ROBERT JENRICK
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ROBERT JENRICK
Let us hope that Robert can keep a cool head with all that countryside still undeveloped. None of his predecessors have been able to stop the corruption in local planning departments, or make council's build truly affordable housing. The opposite is true. No matter how hard the Government strives to make council's behave themselves, the more slippery they become as climate criminals, blatantly defying Parliament - in refusing to build affordable housing that is sustainable.
Instead, massive estates of (business as usual) conventional brick built CO2 generators are being built all over the unspoiled greenbelt, without any justification other than these civil servants don't appear to have a visionary brain between them, and are more than happy to swallow any story from property developers as to why they contracted to build affordable units in return for 70% luxury houses, but when push came to shove, they said they could not afford it.
Most houses being built at the moment do not have charging points for EVs for example. Proof that town planners cannot plan ahead. They never could of course, or we'd not have a housing shortage. Hence, it is up to the ministers to make policies that work. Margaret Thatcher is mostly to blame here for quick fixes that backfired.
Flatpack houses are very economical, use sustainably farmed wood that is also a carbon lock and go up in a couple of weeks. Add solar panels and water heaters (or even a small wind turbine), and most units can be made to be energy self-sufficient.
Council's should be forced to set aside land that is cheaper for such houses. They can do this using their powers of compulsory purchase - but they would not dream of upsetting their farmer friends and other speculative investors. And that is the real problem. Councillors and council officials only get their jobs by towing the party line. Cozy relationships like this breed corruption and, in this case, climate criminals.
With climate change a major issue to resolve, we wonder if Mr Jenrick can do any better than those before him?
CARBON CAPTURE
ROADS
The government is investing £4.2 billion in the transport networks of eight city regions across England from 2022-23. Funding will be delivered through five-year, consolidated transport settlements.
It will provide £83 million of funding for local road maintenance in the South East through the Potholes Fund in 2020-21.
THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
WHAT IS AFFORDABLE - The Conservative Party's idea of affordable is not in keeping with the real meaning, it is more a spin to make it appear as if they are working for genuine sustainability. Flatpacks made of timber cost a fraction of the price of a brick built unit, lock up carbon and reduce energy bills. When Margaret Thatcher allowed councils to sell off their housing stocks as a quick-fix to boosting their income, she failed to make sure that they built new social housing.
In fact Wealden have not built any number of genuinely affordable homes, and increasingly encroach on neighbouring council's infrastructure without settling up. We would like to know where all the money collected on the basis of a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is going? Is it another slush fund that is being used to promote the interests of the upper echelon of executives looking to retire with enhanced benefits?
AFFORDABLE HOMES
The Government is investing a further £9.5 billion in the Affordable Homes Programme which in total will allocate £12.2 billion of grant funding from 2021-22 to support the creation of affordable homes across England.
In the UK thousands of houses have been built after the floodgates were opened to unsustainable development in the countryside, meaning that fat-cat landlords gained more of a foothold, not less - so promoting financial slavery. The idea was to blackmail developers into building 30% of the new stock as affordable. It never happened because there were no too many loopholes for kleptocratic councils to make a fast buck - never mind the climate emergency they were helping to fuel in building expensive houses devoid of solar panels, water heaters and charging points, etc.
The Nolan Report was supposed to change council practices to outlaw cozy positions of trust being abused. That did not work. Greg Clark made an effort to secure land for affordable housing with the 2012 National Planning Policy Document. But that did not work either. The fact is that young families cannot get on the housing ladder at genuinely affordable prices because land is not being compulsorily purchased, or otherwise earmarked for affordable housing (only). The definition of affordable is that an ordinary working man might purchase such a unit on his wage.
As an example of councils behaving badly, Wealden have proven themselves to be one of the most corrupt councils over many years, leading to a Petition in 1997, where the police did not investigate the misuse of authority. The situation remains largely unchanged, where some of the old staff are still in residence, clearly passing on their bad habits, infecting newcomers. Lord Nolan QC was wasting his time suggesting routine flushing of the system, though Boris Johnson has seen the light in suggesting examinations of competence, where clearly many civil servants in positions of trust, have strayed from what they should be doing in the interests of what is good for them.
Tom Slingsby, chief executive of property developer Southern Grove, says: “Only sufficient provision of affordable homes in the right areas can prevent the sort of social inconsistencies that appear when high property prices put key areas of UK cities off limits to younger workers and their families. We know from conversations we have constantly with housing associations that the appetite is there to keep building through economic cycles and this fund will ensure that will happen.”
The Conservative Cabinet says that there will be almost £1.1 billion allocated from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to build nearly 70,000 new homes in high demand areas across the UK.
A new £400 million Brownfield Housing Fund aims to create more homes on brown-field land in areas such as the West Midlands.
CONTACT ROBERT
London, SW1A 0AA
PRESSING ISSUES
We are particularly concerned with climate change, transport and affordable housing as issues that need urgent attention. Where the coastline is a feature of the United Kingdom, Blue Growth is a food security issue, especially where this side of of our local economy is under-exploited and at the same time under threat. There is no Planet B.
CABINET MPS -MARCH 2020
CONSERVATIVE MPS 2017-2020
UK
POLITICS The United Kingdom has many political parties, some of which are represented in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Below are links to the websites of the political parties that were represented in the House of Commons after the 2015 General Election:
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC AND LABOUR PARTY
Social Democratic and Labour Party
SIX (SUGGESTED) STEPS TOWARD A COOLER PLANET
1. TRANSPORT: Phase out polluting vehicles. Governments aim to end the sale of new petrol, and diesel vehicles by 2040 but have no infrastructure plan to support such ambition. Marine transport can be carbon neutral. Zero carbon shipping is gaining ground with offshore solar boat racers reaching 35knots (Delft University @ Monaco 2019). The first solar powered circumnavigation record was set in 2012 by PlanetSolar. That record could be halved by another contender on the drawing board.
2. RENEWABLES: Renewable energy should replace carbon-based fuels (coal, oil and gas) in our electricity, heating and transport. We are well on the way to that with solar and wind power now price competitive to fossil fuels.
3. HOUSING: On site micro or macro generation is the best option, starting with new build homes that are affordable and built of wood for improved insulation and carbon lock. New units might not need planning consents if energy self-sufficient, or very nearly so. Planning consents should be struck for genuinely affordable/sustainable housing and self builds where cost is below £50,000. See letter to Nus Ghani July 2019.
4. AGRICULTURE: We need trees to absorb carbon emissions from a growing population, flying, and to build new homes. Reducing food waste and promoting less energy intensive eating habits such as no meat Mondays.
5. INDUSTRY: Factories should be aiming for solar heating and onsite renewable energy generation. This could be done simply by making it a 106 type (mitigation) condition of new builds that they include solar heating and photovoltaic panels. Too many units were built in the last 3 years without climate friendly features, such as EV charging points.
6. POLITICS: - National governing bodies need to adopt rules to eliminate administrative wastages, restrain local authority empire building, scale down spending on war machines, educate the public and support sustainable social policies that mesh with other cultures transparently. Ban kleptocratic policies. Open your doors to transparency and a new era of honest politics. Local authorities are famous for finding the loopholes to keep on doing favours for mates. Simply close those loopholes with binding statute. Any gray areas should be made black and white in writing. Even then councils will break the law, so introduce a task force to prosecute offending local authorities..
LINKS & REFERENCE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eustice https://www.georgeeustice.org.uk/ https://www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2020-03-11/budget-2020-ps600-billion-boost-britains-infrastructure
CLIMATE CHANGE COP HISTORY
DESERTIFICATION COP HISTORY
BIODIVERSITY COP HISTORY
UN CLIMATE ACTION PORTFOLIOS
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Finance
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AFFORDABLE | CLIMATE | DEVELOPERS | ECONOMY | FLOOD | HISTORY | HOMES LADDER | MORALS | POVERTY | PROPERTY | SLAVERY | TAXES | SLUMS | VALUATIONS | WEALTH
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