dead society’.

d) From an editorial in Planning. The study offers a combination of eccentricity and insight. ‘In proposing to replace planning controls with restrictive covenants backed up by recourse to nuisance laws the author appears oblivious to lawyers’ fee scales and the unfeasible volume of planning litigation already troubling the courts. The suggestion that this would lead to more accountable and predictable decisions than those made by elected councils is bizarre.... But the fatal flaw in the free-market approach to planning is that it leads to a scramble for development in which any notion of efficient servicing, best use of existing infrastructure, and most sustainable location goes by the board. Letting the market rip offers no assurance of providing affordable, liveable or indeed saleable homes to the people who need them. This is no way to promote the wealth of nations’.

Conclusion

This is the daftest report I have ever read, and I hope that its excesses will lead to its rapid consignment to oblivion. I hope that members will send their own views to the Deputy Prime Minister's Office (sorry - the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government). And if any of you see an elderly economist-type wandering the streets muttering to himself and twitching, it might be the ghost of Adam Smith, but whether his distress is over the report or the way his philosophy is now being promulgated I leave to you.

Planning Decisions

1. In Hertfordshire there was a proposal by an established Hindu centre for religious studies and worship to replace an agricultural building by a much larger one which, it was claimed, would be visited by 30,000 - 40,000 visitors a year in order to see how cows were cared for in accordance with their venerated status in Hinduism. The building proposed would include walkways, passages and covered accommodation. The inspector doubted whether it would be used wholly for agricultural purposes. She decided that circumstances sufficient to override green belt restraints had not been proved, and rejected the appeal.

2. Do you need a resident manager to oversee a wildflower meadow? Approval existed for a meadow and cemetery at a site in Essex green belt, but the applicants wanted a chapel for visitors, a resident manager, and a 36-pitch gypsy site to fund the operation. The Deputy Prime Minister was not convinced and dismissed the appeal.

3. Is an indoor menage an essential element of an outdoor sport and recreation centre? This was argued at an application in Lancashire green belt. The inspector held not, especially as an existing outdoor paddock was being removed to make way for the building. The Deputy Prime Minister agreed, even though he recognised that the development would meet the developer's daughter's equestrian aspirations. He dismissed the application.

Comments and contributions to R.W.G. Smith,