Planning

There has recently been much public debate about the introduction of a land value tax.

The British seem to be fixated with house prices and follow the development of the property market like the weather report or the latest football results.

Martin Wolf, economics editor of the Financial Times, recently commented that over the past ten years the value of his house had increased by the equivalent of five years of his post-tax salary.

The report makes a number of proposals, including allowing local authorities to retain more tax receipts arising from new developments to encourage them to attract new inhabitants to their areas; …

I am probably a strange choice to deal with the British planning system, what in German would be called “a virgin with child” (“wie die Jungfrau zum Kind kommen”).

Following the success of Unaffordable Housing – Fables and Myths, which exposed the failings of Britain’s centrally planned system of development, Alan W.

Britain is a rich, modern and dynamic country but its housing is among the oldest, pokiest and most expensive in the developed world.

Britain’s Soviet-style planning system means that we live in some of the smallest, oldest and costliest homes in the developed world.