Category: planning

Desperate UK government hits planning again

The Evening Standard in London solicited a letter from me.  In the end they didn’t print it (no hard feelings) so here it is for a select readership. [Later: they printed a précis later – see end.]

The coalition is like an emperor with no clothes, now reaching for a loin cloth. Having followed policies the exact opposite of what we needed to lower the ratio of debt to GDP, it now finds debt still rising and GDP still falling while the misery of austerity continues to take its awful toll on low and middle-income Britons.

Yes housing is in a crisis and yes a massive increase in infrastructure investment would help to put their disasters into reverse. But these proposals are a tiny softening of the deflationary storm and are likely to have some perverse effects. Continue reading “Desperate UK government hits planning again”

London Plan to get even worse

31 July 2012  Today (1700h) is the last day for submission of objections to the changes which Boris wants to make to the 2011 London Plan. We are working on a Just Space coordinated response – see http://justspace2010.wordpress.com – and the following is what I just sent in on my own account in response to an invitation from Nicky Gavron.  The summary is:

The overwhelmingly important feature of the Alterations is the weakening of London’s capacity to meet its people’s most serious housing needs.  The evidence is that needs for housing among low and middle-income Londoners are becoming even more acute and that any alterations to the Plan should increase, not decrease, the emphasis on social rented housing.

20120724 Assembly REMA

futures for London / rent theory

I just did a post on London Remade‘s Debate column about what economic policies we should demand from the next Mayor. That’s very short-term. Then tomorrow (20 April) I’m giving the first talk in a UCL event about the London Economy in 2062. Yes 50 years ahead. A bit long term. I’ll post some stuff here and tweet a bit if I can. #L2062 My talk here Edwards London Economy 2062 and all is on web now http://bit.ly/JVQo1g#L2062

Royal Holloway recently held an excellent event Speculating on Slums in which there were talks on rent theory etc by Anna Haila, Louis Moreno and me.  All the material is online now.  My talk  has audio here http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2012/05/michael-edwards-some-things-we-can-do-with-rent/ and slides here Edwards Rent 20120523.  There were a lot of excellent talks, all audio at  http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2012/05/speculating-on-slums/

 

 

 

Euston's historic puddle ready for Olympic guests

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19 April. London is ensuring that this historic puddle, which for years has been delaying and infuriating passengers entering and leaving Euston Station, is conserved as part of preparations for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, starting 100 days from now.

My lengthy correspondence a few years ago led to some abortive works by one of the many public bodies, all of whom deny responsibility. The puddle could easily have been lost, but is now back in it’s full width and depth. Joe Barnes of Liverpool tweets on 18 April “…I nearly drowned…” Click on the photo for more images, then on slideshow. Continue reading “Euston's historic puddle ready for Olympic guests”

Ruth Glass at UCL

[Some friends…] ask if I can explain why “the Ruth Glass interdisciplinary initiative at UCL was disbanded in the end”.  This is the best I can do.  Maybe others can help.

Ruth was a cornery and ungovernable person, incapable of arse-licking.  My feeling always was that this, as much as her radicalism within her work, always made heads of departments keep her (and sociology) rather at arms length. Continue reading “Ruth Glass at UCL”

Powers of the London Mayor

The London Evening Standard published an article by the fecund Simon Jenkins. They asked me to write a letter in response, which I did.

Simon Jenkins (24 January) is right to point out how inadequate are the executive and taxation powers of the London Mayor. It would be great to see them strengthened but what would they be used for? Continue reading “Powers of the London Mayor”

Picketing in public-private space at KX

How weird is this? I am consulted by both sides in a picketing rights issue. Yesterday, 30 November, was a day of coordinated and major strikes by public sector workers in the UK and I had some interesting calls about where it is possible to picket outside the first big public service in the King’s Cross Railway Lands – the University of the Arts (UoA or CSM) in the Granary Building. One call was from a union member in the UCU branch there. Continue reading “Picketing in public-private space at KX”