Compulsory purchase is an important institution. As the great economic historian Dan Bogart has argued, Britain made abundant use of compulsory purchase in building its canals and railways, which in turn helped it to lead the Industrial Revolution. Only anarcho-libertarians should oppose all forms of compulsory purchase in all cases. At the same time, compulsory […]
From the 18th to the early 20th centuries, Britain had the best transport infrastructure in the world. Some 1,100 companies laid out over 20,000 miles of tolled roads (‘turnpikes’), giving Britain the best road network in Europe. Some 400 miles of canals, also dug by private companies, linked up Britain’s natural river system to create […]
Housing politics in Britain tends to be predictable. Labour try to build more in Tory and Liberal Democrat-voting areas, while the Tories try to build more in London. Every so often, however, something unexpected happens. One of those events occurred this week, when the Labour Government announced a new system of ‘planning passports’. As reported, […]
Some 30 million people visit London every year, and most of them go to the same destinations: Parliament Square, Leicester Square, Oxford Street, and the Tower of London. One of the striking things about these places is how unpleasant they are. With the honourable exception of the medieval prison for traitors, most of the highlights […]
Since the 1980s, council tenants in England have enjoyed the right to buy their homes. When they do, councils are required to offer them a discount from what the properties would cost if they were sold on the private market. This reflects the fact that social tenants already have lifetime tenancies of the properties with […]
The first tranche of Labour’s long-awaited housing reforms have arrived. They are a mixed bag. The package is probably a net improvement on the current system, but it is unclear that Labour are making the most of the immense political capital they have for fixing the housing shortage, Britain’s greatest problem. Here are the key […]
In recent months, a widespread assumption has formed that housing reform in Britain is dead for the remainder of this political cycle. The Government’s 2021 reforms had failed; national planning policy is being revised in a restrictionist direction. Aside from continuing skirmishing about niche topics like nutrient neutrality and window regulations, it seemed that the […]
One of the striking features of British housing discourse is how often it overlooks quite basic economics. Some examples of this are so extreme that they become entertaining. I have often heard people explain that building private housing actually makes the housing crisis worse, because market-rate housing is unaffordable, and hence building it adds to […]
For some years, urbanists have used the phrase ‘15-minute cities’. And for most of that time, nobody paid any attention to them. In recent months, however, this term has burst out of its specialist corner to become the object of furious disputation, both in the darker reaches of the internet and within the Conservative Party. When […]
Liz Truss may have dismissed them as ‘Stalinist’, but it’s worth examining how housebuilding targets actually work, and whether scrapping them altogether is a good idea. If you want to build a house in modern England, you have to apply for permission from the local planning authority. Most local authorities draw up ‘local plans’ in […]
