Westminstenders: Prepare for what we said would never happen

[RedToothBrush]

I think that there may be a run on tinned tomatoes and pasta coming. Pizza will no longer have mozzarella in 2021.

On the plus side turnips are in season.

Michael Gove has sided with residents against a developer that plans to build fewer than 50 homes, nearly half of them affordable, in Bagshot, a wealthy village in Surrey that is home to Prince Edward, the Queen’s youngest son.

Gove, 53, the minister for the Cabinet Office and MP for Surrey Heath, took time off last Tuesday to attend a government planning inquiry in a “personal capacity”. “People on this video call will know that I’m a government minister and I, of course, will be bound by the conclusions of this hearing. I also recognise the broader imperative to improve housing supply,” he said, according to leaked footage of the event. “But I specifically object to this development.”

So much for build build build as long as it's not in a Tory backyard!

TBF it's a Cala Homes development and they have a habit of wriggling out of affordable housing commitments.

Cala homes at least build houses
unlike the permitted development that converts offices into miniature windowless bedsits.

the amount of brownfield city centre land being held by developers waiting for CiL and s106 rules to be weakened is sickening.

An interesting perspective on the fallout from Brexit ....
www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/shared-island

[quote ListeningQuietly]An interesting perspective on the fallout from Brexit ....
www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/shared-island[/quote]
Interesting to read the German pledge to Ireland: We will never forget what you have done for us

We've had run-ins with Cala over a house we owned (they fucked up on adoption of public areas which ended up with every resident being sued) and over a new development where they weren't going to build any affordable homes, but instead were going to give a wedge of cash to the council to be spent elsewhere in the city (that development was for around 300 4/5 bed McMansions on greenfield land).

The development that Gove objected to was partially located on amenity grassland.

Sabrina - what is amenity grassland?

Were his objections about the loss of a public amenity, or just nimbyism?

Amenity grassland is grassy areas that is used by the general public for recreation, eg for dog walking.

Had a quick look at the planning portal (but there are over 1000 documents for this site given that it went to appeal) and residents objections were focused on things like the loss of green space, flooding, traffic, impact on local services, section 106 etc. It's also a site where PP has been denied for similar schemes over the last 20 years.

Surrey Hills is an AONB and is part of the lungs of Guildford
but on the other hand if every village took 10 or 20 homes
the country would level up quite fast
rural planning is one of my hobbies

I think the problem for Bagshot is that it was a rural village but it's had a lot of development over the past few years - this really is shoehorning 44 properties into a tight plot, accessed by a narrow road past the primary school. The site is also described by residents in their objection letters as a water meadow and permanently wet (confirmed by the SI).

DW and I toured a lot of new build estates nearby a few years back. They were without exception cheap and nasty and shit. And pokey. I'll keep our 1350 sq. ft in 5,000 sq. ft (all on one level) thank you very much. (We have 2 bedrooms - even the 4 bedroom house was 1,200 sq. ft). However what put us off was the fact that a few of the show home car parks were pea shingled meaning it was impossible to get any form of wheels across it - power chair, scooter or wheelchair. The first one I piggybacked DW to the edge. After that it was collecting brochures.

If I had wanted confirmation that the housing "crisis" is a political one, then it was provided by all the sales agents boasting about how the builders had control of the entire estate and would only release so many houses in a phase to ensure the values remained high.

Personally I'm not a fan of walls you can punch through.

Also our garage can take a grown up car.

Personally I'm not a fan of walls you can punch through.
There is one really meagre upside to this - when they reassess housing for Council Tax or whatever they call it in the future I can knock all of my walls out and have a really "unusual" 2 up 2 down (currently 4 bed 3 bathroom) 🤷🏻‍♀️🔨

@pussycatinboots

Personally I'm not a fan of walls you can punch through. There is one really meagre upside to this - when they reassess housing for Council Tax or whatever they call it in the future I can knock all of my walls out and have a really "unusual" 2 up 2 down (currently 4 bed 3 bathroom) 🤷🏻‍♀️🔨

About the only upside is good WiFi coverage. But that's also because you're hardly spanning the Severn.

The only thing we came away with was the trick of losing the kitchen for a dining room. But we'd already done that anyway. Although I did wonder how many people spotted it ?

WiFi is fine, 2 layers of plasterboard and some metal studs won't make that much difference over about 10m although NDNs boiler seems to knock it out every morning

@pussycatinboots

WiFi is fine, 2 layers of plasterboard and some metal studs won't make that much difference over about 10m although NDNs boiler seems to knock it out every morning

That was my point. Our brick built bungalow (which is an "L" shape, for extra lolz) is a nightmare for reliable wireless. But then again much easier to run CAT6 through the loft space.

@pussycatinboots

WiFi is fine, 2 layers of plasterboard and some metal studs won't make that much difference over about 10m although NDNs boiler seems to knock it out every morning

Did you hear about the Welsh village that lost it's broadband every morning at 7.30am? Eventually identified that someone was turning on their ancient TV and the signal it emitted was downing the internet for the whole area.

Did you hear about the Welsh village that lost it's broadband every morning at 7.30am? Eventually identified that someone was turning on their ancient TV and the signal it emitted was downing the internet for the whole area

I did wonder about the level of engineer they sent out to investigate. I would have immediately suspected some sort of dodgy RF leakage, and an old analogue TV would be quite high up. I'm suspecting they sent some (cheap) contractors half my age who haven't a clue how the old TV receivers needed to generate a local carrier and were spectacularly efficient radiators of RF. Yet another small incident to log in the "fall of empire" vibe.

How to win friends and influence people Patel-style ...

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/25/priti-patel-kept-up-anti-lawyer-rhetoric-after-met-warning-on-terror

The UK home secretary, Priti Patel, is under fresh pressure after it emerged that she appeared to have dismissed intelligence briefings from counter- terrorism police to the Home Office over an alleged far-right terror attack.

(contd)

I did wonder about the level of engineer they sent out to investigate. I would have immediately suspected some sort of dodgy RF leakage, and an old analogue TV would be quite high up. I'm suspecting they sent some (cheap) contractors half my age who haven't a clue how the old TV receivers needed to generate a local carrier and were spectacularly efficient radiators of RF. Yet another small incident to log in the "fall of empire" vibe

Why would a CRT TV - RF affect Wifi running at 2.4ghz ? considering the range without without any extenders is tops P2P 30 to 50m? 5ghz ia even less.
Analoge TV signals are no longer broadcast, haven't for years, hence the need for a digibox for old TVs.

www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/09/18-months-of-village-broadband-disruption-traced-to-old-tv-set.html

The engineers seem to have done an OK job

Though rather slowly

There will be a deal. Whether that is couched by UK as capitulation by EU or not, who cares? We know the EU are the adults in the room anyway.

The prospect of No Deal is awful for everyone. And Johnson knows that. He is still beeping his klaxon for the Brexitluvvies and the ERG. But they are idiots anyway, so no sympathy for them from me.

Brinkmanship is so evident now.