Radio Discussion on Planning policy and Law

Bend your ears to this discussion of the National Planning Policy framework in England and its legal implications.... "Unreliable Evidence" with Clive Anderson

Planning policy has a profound influence on our landscape. Planning restrictions were relaxed in the 1930s - a response to the Depression. The result was an explosion of suburbs and bungalows across green fields -- so much so that the loss of large areas of Arden mourned by Tolkein, its swansong was the description of The Shire in the Hobbit. As seen in this area around Sarehole Mill where Tolkein stayed


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...and Selly Oak to the West

The Green Belt was an idea to counteract this growth -  first proposed by the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1935. It was adopted by the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 - which allowed local authorities to impose this restriction in their Development Plans. Powerful House builders have their eyes fixed on removing some of these restrictions, hence a "simplified" National Planning Policy Framework  which supersedes all previous planning policy advice. However, the lawyers suggest it may be stymied by introducing clouds of uncertainty, leading to greater delay than the previous rule-led process.

Write Down, Speak Up, Love Where you Live - at Blakesley Hall

Before folk'll look after their neighbourhood, they've got to learn to love it
and

JW Evans

JW Evans, a set by English Heritage on Flickr.

This firm evolved inside domestic 19th-c housing, in the Jewelry Quarter, Soho district of Birmingham. Like so many specialist manufacturers, they turned out bespoke designs to high-quality specifications, in small batch production. But alas, a cheap-labour culture meant there was no incentive to modernise. And so - without modernisation - it effortlessly transformed from workshop into a museum, and thereby encapsulated tht transition from work to "heritage asset", which encapsulates a widespread failure of UK-society in the 21st century.