Quote:
Originally Posted by tweetiepooh
Not all objections to development is pure nimbyism.
Do we need to keep building in the SE if there is spare housing elsewhere? Maybe relocate people and some industry to where there is spare resource? In the past people moved all around the world to find work, now they don't want to move to another part of the same country.
It is true we don't pay public servants enough and we have also taken away the perks that encouraged people to devote their lives to the job (e.g. great pensions, job security).
But we can't go back, only forward from where we are.
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People want to live where they want to live. They're not units of human resources that can be moved around for optimal distribution. They might want to live near where they grew up and near friends and family. We need to build homes where the people are.
We do need to be less dependent on London and the South-East generally though so people have the option to find work elsewhere and those who grow up in different parts of the country don't feel compelled to move south to have a career but we fail on this as well. We don't build the infrastructure. We haven't found the structure to encourage new businesses to start in different locations. Whatever we try to build will face decades of consultations and court challenges because someone's view of a field is disrupted or some bats might be disrupted.
Look at what has happened with the need for a new tunnel at the Dartford crossing. It's been needed for over a decade. It's just one consultation after another and Labour have just started - you guessed it - another consultation! All because some very politically savvy residents with too much time on their hands get themselves looking angry on the front page of a local paper objecting to it with a '#SaveOurGreenSpace' or whatever campaign.
The country is run by those who want to stop any further progress in case it threatens them however bad the consequences are for the future. It's one big retirement home with a G7 economy attached to it. It will remain so until we accept that there will be trade-offs to be made for growth.