As you grow older you see things differently. Way back in 2003 as the new Chair of Tim Farron’s Campaign Committee I thought that, before we started campaigning, we should set out a few areas like education, health and housing where we needed some clear thinking. Though Tim was reluctant, we pulled together a few sensible people and we talked the issues through.
It is probably a good time for some more clear thinking now.
Where to begin? Well let us start with the most pressing problem facing mankind – that of global warming. Last year I thought the problem was insoluble but now I believe it can and will be solved though there will be more casualties and unnecessary costs if we do not get on with it.
Here are my solutions:
- Families keep down the number of children per family to two.
- We phase out all fossil fuel vehicles, including planes, except for use in emergencies when time is of the essence.
- We hold all meetings virtually, including the Glasgow Climate Conference
- We become more vegetarian and produce what we eat as locally as possible (not what we cannot grow in our climate for that creates income in other parts of the world). We will still have bananas!
- We all work from home apart from those who need to be on site. But all office and non care work can be done at home.
- We stop buying new things unless essential, i.e. we buy new technology but not new clothes, furniture, fancy foods or anything in plastic bags.
- Everyone in the world will have a liveable wage to allow them to eat, have medical care, a house and a job and we tax the rich heavily both in terms of income and capital.
- We stop the use of materials that add to global pollution.
Is it necessary? If it is, what is the most environmentally sound way of making it happen? It is certainly not landing on Mars or building tunnels to the Isle of Man and Ireland or weapons of any kind.
I should like to address one of the other key requirements of a good life – housing. When I was training to be a surveyor in 1965 the price of agricultural land was £200 per acre and the price of housing land £1,000 per acre. The price of the same agricultural land is now £10,000 per acre whereas housing land is £700,000 per acre. One is fifty times the cost, the other seven hundred times the cost. If you compare building costs from then until now they are seventy times as much now.
We can all see where the problem lies – the price of land – and that is a direct result of the planning system. We need to release far more land for housing and this obviously has to be in areas which are or can be linked to public transport. That it is greenfield is irrelevant – we all live in houses on what were fields.
How to solve it? Let us look at radical solutions. The way New Towns were built was obtaining the land by compulsory purchase at existing use value i.e. agricultural value. If we did that now we would eradicate the housing problem. Another element is building cost. Prefabricated housing can reduce the cost by 10-25%. So in South Lakeland to build a detached house of 86 square metres costs around £125,000, excluding the plot and services. The same size but an individual detached bungalow prefabricated would cost £110,000 and you have a choice of design and appearance. Which would you prefer?
* John Studholme has been a member for 44 years, was a Councillor for 20 plus years, has been Mayor, District Council Chair, affordable housing campaigner and Parliamentary and European candidate. He was Tim Farron’s Campaigns Chair when he was elected and the Lib Dems took control of South Lakeland District Council.
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16 Comments
I read your list of ideas and hope that no party trying to enforce such restrictions on our lives ever comes anywhere close to power. Communist China enforced a one child policy – the idea of a government trying to enforce a two child policy is less restrictive but still unacceptable. Scary stuff.
phasing out fossil fuel vehicles?
How about ships? All nuclear? I can see the Maersk We’reTakingYourJobToChina as a giant nuke, but ro-ro ferries?
I don’t see that phasing out aviation is necessary. Hydrogen might be usable directly as a fuel – (further development needed), but existing high efficiency kero burning planes can work on kero derived from carbon capture + hydrogen suitable reformed. Obviously much less aviation, but none seems a bit too much of a challenge.
HGVs? overhead electric power and on-board batteries for the last 50 miles or so?
As a committed environmentalist can I advise John that climate change solutions may not require wearing hair shirts for every problem . locking into the circular economy reuse and repurposing , using carbon taxes to make suppliers and manufacturers turn away from fossil fuels as an energy source , rebuilding our empty towns and cities as places where people want to live rather than releasing more carbon locked in the soil by building on green fields better suited for food production . switching from oil and gas to hydrogen ,wave and other renewable .
Re carbon capture.Mangrove swamps and sea grasses absorb carbon dioxide and lock it into the ground.These swampy areas have been reduced ,result less carbon capture.They should be reintroduced and can be used as nature areas thus serving 2 purposes.
I’m not exactly thrilled about the prospect of working from home continuously for the next 40-50 years.
Work places are more than just sites of production they are communities which people work towards a goal. If it weren’t for the workplace socialising I did over the past few months while I was Covid testing I would have spiralled into isolation and depression.
Working from home continuously will breed isolation and disconnection in a world of declining voluntary organisations and pubs. The odd zoom meeting isn’t sufficient to stave off the atomistic nature of being stuck at home all day.
Your points on the price of land are well made, John. As you write “The way New Towns were built was obtaining the land by compulsory purchase at existing use value i.e. agricultural value. If we did that now we would eradicate the housing problem”.
“the price of land… is a direct result of the planning system.”
That’s what the Tories and big house builders want us to believe but it’s only one part of the story – and probably not the main factor most of the time or in most cases.
In just the last decade net migration has added nearly the population of Greater Manchester, 2,569k vs 2,812k. Since 1997 when Blair became PM and relaxed the rules, net migration has added 5,401k, getting on for two Greater Manchesters or another Scotland.
Brexit, sold partly on getting migration under control, saw a modest dip for a couple of years but it’s bounced back up to near record levels in the last two years.
That’s why cheap and poorly built Victorian terraces that should have been condemned and knocked down decades ago are still in use, still leaking heat like sieves. It’s also why Middlesbrough, which has a lot of such housing near the centre, has such large migrant population – the government dumped them there for the cheap housing – not the jobs obviously.
Another reason for high prices is that financial deregulation has allowed banks and building societies to lend on property effectively without limit. It’s so much easier than lending to small companies – just plug the numbers into a computer (so much cheaper than old-fashioned but expensive bank managers) and the loan is approved or denied – but mostly approved because it comes with built-in security on the property.
It’s been a profitable business model for lenders, but it’s sent prices through the roof given the perennial shortage of good properties, especially where the best jobs are. It’s also been wonderful for the generation that owned substantial houses before prices took off causing their houses to earn more than they did in many cases but generational equity is a distant dream.
Of course, it’s really a disguised Ponzi scheme – that is one where early investors are paid out of the investment of latecomers. It works until the music stops.
The price of houses is set by supply and demand in the market – not by the cost of land.
It is the land cost which is driven by the market price of houses, not the other way round.
Reading the list of solutions, I’m not particularly impressed by this “radical manifesto”. I disliked the use of the word ‘all’ and found insufficient analysis and appreciation of just what changes lockdown has effected to what were regarded as establish normal practices/habits that many couldn’t envisage as changing.
But then I see the real intent of the article is to totally ignore “the most pressing problem facing mankind – that of global warming. “ and focus instead on building yet more houses on agricultural land; something that contributes to climate change – especially given not a word being said about zero carbon construction, use of community combined heat and power schemes…
Tackling the perfect storm, of which climate change is only one component, requires big ideas, and action (like lockdown) that results in substantial and rapid change.
An informative quote from ecovative’s website. Do check them out
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
(They are growing all sorts of materials from Fungi to replace those damaging the environment.)
I did like the bungalow at the heading of the article. Can I have one?
I’ve started to buy clothes that will stand the test of time, I must admit English wool is very soft and warm. Pure wool slippers are very comfortable. It’s suggested that the clean fleece is better for stuffing cushions, it’s has a lovely fresh smell, like cotton it will disintegrate naturally.
Little by little we can make small changes.
I don’t find second homes very positive, there are many locally, that are left empty for several weeks and months.
Thanks for you comments. Re communist state Brad there is always an argument as to what can be justified on the grounds of “ the greatest benefit to the greatest number” in times of emergencies. Eg today with vaccinations and social distancing. In times of emergencies like war what can not be justified in peace time is justifiable. So we had conscription to the services and ration books.
Neil – I am not a hair shirt man either but I have taken a back seat full of no longer used clothes to the Salvation Army skip and vowed never to buy new clothes again! Gordon – yes the land price is a reflexion of the sale price of housing but if there was enough land to develop for housing then the land price would be cheaper and housing would be cheaper. Land for building is a separate commodity to bricks and mortar. It is controlled by the planning system which needs a rethink. We all live on land which was greenfield once. Re develop the brown field sites first but then develop the green fields if you wish to solve the housing problem.
Helen, google prefabricated housing and you will find the house of your dreams and it will be cheaper than regular housing.
@John Studholme – ” We all live on land which was greenfield once. Re develop the brown field sites first but then develop the green fields if you wish to solve the housing problem.”
You are aware that it is trivially easy to turn greenfield into brownfield with no real change to the land itself? That’s why there seems to be a never ending supply of brownfield land…
Do or should we all want the most up to date technological advance? It creates a hierarchy, demand and inequality. Tech savvy individuals are going to have to tolerate those of us who rely on antiquated computers etc in the interests of the planet.
“Do or should we all want the most up to date technological advance? It creates a hierarchy, demand and inequality. Tech savvy individuals are going to have to tolerate those of us who rely on antiquated computers etc in the interests of the planet.”
Seconded