Tory minister: build on 'boring' Green Belt - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14259049
Build on boring fields, says minister

Developers should be allowed to build on fields if they are boring, the planning minister has said, after a fellow Tory minister accused him and David Cameron failing to protect the countryside.

In controversial comments, Nick Boles said people must be "realistic" about the need for more housing, which will mean building on "environmentally uninteresting" green spaces.

He made the remarks in a letter to Anna Soubry, a Conservative health minister, who wrote to his department to warn that housing is being built on the Green Belt despite David Cameron's "repeated assurances" it will be protected.

Mr Boles underlined protections for the Green Belt but was unable to guarantee it will be safe in and around Mrs Soubry's constituency, while arguing it is necessary to build on some fields.

"Given a two million increase in our population over the last ten years and historic under-provision of housing we have to be realistic that not all the housing that we as a country need can be on brownfield land," he said. "In some places, this may mean buliding on low quality, environmentally uninteresting fields. In exceptional circumstances, it may involve a Green Belt review."

The row underlines the concerns of many Tory MPs in rural constituencies, including the Prime Minister's personal aide Sam Gyimah, who are fighting unwanted development.

It is not the first time Mr Boles has provoked the ire of countryside-lovers. Earlier this year, he suggested housing provides more "human happiness" than fields.

Full Story


What constitutes 'boring' countryside? Boring to who?

These attacks on the Green Belt and driven by two factors, the obvious profit motive and the need to house the legions of cheap foreign labour imported to our shores. Neither are surprising given who is running this country. Our countryside is a jewel bequethed to us by our ancestors. That it should be paved over to make a few quid for developers and in order to house Mohammed or Simba (plus his family of twelve) is criminal.

How to solve the housing crisis without destroying the countryside? 'Stop immigration, start repatriation'.

Migration Watch wrote:A migrant arrives almost every minute but they leave at only just over half that rate.

More people have now migrated to the UK in a single year (2010) than did so in the entire period from 1066 to 1950, excluding wartime.

We must build a new home every seven minutes for new migrants.

England is already, with the Netherlands, the most crowded country in Europe, excluding island and city states.

The population of the UK will grow by over 7 million to 70 million in the next 15 years, 5 million due to immigration - that is the equivalent of the current populations of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Oxford.
#14260529
Here is what I think is happening with regards to green field and brown field sites.

There are shed load of undeveloped brown field sites around the country. Developers have bought them and got planning permission on them but don't think the market conditions are right at this time to build on them.

But we don't have enough houses nationwide.

So either... all the brownfield sites are in Paisley and Colchester, Plymouth and some god forsaken welsh valley where there is no population growth and no economic growth...
and all the brownfield sites in Cambridge have already been developed...

Or... using greenfield land is so much cheaper than brownfield.

I don't really think greenfield with planning permission is worth any less than brownfield with planning permision, so I'm going to suggest to you that all the available brownfield sites are not in parts of the country anyone is particularly looking to move to.
#14260550
Telegraph wrote:It is not the first time Mr Boles has provoked the ire of countryside-lovers. Earlier this year, he suggested housing provides more "human happiness" than fields.

That excuse now seems to be in vogue on both sides of the Atlantic, since the Americans are deploying that kind of phrasing in similarly absurd ways. Just a short while ago Jonathan Hoenig went on Fox News and claimed that greenhouse gases 'are helping mankind in innumerable ways' and that there needs to be 'more of them'.
#14261387
The current batch of Tory leadership is a shambles which betrays everything the Conservatives stand for.


The Tories stand for profit, nothing more, nothing less. Anyone who thinks that stand for the countryside, or traditional values (whatever they are) or anti immigration etc is fooling themselves.

There Tories care about you just as much as Labour care about the working class.
#14261588
The end result of capitalism is to turn the planet into an uninhabitable wasteland with a methane-carbon monoxide/dioxide atmosphere and relocate the surviving industrialists and financiers to encapsulated pod cities in high orbit to enjoy all the money they made planet-side.
#14263476
Rei Murasame wrote:That excuse now seems to be in vogue on both sides of the Atlantic, since the Americans are deploying that kind of phrasing in similarly absurd ways. Just a short while ago Jonathan Hoenig went on Fox News and claimed that greenhouse gases 'are helping mankind in innumerable ways' and that there needs to be 'more of them'.


Yes, some people eat that up, yet the minister's statement would be considered beyond bold here in America. While we consider ourselves more aggressive in allowing resource extraction, we have far more of it than you Brits; such extraction is supported not on the basis of "boring fields" (yeah, tell that to your country constituents and see where you end up in the next primary), but on the basis of "We won't realy damage our wildlife- it's only a small area, you see, and nature will come back when we're done raping... er, utilizing... it."

While some would rather stick w/ climate change denial, even, and especially, the most ardent of conservatives in the US would be appalled at calling nature "boring". I can only hope you Brits have the same reaction against this man.
#14263500
Na, Britian is far more urban than you are, country types (quite rightly) always get ridden over by voters from the parts of the country where the people actually live.

Look at fox hunting, everyone in the country (where it actually happens) had no problem with it but people it cities thought it was cruel so it got banned.
#14263503
Otebo wrote:What constitutes 'boring' countryside? Boring to who?

These attacks on the Green Belt and driven by two factors, the obvious profit motive and the need to house the legions of cheap foreign labour imported to our shores. Neither are surprising given who is running this country. Our countryside is a jewel bequethed to us by our ancestors. That it should be paved over to make a few quid for developers and in order to house Mohammed or Simba (plus his family of twelve) is criminal.

Lolwat? So are conservatives anti-immigration or for it?

Make up your mind people!

Cynicism at its best (worst). One way or another, find a reason to believe that lawmakers' true intent is to shaft others, and not to implement laws they deem good for the country. The most important thing is to maintain that they don't give a sh!t about the country.
#14263513
People leap frog the green belt to live further away from town.
The M6 Toll road was built on GB land near Birmingham in order to accommodate increases in traffic.
What will "boring" politicians be replaced with a wonder.....?

American Idol !!!
#14263521
Yes, some people eat that up, yet the minister's statement would be considered beyond bold here in America. While we consider ourselves more aggressive in allowing resource extraction, we have far more of it than you Brits; such extraction is supported not on the basis of "boring fields" (yeah, tell that to your country constituents and see where you end up in the next primary), but on the basis of "We won't realy damage our wildlife- it's only a small area, you see, and nature will come back when we're done raping... er, utilizing... it."

While some would rather stick w/ climate change denial, even, and especially, the most ardent of conservatives in the US would be appalled at calling nature "boring". I can only hope you Brits have the same reaction against this man.

The traditional ruling elite was based in the countryside (the aristocracy) or pretended that they were (the upper-middle class). This traditional, conservative elite has been largely replaced by a new urban ruling elite, a metropolitan elite if you will. This elite cares nothing for the countryside, and doesn't even pretend to do so. This 'conservative' minister is merely an example of this trend.
#14263938
Figlio di Moros wrote:Yes, some people eat that up, yet the minister's statement would be considered beyond bold here in America. While we consider ourselves more aggressive in allowing resource extraction, .


That's because in America, if it's under your land, it's your oil, JR Ewing style, while in the UK, it isn't.
Not even the rain that runs off our rooves belongs to us.
#14263947
No idea, The Crown I expect. I presume mining rights are all lisenced by the state.
I don't suppose the Royal Family get to keep the money either however.

The rain was all owned by the water board.
Now that water companies have been privatised, probably their shareholders all own it.

What this means to the end user is this... You owe the water company taxes, even if you do not use their facilities.


Kapanda wrote:Lolwat? So are conservatives anti-immigration or for it?

Make up your mind people!

Cynicism at its best (worst). One way or another, find a reason to believe that lawmakers' true intent is to shaft others, and not to implement laws they deem good for the country. The most important thing is to maintain that they don't give a sh!t about the country.


If you make laws for the common denominator... they will only be good for some people.
They will necessarily be designed to shaft people by their very nature. So if you make a law, your intent is still to shaft people. Perhaps not every person. But still plenty of people.
There is no point in telling people you have just deliberately and willfully shafted that you had their best intentions at heart when it is perfectly obvious to all that you did not.

This is why some of us prefer small govt. Minimum laws.
Because one size does not fit all.
Because what one bunch of knobs deem good for the country usually involves sticking pins in people they hate who live here.
How many people have I spoken to on this forum and others who consider that what is best for this country is that I be forced to leave it? Many.
What use to me is "the greater good" if I am not to be amongst those who benefit from it?

I would suggest to you that some conservatives are pro immigration and others anti.
Immigration is however primarily a Labour party calling.
Historically, they are the ones who opened our borders, not the Conservatives.

Labour gets no votes from the countryside. They like to destroy the countryside as an act of revenge for not voting for them.
I think class war is an act of petty malice. Nothing more, nothing less.



The only way of protecting the countryside from development is to buy as much land as you can.
#14263957
Intent does not mean result. It is one thing to do something exactly because your intent is to run against someone's interest, it is another thing to do something that will diminish someone's interest as a result of a primary intent.

But people that feel that their own interests must be protected above that of the country/society/community will certainly feel shafted in most situations.
#14263963
Intent is intent.

If you "intend to rob from the rich to give to the poor", you intend to rob people.
Despite any justification of good intention, this is malicious intent.



And it is the primary goal of a very large number of people to shaft people they hate once they have enough power to do so.


The fox hunting ban for example had little to do with love for foxes and much to do with class hatred.
None of us are truely dumb enough to think this was anything to do with "good intentions" at all.
It was an act of political malice.

Dress it up as good intention if you like, but malice is malice.

Minorities get shafted by majorities. Dress that up as the greater good if you like, but if the greater good invloves shafting people, try for a lesser good in future that does not please.

There is no reason for us to share the same government.
We don't have to have one law for all of us at all.
What's good for you is not necessarily good for me and what I do is unlikely to affect you in anyway whatsoever, so it's none of your business in the first place.

There is no reason why I must be sacrificed for your vision of a greater good any more than you must be sacrificed to my vision of a greater good.
If we can't respect other people, lets seperate off into our respective factions and form smaller nations/groupings of people with whom we can.

If you can't learn to respect minorities, then ultimately you are going to have to fight them. But I don't wish to live that way. Do you?
#14263991
I would suggest to you that some conservatives are pro immigration and others anti.
Immigration is however primarily a Labour party calling.
Historically, they are the ones who opened our borders, not the Conservatives.




Another one taken in by the Tory lie that they are anti immigration. You know they only say that to get the racist vote right? They are not acctually against it. They have had just a s big a part in it as the Labour party.

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