Joe Banks

We have spent £180m on plans for a tunnel under Stonehenge. The project is now scrapped. You can be for a tunnel & think spending is a good idea (even if you think the cost of planning is silly). You can be against a tunnel & think spending is a bad idea. But *nobody* can be for spending on this scale with zero result. And yet that is a peculiarly British outcome. Nobody will be reprimanded. Nobody will see their career affected. But that’s £180m of taxpayer money just wazzed up the wall. Totally without repercussions. Multiply this by airport expansions & train route plans and Thames crossings and power stations and other examples you can think of yourself, and… soon you’re talking serious money.

Former UK Ambassador drops a massive truth bomb: Iran was observing the 2015 nuclear deal to the letter. Trump sabotaged it purely on Israeli advice, and the claims that Iran was cheating are absolute lies debunked by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Dudd and Hornchen’s replacement did pivot to approve. Plus Green councillor McAllister. Rather than emanating from the Mayor’s Office, the pressure on councillors now comes from a Chief Planner determined to uncritically push developer positions. But it’s important to understand that she was an appointee of that previous regime, tasked to operate like this. Wilding is a former colleague of Stephen Peacock at the SWRDA, who appointed her when CEO of the council, and who created the position while Chief Exec of Growth and Regeneration and working with the Mayor to restructure the planning service. These were reforms that deliberately set out to reduce the importance of good design in the process and create a system that gave developers as little resistance as possible. Allied to a weak emerging Local Plan, the myth that more PBSA and luxury flats improves the housing crisis, and a regulatory environment created by the current Labour government that sees good design as a drag on its deluded growth plans, Wilding is in a strong position to undermine any remaining democratic influence on planning and force through terrible developments that will irreversibly destroy what remains of the city’s historic character and appeal.

Dudd and Hornchen’s replacement did pivot to approve. Plus Green councillor McAllister. Rather than emanating from the Mayor’s Office, the pressure on councillors now comes from a Chief Planner determined to uncritically push developer positions. But it’s important to understand that she was an appointee of that previous regime, tasked to operate like this. Wilding is a former colleague of Stephen Peacock at the SWRDA, who appointed her when CEO of the council, and who created the position while Chief Exec of Growth and Regeneration and working with the Mayor to restructure the planning service. These were reforms that deliberately set out to reduce the importance of good design in the process and create a system that gave developers as little resistance as possible. Allied to a weak emerging Local Plan, the myth that more PBSA and luxury flats improves the housing crisis, and a regulatory environment created by the current Labour government that sees good design as a drag on its deluded growth plans, Wilding is in a strong position to undermine any remaining democratic influence on planning and force through terrible developments that will irreversibly destroy what remains of the city’s historic character and appeal.