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Originally Posted by Osem
When all the available brown field sites are built upon he'll start building on the green belt because who needs that anyway and we need more people who'll live longer to look after all the older people who're living longer and causing so many problems...  |
Given the main use of it seems to be keeping house prices high by restricting sustainable development that'd be those who already own property who need it.
Sadly he promised not to build wholesale on the green belt, so that'll potentially be more high quality, well used urban parks and green spaces built on to spare low quality scrub land to ensure the well-heeled have somewhere to exercise their horses.
Meanwhile London's air quality remains abysmal, and London continues to grow, just not as London but as the towns in the commuter belt which now reaches as far north as Yorkshire.
There's 75,000 hectares of green belt inside the M25. A quarter of that would be adequate for a million homes and would ease pressure on Greater London and avoid over-the-top densification there, while simultaneously reducing pressure on the entire south-east.
It's a meaningless designation, which is why it was allowed to double in size over 30 years. It achieves nothing beyond to move 'urban sprawl' from the towns and cities it chokes to just outside of it and in turn force people to commute through it.
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Prof Paul Cheshire of the London School of Economics described it as "a very British form of discriminatory zoning, keeping the urban unwashed out of the home counties – and, of course, helping to turn houses into investment assets instead of places to live".
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---------- Post added at 12:20 ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
I think it's a good thing - he's moderate who will appeal to a wide section of the community, and I believe he will a good Mayor.
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We'll see.
---------- Post added at 12:24 ---------- Previous post was at 12:20 ----------
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Originally Posted by ianch99
It's been a bad day for some: London has overwhelmingly chosen a Muslim, Labour, Immigrant's Son  |
If he was chosen because of his religion or heritage it is indeed a bad day. You'd hope London would choose the best person for the job. Rather looking forward to when someone's religion and heritage are entirely irrelevant to politics but that's a way away yet.
Fingers crossed identity politics isn't played in the next mayoral election but instead Mr Khan has to sell himself purely on his record. Had his policies been more robustly challenged rather than the hideous and ineffective campaign that was instead fought against him the result may have been different. His claiming TfL didn't need revenue from a fare rise while simultaneously claiming that Goldsmith would increase fares because TfL claim to need the extra revenue was a highlight, as is his announced desire to fire board members from TfL because it's unrepresentative. Straight from the Justin Trudeau school of 'meritocracy'.
I say of course the result may have been different. It probably wouldn't have as that would've depended on how much the electorate vote according to identity rather than policies, which seems to have a way to go too.