Making a ruin into something habitable.

[Bob Eager]

Boring open fields of great visual merit?

A man of Mystery indeed...what is he on about?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Conversely, if you like peace and quiet and freedom from the IMM's of this world, it costs a very great deal of money to purchase isolation.

[Richard Caley]

a> * Average value of an acre of development land is £404,000. High in south a> east of 704,154, low in north east of £226,624. London is in a category of a> its own.

OTOH, according to a quick goole, agricultural land is more like

4,000 - 10,000 per hectare. And that is artificially inflated by the amount of mponey which is pumped into agricultural subsidy.

So I doubt restricted ownership is the problem, I suspect that location and planning permission are the only interesting factors in determining land costs.

No matter who owns land, if everyone wants to live in the same few places, prices in those places will be very high.

I suspect the reason that so much land is owned by so few is that much of it is out in places where no one wants to buy it off them.

[Dave Plowman]

I got the impression it was solid stone walls - like most of these sort of buildings.

[IMM]

He certainly does.!!!!

[IMM]

Wed are not not about your fields, fields in general!

[Richard Caley]

a> It is.

What evidence do you have on that.

a> They are contributing points. Restricted land ownership reinforced by a a> Draconian planning system that favours restricted ownership. A system drawn a> up people who favour restricted ownership.

What effect do you believe resticted ownership has?

Conside the number of owners in a square mile of London compares to in a suqre mile of the Highlands. The llater is likely all owned by one person, the former split betwen lots of owners of small plots. It is the land where ownership is split between lots of people which is expensive.

Lacking evidence to the contrary it still looks far more likely that the restricted ownership is due to the limited demand for land in the areas wherethose few big land owners own land.

[IMM]

Read "Who Own Britain"

Read the post of mine about Who Own Britain. Then read the book.

You are off mark. Look at the big picture relating to the UK, not what the situation is in Soho, which is owned mainly by one man, Paul Raymond.

As I say, read the book, understand the problem then conclude. The point is you, and millions of us, are being shafted.

[Ben Blaney]

Interesting stuff.

[Richard Caley]

a> Read "Who Own Britain"

Don't you know the reasoning well enough to summarise?

a> Read the post of mine about Who Own Britain.

I did, you didn't give any indication of any mechanism by which the large amount of land in a few hands causes high land prices.

a> You are off mark. Look at the big picture relating to the UK, not what the a> situation is in Soho, which is owned mainly by one man, Paul a> Raymond.

But the big picture in the whole UK is that land is realatively cheap. 4,000-10,000 quid per hectare for useful farm land, presumably much less for land which is less useful for farming.

Land is expensive in areas where the land is owned by by many small owners. Land is cheap in areas where land is all owned by a few. This seems to basicly sink the hypothesis that it is large holdings which are causing the problem.

A concrete example, I live in Edinburgh, one of the places in the UK with the highest property prices. How do you imagine land reform would reduce those prices?

Removing the land in the Highlands from whoever ownes it won't greatly affect land prices in Edinburgh, because few people want to move to the Highlands.

Removing land from whichever aristocrat it is who ownes a chunk of central Edinburgh (I forget which) won't do much to land prices, because what keeps the price high isn't his perversity, but high demand for an intrinsically limited resource, if that land was owned by 80 people rather than 1, they would all sell it, if at all, at the market rate.

So, what kind of land reform do you think _would_ make buying a home in walking distance of the center of Edinburgh cheaper?

I suppose they could confiscate the royal park from Brenda and concrete it over, but the main reason that would reduce property prices isn't the change of ownership, but the fact that it would make life in Edinburgh rather less pleasent.

[IMM]

There is along post by me, read it. If you did you would have seen:

The book argues that our present system of landownership is of material detriment to the vast majority of homeowners in the UK, imposing a land tax on homeowners while many of the wealthiest landowners in the country pay no rates and actually receive money in the form of grants and subsidies for owning land. Cahill's arguments are supported with 80 pages of tables, maps and statistics.

And do what Ben Blaney is doing...buying the book and reading it.

Read the post!!! It said..

• Average value of an acre of development land is £404,000. High in south east of 704,154, low in north east of £226,624. London is in a category of its own.

The planning system does not allow us to build on this uneconomic, subsidised land. get it?

[Richard Caley]

a> The book argues that our present system of landownership is of material a> detriment to the vast majority of homeowners in the UK, imposing a land tax a> on homeowners while many of the wealthiest landowners in the country pay no a> rates and actually receive money in the form of grants and subsidies for a> owning land. Cahill's arguments are supported with 80 pages of a> tables, maps and statistics.

This does not propose any machanism by which having much land in a relatively few hands would lead to high land prices.

a> And do what Ben Blaney is doing...buying the book and reading it.

I have heard the author talk about his book on R4. His stuff about who owns what is interetsing. When he gets into conspiracy theories, less so. There are farmore interesting conspiracy theory books if I were to decide to spend money on one.

a> Read the post!!! It said..

a> * Average value of an acre of development land is £404,000. High in south a> east of 704,154, low in north east of £226,624. London is in a category of a> its own.

Yes. But you said I should look at the big picture in all of the UK, and overall land is relatiovely cheap. It is expensive in a relatively few areas.

Which way is it? Is it a problem in the UK as a whole (where land is on average cheap and land ownership is narrow) or in a few in-demand areas (where land prices are high, but many people own small pices of land)?

a> The planning system does not allow us to build on this uneconomic, a> subsidised land. get it?

The planning system is a different issue, and not really very central. It is not the planning system which is preventing more homes being available in expensive areas. People are not prevented from building new houses in Mayfair or Morningside because of the planning system, but because there is nowhere to build them.

[Jim Ley]

Ah, so grunff isn't one of these evil landowning folk controling the fields so unfortunate people like me have to be homeless?

Jim.

[John Armstrong]

A world where the term "average" is understood?

So 92.5% of Mayfair is undeveloped is it?

13.5% of E&W is developed.

[IMM]

Another who cannot get the big picture and obsessed with London.

[Andy Hall]

That's highly questionable.

However, more to the point, is there any new and enlightening material that you have to post in this thread that has not been posted by you in the many previous runs of this subject?

I haven't seen any yet, it's just the usual trotting out of impractical armchair theories by those who don't have to take responsibility for them.

Why don't you put up a web site with all of this stuff on it, complete with links to other sites on the subject? You could even include Fidel Castro's phone number and Tony Blair's inside leg measurement if you wanted. Presumably you're on intimate terms with both.

You could put in a FAQ to cover all the objections that people raise.

Then whenever you feel an eruption of this magma coming on, you only need to post a URL to your site and you're done - job complete and you've unburdened yourself as well as covering a much larger audience.....

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[IMM]

It is?

Hooked and trivia eh?

[Andy Hall]

Not really. I tend to take an a la carte view, issue by issue. In my constituency it's largely academic.

Anyway, you haven't answered my question.

Is there anything new that you are saying on this subject that has not been trotted out at least four times before?

It's a simple enough question.......

The suggestion above was an eminently practical one.....

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[IMM]

Andy you are! Now don't fib.

[Andy Hall]

Wrong on both counts.

Now, why can't you answer a straightforward question with a straightforward answer, or would that be too much to ask?

Since you are ducking the issue (as is normal when you are put on the spot) one can only draw the conclusion that you don't have anything to say on this subject that you haven't said in at least three previous threads on the subject, and that none of this is your own original thought anyway.

That being the case, having everything posted on a web site somewhere would seem a very practical solution. Then you wouldn't even have to cut and paste from all of the various other sites.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl