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Personal interest? Reduction of our quality of life? Doesn’t mean that our objection would win, and if the processes are followed so be it. I’m merely suggesting a free for all do anything is not what the vast majority of people want.

But how does a phone mast reduce your quality of life, how does it impact you beyond giving you a better phone signal?

I am happy to admit - again - that I am a minority in how I think you should be able to build anywhere but surely even you can see that it's madness that in urban areas anything can sensibly be rejected?

Do you find this offensive?



The majority of exactly this design were rejected in London. I do not think councils had any right to reject these but they did, wholesale.

I don’t object to masts and would have no issue with that in the field next to my house. I would be unhappy if the view of the countryside that I spent money on (the extension with balcony) was turned into houses. And yes that’s a NIMBY attitude, and can be called that. We wouldn’t have built what we did if (a) the view wasn’t there and (b) we didn’t believe it would be there for many years to come.

Maybe you should buy the land with the view, then you can keep it as your heart desires?

Otherwise, if its not yours, then don't expect to freeload off others.

Do people freeload off the Lake Dustrict?

Not at all, I pay a fortune to businesses there to enjoy their land they own.

If you want to keep the view of the field next to you, there's a simple solution - buy it.

Otherwise, if someone else does, then they've not done anything wrong.

I have not said they would be doing anything wrong. I’ve said I would object. And then someone, somewhere would make a decision. At the moment the balance is probably too far in the objections winning column, but going to the other extreme is not the answer.

Why isn't it?

It worked just fine in the 1930s. It was a socialist policy implemented by Attlee and its been an unmitigated disaster. We should liberalise and revert back to what we had before then.

If it was such a disaster, why did we not have this problem in the 1990s?

We did, housing constructions were lower in the 90s than they were in the 30s.

Why was that a problem?

Because it meant that the dream of owning a home became increasingly unaffordable for many people.

That was a demand-side problem, not a supply-side problem.

Think of it in terms of your favourite topic of trade imbalances. We were the victim of other countries offloading their demand for housing onto us, both in terms of physical people and in terms of credit. You can't solve that problem by building your way out of it.

Of course you can.

If our population doubles but our housing supply trebles then we'll be well out of it.

Yes, and if you ground all the people into a fine dust then you could fit a billion of them in Wolverhampton...

Our population has grown exponentially in the past. What's wrong with more?

We're not short of land to build on, only about 5% of our land is developed, double it and its still only 10%. The problem is people standing in the way of doing so.

You'd clearly be happier in a country where people don't get a say. I suggest you move to Moscow.

No, I'm happier in a country where the person who gets a say is the individual concerned and not anyone else.

That's called liberalism.

Being free from state diktats on what you can and can't do on the privacy of your own land. Not needing to ask the politburo or grease the right palms to get done what you want.

Stand for election and see how far you get.

I know that at the minute illiberal authoritarians win elections.

Doesn't mean I need to accept their principles or support them. I'm happy to fly the flag for liberalisation, even if others don't - and maybe one day the Overton Window will move my way.

No. There will be multiple objections made to the placing of the Overton Window and it won't get built.

Thanks for the article. May I with apologies repost something relevant to this, a betting post of sorts, but there won't be a market:


What are the probabilities/possibilities in the medium term term for USA post 20 January 2025. Here are five:

1 Trump over time remains weird but normalises.

2 Slow boiling frog: carry on as if this is a normal regime but weird, gradually tightening the screw but, eg, don't invade Canada. NATO debilitated but not abolished. Free and fair elections continue.

3 Quicker boiling frog: we end up where it appears rational to MAGA to literally invade Canada. NATO stuffed. Elections rigged.

4 Proper Trumpist coup: we wake up one day and find MSNBC, NYT, WSJ are closed, internet is down and Jon Stewart is in prison, elections cancelled, army on the street

5 Proper counter coup: We wake up one day and find airports closed, media outlets occupied, Trump and Musk etc arrested and army on the street.

Of these 5, assuming they cover the terrain, I would put the % at about 5% 35% 25% 20% 15%. Thoughts?

You'd need to include possibilities where Trump dies. Leaving aside the risk of assassination, a man of 80 (as Trump will be in June) has around a 5% chance of dying in the next twelve months. He has access to the best healthcare but also has some risk factors. His chances of dying within his term of office have to be around 20%.

And that's just death: if you include serious illness (like a cancer diagnosis), it's probably at least a third.

ChatGPT says:

A man aged 80 in the U.S. has roughly a 26-27% probability of dying within the next 4 years based on actuarial data.

But not a lifelong teetotaler and non smoker.

OTOH there's his obesity, the impact of 9762 Big Macs, and whatever it is that prevented him from disclosing his medical history as has been the routine for years.

He'll be the first teetotalitarian POTUS !

People are entitled to a say in what happens in their community. I think you are an outlier in the general public on this. I’m not against development - far from it. We had a biogas plant built nearby to extreme objections from locals, but we were supportive. The point is it shouldn’t be that you can just do whatever you want without regard to your community.

People are entitled to a say but that doesn't mean it has to be listened to.

Every mast that gets applications gets dozens of objections from local residents. Should we listen to those and object it? Where exactly do you draw the line?

I'm happy to hear the argument in a rural area - maybe - but masts gets rejected in urban areas for visual obstruction. Frankly I do not see why in an urban area you have the right to complain about visual obstruction. But people do. And it's the most common reasons masts get rejected.

Personally I don't think that is the right approach, do you?

Free for all for everything is a step too far for most people. But I do think you are on to the right idea with masts and the like. You see all the time objections to things like that, or even modest development on frankly ugly or mediocre ground, on the basis that it will harm character etc. Most of those will get approved under delegated authority or on appeal because the pretexts given for rejection are ridiculous, but the system shouldn't be built on the idea that we expect bullcrap decisions and appeals to correct them as a matter of course, it should be more exceptional than that.

It is worth considering why this came about in the first place. Many of our two centres were devestated by the 60s and 70s developments that ruined them, building unsympathetic and down right ugly boxes in tghe middle of historic centres. Indeed often knocking down hostoric centres to do so. Planning laws were much lighter in those days and we see the results blighting towns up and down the country today.

Now I agree with BCH that it has swung too far the other way but the idea that we should simply remove planning entirely ignores the huge damage done to our ruban and rural landscapes in the past because planning law was not enforced, was bypassed or simply did not exist.

It is no joke that in many parts of the country the 'planners' and developers did more damage to our towns than the bombings in WW2.

Of course the other reason why Barts ideas are simply stupid is because what is done on one piece of land has inevitable effects on neighbours. The most obvious examples of this are to do with flooding where concreting over a previously absorbant landscape causes water to flow off onto neighbours land or into rivers causing huge issues further downstream.

Planning is not only, or even predominantly about NIMBYism. It is about makng sure that the right mitigations are put in place so that development does not cause harm to others or even to the poor buggers that have to live in the houses (for example) that are built in an inappropriate place just to make a quick buck.