(Delivered on 27th February 2025)

Dear Councillor,

My 3 minute specch about the York Local Plan was met with silence – althoughsince then I have had indications that it was appreciated. I’m inferring that the opinion is that my views do not take into account political reality.   I get that.

However, the Local Plan (as is) will continue the rush towards environmental destruction and increasing inequality.  Reversing these trends will require a break with current “political reality”.

Here are a few extra notes followed by a transcript of what I said to the Council.

New towns are a cumbersome way of solving the housing crisis.

They take too long to build and do not affect existing settlements. In 2018 I wrote Garden Cities and “Green Evolutionary Settlements” suggesting that existing settlements should be extended with “green” extensions,  which could be started promptly and initially rely on existing infrastructure.

Cheaper housing: Start with modern prefabs.

Recently, Philip Johnston wrote an article for the Telegraph, Bring back the prefab: they are the solution to Britain’s housing crisis.  He wrote “Angela Rayner’s building targets can only be met if she takes a leaf out of Labour’s 1945 playbook”. My old website Prefabs are for people can still be found on the Internet Archive. Some prefab estates were very successful.

There are queues of lorries carrying prefabs waiting to get into Gaza. See Israel keeps blocking entry of prefabricated homes into Gaza.

These haven’t taken years in the planning. Pity that Legal & General’s attempt at Modern Methods of Cconstruction (MMC) failed.  Could it be restarted?

Could development corporations cut the burden of planning gain?

Stockport has a Mayoral Development Corporation with powers of compulsory purchace.  This gives it the mean for reducing the enormous planning gain that accrues to land owners when planning permission is granted. I wrote about this in a reponse to the Barker Review in 2003 Cutting planning gain and providing less expensive housing using MMC for starter homes would radically change the housing market. This could be done much, much more quickly than planning new towns.  Given the electoral cycle, I believe speed is necessary.

Transcript of speech to York Council 27th February 2025 ….

                          The York Local Plan

This Plan plans housing for residents causing very large carbon emissions.  This is contrary to paragraph 14 of the National Planning Policy Framework, which incorporates UN resolution 42/187 on preventing damage to future generations. In footnote 6, the Inspector’s report acknowledges that the plan avoids this requirement by saying:

this is sustainable development as envisaged by the Plan and is nothing to do with

the presumption in favour of sustainable development in paragraph 14 of the Framework

This is an admission by the Inspectors that this Plan violates the NPPF.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee concluded there cannot be significant decarbonisation with mass car ownership – even if cars are electric. The transition to a more or less car free society should have begun with this Local Plan:

In England, the cost of an average house is over eight times average income – doubled since the 1990s. So the less affluent and the young cannot afford to buy a home. In York, it is worse, where the price of a new house is about £150,000 more than a similar one in Middlesbrough – because more people want to move to York than to Middlesbrough.

When new development is limited, demand for housing pushes prices higher. The limited new housing in this Local Plan will ensure that prices in York will remain high – too high for the groups that, in previous decades, once owned their own homes.

We need many, many more homes – car free of course– as outlined in my Plan for A Car Free Greater York on DontLookNow.org. This shows how life could be much cheaper and pleasanter – without ruining the climate.

Planning for far too few homes, will reward house owners with higher property prices and drive the young to the agenda of the far right, which will blame the housing crisis on immigrants – when the blame really rests with you, York Councillors.

This plan rewards the affluent who are ruining our climate and excludes the young.

(See this on YouTube at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dk1wRyyN8I&t=9808s)

Best wishes

Geoff Beacon