Local activism is choking our planning system and crippling housebuilding, but we also need radical devolution of power: these two urges will come into conflict
Nobody happens upon a thriving market town, attractive city, or cosy communal village and bemoans the fact it ought to be fields. NIMBYism is driven by a (usually justified) fear that then new additions will be cheaply constructed, bland or unattractive in appearance, and fail to coherently mesh into what already exists. If developers were forced to create beautiful places and spaces, that people thrived in, I think we'd find many communities welcoming development in their patch.
Stop building poor substandard houses which are never properly inspected by huge companies only interested in profit, stuffing money in political donations, leaving buyers fighting to get their homes up to scratch whilst paying huge mortgages and bloated bills and having to accept shoddy public services and appalling standards of and in public life from those rich and powerful above the law.
Nobody happens upon a thriving market town, attractive city, or cosy communal village and bemoans the fact it ought to be fields. NIMBYism is driven by a (usually justified) fear that then new additions will be cheaply constructed, bland or unattractive in appearance, and fail to coherently mesh into what already exists. If developers were forced to create beautiful places and spaces, that people thrived in, I think we'd find many communities welcoming development in their patch.
Stop building poor substandard houses which are never properly inspected by huge companies only interested in profit, stuffing money in political donations, leaving buyers fighting to get their homes up to scratch whilst paying huge mortgages and bloated bills and having to accept shoddy public services and appalling standards of and in public life from those rich and powerful above the law.