CatherineFlick, 7 months ago

@ianbetteridge you wait though, just like 15 min cities the central government will not accept any local control of these options if at all.

ianbetteridge, 7 months ago

@CatherineFlick When they say “take back control” what they always mean is “for central government, not you plebs”

brunogirin, 7 months ago

@ianbetteridge Nb 4, it would be good to do affordable residential + shops on ground floor with affordable commercial rent to allow local residents to set up their own businesses. The rent crisis also drives out small shops to the benefit of chains.

ianbetteridge, 7 months ago

@brunogirin God yes, absolutely. But that would also require planners to actually, well, plan. Which they apparently aren't that good at.

brunogirin, 7 months ago

@ianbetteridge if they ever get the hang of this planning malarkey, I would even suggest:

• tax breaks for shops that favour no or biodegradable packaging (no packaging groceries, biodegradable coffee cups and lids)
• 1 in 20 shop space is a free space for community projects like libraries or repair cafés

brunogirin, 7 months ago

@ianbetteridge (the previous post brought to you by our local no packaging groceries store closing down for good over the weekend)

ianbetteridge, 7 months ago

Oh and...

5. Heavy fines on developers who magically find they can't build the number of affordable homes they promised in their planning applications. The kind of fine which will completely wipe out their profits from the development.

ianbetteridge, 7 months ago

Britain is not short of housing. As of October 2022, there were 676,304 recorded empty homes in England — 248,149 had been empty for longer than six months. There are 271,000 homeless people in the UK. Bring those empty homes back into use, and we don't need to build more houses.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn03012/