‘Its time for the war to end, and for housing to be reinstated as one of three pillars of the welfare state, along with health and education.’

31Jul19
The unnecessary destruction of Robin Hood Gardens Estate in Poplar, in east London, March 2018, to make way for a new private development, Blackwall Reach (Photo: Andy Worthington).

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Today, July 31, is the centenary of the first Housing and Town Planning Act (widely known as the Addison Act), which was introduced by the Liberal politician Christopher Addison, as part of David Lloyd Georges coalition government following the First World War, to provide Britains first major council housing programme, as John Boughton, the author of Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing, explained in an article published yesterday in the Guardian.

Boughton explained how, when Addison introduced his flagship housing bill to the House of Commons in April 1919, he spoke of its utmost importance, from the point of view not only of the physical wellbeing of our people, but of our social stability and industrial content.

‘Between 1920 and 1980 the British government built around six million council houses’ says Tony Gosling

As we celebrate the centenary of council housing, Boughton noted, this sentiment is not lost in the context of the current housing crisis. From the rise in expensive, precarious and often poor-quality private renting to the dwindling dream of home-ownership, it is fuelling discontent. This escalating crisis means that increasing numbers of people are now forced to deal with the painful consequences of the country’s inability to provide such a basic human need a stable, affordable home.

Philanthropists had been creating social housing since the 1840s, beginning with Model Dwellings Companies (privately run companies that sought a return for investors while providing affordable housing for the working class), and the Peabody Donation Fund (now Peabody), founded by the London-based US banker George Peabody, whose aim was to ameliorate the condition of the poor and needy of this great metropolis, and to promote their comfort and happiness, and whose first project, on Commercial Street in Spitalfields, opened in 1864.

The first council-built housing was created in Liverpool in 1869, and in 1890, as Boughton put it, a Housing Act established the legislative powers and machinery of state for the expansion of council housing. He added, however, that only around 24,000 council homes were built nationally before 1914.

In contrast, as he described it, the 1919 Addison Act was a housing revolution – and while Addison’s motives were commendable, it must be noted that it took the horrors of the First World War and the housing plight of those who survived it for the British establishment as a whole to embrace the need for a major programme of genuinely affordable housing.

As he proceeded to explain, It required not only that all local authorities conduct a survey of housing needs within just three months but that they actively prepare plans to meet them. Beyond what could be raised locally by a penny on the rates, the cost of building these new homes was to be met entirely by the Treasury. The act also insisted on high-quality housing, taking its cue from the wartime Tudor Walters Report, which had recommended cottage homes with front and back gardens, bathrooms and pantries at no more than 12 to the acre.

Unfortunately, as Boughton proceeded to explain, in a post-war era of materials and labour shortages, construction costs were unprecedentedly high at around 1,000 per house, up to three times the cost of pre-war production and his programme fell victim to public spending cuts. Just 176,000 homes had been built in England and Wales of the 500,000 Lloyd George had promised, and Addison resigned from both the government and the Liberal party in protest, later joining the Labour Party, where he served under Ramsay MacDonald, and became Leader of the House of Lords during Clement Attlee’s extraordinary post-WWII government.

Following Addison’s resignation, there was a revival of council-built housing via other housing acts in the 1920s, although, as Boughton noted, the houses were typically smaller and plainer than those envisaged in 1919. In the 1930s, when the Labour politician Herbert Morrison undertook a visionary expansion of council housing in London as the leader of the London County Council (LCC), further housing bills, which particularly took aim at slum clearances and introduced rent rebates also addressed what Boughton described as one serious deficiency in Addison’s reforms that their relatively high rents excluded the slum population most in need of rehousing.

The horror of another war the Second World War and, again, the plight of returning soldiers paved the way for the British establishment to once more accept the need for another major programme of genuinely affordable housing, as part of the astonishing post-war government led by Clement Attlee, which also established the NHS and consolidated the welfare state.

From then until 1979, when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister and set about destroying council housing through her Right to Buy policy, cutting funding for maintenance, and introducing an absolute prohibition on councils spending money from the sale of homes to build new council housing council housing was promoted by both Labour and Conservative governments, ensuring that, for most of the preceding 60 years, after the 1919 Addison Act, there was, as Boughton put it, a broad cross-party consensus that accepted the necessity of state intervention to build the homes the country needed.

As Boughton also explained, One common factor underlay both eras of reform under Addison and Nye Bevan and it provides the single constant in the long history of what is now referred to as social housing: that is the inability of the free market and the unwillingness of the private sector to provide decent, affordable housing to those in greatest need.

40 years on from the start of Margaret Thatchers assault on social housing, Britains housing crisis has become nothing short of a disaster. Thatcher presided over a housing bubble, but also a subsequent crash, when numerous homeowners were caught in a negative equity trap. The market remained cool throughout John Majors premiership, but when Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997, ending 18 years of Tory rule, it didnt take long for another colossal housing bubble to develop one that continues to plague us today, with house prices at an all-time high, private rents unfettered and out of control, and social housing still chronically undermined. Blair failed to roll back Thatchers Right to Buy project, and also failed to establish the need for a major social homebuilding programme, and, throughout London, and across the country, Labour councils persistently failed to defend council housing, instead launching estate demolition programmeswith private developers that have drastically reduced the numbers of social homes available.

Since 2010, the Tories have only added fuel to this blazing fire of inequality, slashing subsidies for social homebuilding and encouraging housing associations like Peabody to lose touch with their founders aims by becoming, essentially, private developers with a sideline in social housing. Moreover, when Boris Johnson was Londons Mayor, he set affordable rents at 80% of market rents (as opposed to social rents at around 30% of market rents), and this injustice has, typically, not been adequately addressed by the Labour Party, or by the major housing associations. Since replacing Johnson in 2016, Sadiq Khan has set up a sliding scale of allegedly affordable rents, all of which are considerably more expensive than social rents London Affordable Rent (over 60% higher for a two-bedroom flat), and London Living Rent (over 130% higher).

For more information, see Andy Worthington’s articles, The Eviction of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden and the Mainstream Medias Inadequacy in Reporting Stories About Social Homes and Affordable Rents, Video: I Discuss the Tidemill Eviction, the Broken Regeneration Industry and Sadiq Khans Stealthy Elimination of Social Rents, as well as Shame on Peabody: Calling on the Former Philanthropic Social Housing Provider to Abandon Its Plans to Destroy the Old Tidemill Garden and Social Housing in Deptford and A Radical Proposal to Save the Old Tidemill Garden and Reginald House in Deptford: Use Besson Street, an Empty Site in New Cross.

The result of the last 40 years of politicians eroding social housing and doing nothing to rein in greed in the housing market is akin to another war, but this time a cannibalistic war waged by British citizens on their less well-off fellow citizens, as those with mortgages taken out before the bubble have seen insane returns on their original investments, and, at the same time, absolutely no legislation exists to prevent those who take out buy to let mortgages from exploiting their tenants as much as they wish, while those fortunate enough to live in properties at social rent myself included are part of an ever-diminishing minority, and, since 2010, have lived in fear that the Tories will pass legislation intended to fully exterminate social housing, or, if they live on a council estate, that Labour councillors will vote to demolish their homes.

Its time for the war to end, and for housing to be reinstated as one of three pillars of the welfare state, along with health and education.

Note: If youre interested in doing something to mark 100 years since the Addison Act, please sign Shelters petition calling for the government to build more social housing, and watch George Clarkes excellent Channel 4 documentary, George Clarkes Council House Scandal, which was broadcast this evening, and in which George called on the government to build 100,000 council homes a year, and to suspend Right to Buy. An article by George, entitled, We dont just need more council houses we need the very best in space and ecological standards, is here.

By Ed Lovelace – from 2011

Ed Revill from Swansea gives us the low-down on biochar-producing stoves and how they can be harnessed to convert chemical energy stored in wood into useful heat and nutrient retaining, “carbon negative” charcoal known as ‘biochar’.

Audio interview

Permaculture revolution Ed Revill, from Swansea Biochar.
– Explore techniques which allow us to live in balance with the Earth.
– Recaim sovereignty from food and energy corporations and start to build resilient systems.
– Explore how to produce healthy soil as well as domestic heat by stabilising carbon in soil.
– Producing food and energy by stabilising carbon in soil enables us to reverse our ecological footprints and live in harmony with the Earth.
– This is the reverse of the current practice of burning fossil fuels to produce energy and food.
http://www.soil-carbon-regeneration.co.uk

UK Permaculture revolution

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/73642

Download http://www.radio4all.net/files/tony@cultureshop.org.uk/2149-1-Dialect07Jan14.mp3

EXCLUSIVE: Rock Hugo Basil Feilding-Mellen, the Tory councillor who oversaw Grenfell’s refurbishment, invited actress Rosamund Pike and John Lennon’s musician son Sean to his 40th bash

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/grenfell-torys-star-studded-party-16520379

By Alan Selby 14 JUN 2019

The Tory councillor who oversaw Grenfell’s refurbishment has been slammed for throwing a star-studded party at his family’s country pile weeks before the horror’s two-year anniversary.

Rock Hugo Basil Feilding-Mellen’s 40th birthday bash saw a who’s who of socialites and stars descend on Stanway House in Gloucestershire, including actress Rosamund Pike and John Lennon’s musician son Sean.

Photos on social media showed millionaires rubbing shoulders at his mum’s 5,000-acre Jacobean manor as families prepared themselves to commemorate the tragedy that killed 72.

Grenfell United, the survivors and bereaved families group, said: “Seeing these pictures is like a gut punch.

“We are no closer to justice, yet people that should be answering questions for the deaths of 72 people and the devastation of our community are living without consequence. It’s disgraceful.

“Because of what was done to us there are 72 birthdays we didn’t celebrate this year and two children who never made it to their first.”

Edward Daffarn lived in Grenfell Tower and almost lost his life in the fire.

A source who revealed the party had taken place said: “I’m just appalled at the arrogance of these people revelling in the run-up to the Grenfell anniversary.

“There are seventy-two people who’ll never have another birthday.”

Moyra Samuels, of the Justice 4 Grenfell campaign, said Rock Feilding-Mellen’s decision to hold a party with his rich and famous pals just three weeks before the two year anniversary of the fire showed he was “morally bankrupt”.

She said “He’s quite indifferent to the impact that such a thing might have on a grieving and quite sensitive community. He’s oblivious, continuing to act as if it is of no consequence that 72 people died.

“He lives in an elite and removed world, and always has, even though he was he was based not far from the tower.

“He’s been raised, nurtured and brought up with this entitled attitude.

“It comes as no surprise, but it is indicative of the fact that actually people like him who were involved in the council at the time of the fire and made some serious decisions that influenced what happened are still continuing to act as if it is of no consequence that 72 people died.

“They think this should not change their lives, and they will continue to indulge.”She added: “You would have thought this would be a time to show some sensitivity and some subtlety.”

Moyra, a teacher, said as the inquiry into the fire dragged on slowly the community felt justice was being denied as key decision makers like Mr Feilding-Mellen moved on with their lives and escaped sanction.

She said: “Every aspect of the procedure of justice and truth has been thwarted, in all sorts of ways, by a ruling, privileged elite who indicate to this community and, quite frankly, the rest of the country, that they don’t have any shame in them.”

Fielding-Mellen did not comment when approached by the Mirror.

Mr Feilding-Mellen was deputy mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea during the refurbishment of the tower, and was the chairman of the housing committee.

He reportedly urged refurbishment consultants in 2014 to reduce costs on cladding.

At that point £300,000 was cut from a £10 million budget and now-banned flammable aluminium panels were to be installed, rather than the zinc cladding which was originally planned.

After being elected to Kensington in 2006 Mr Feilding-Mellen became deputy leader in 2013 and took a seat on the powerful major planning development committee.

In 2015 he warned that the council’s housing redevelopment programme would need to be completed “with no recurrent cost to the general council taxpayer”.

After news of his involvement in the Grenfell refit emerged he was forced to flee his family’s £1.2million Kensington home in the wake of the fire, fearing for his family’s safety.

He stood down as deputy mayor of the borough after the fire, and left the council at last year’s local elections.

Days after Grenfell, in 2017, he told friends he was cancelling plans to visit Stanway House for the 30th birthday of his step-sister Mary Charteris, who is a model and member of the band The Big Pink.

Those who did go to Mary’s party included Cara Delevingne, actor Jaime Winstone and aristocrats including Scarlett Spencer-Churchill.

Mr Feilding-Mellen, known as Rocky, is the son of Amanda Feilding, the Countess of Wemyss and March.

He is the great-great-great-grandson of the seventh Earl of Denbigh and a direct descendant of the Hapsburgs.

Amanda Feilding is an outspoken critic of drugs policy, and campaigns on the benefits of LSD and cannabis.

Labour could stop renters paying council tax in major property laws shake-up

Labour has shown once again that it wants nothing less than the abolition of private property

Tax land: Winston Churchill said it all better then we can

Want to tackle inequality? Then first change our land ownership laws

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/04/tackle-inequality-land-ownership-laws

George Monbiot From housing costs to wildlife collapse, we pay the price while the rich boost their profits. But from today we can fight back @GeorgeMonbiot

Tue 4 Jun 2019 06.00 BSTLast modified on Tue 4 Jun 2019 12.35 BST

What is the most neglected issue in British politics? I would say land. Literally and metaphorically, land underlies our lives, but its ownership and control have been captured by a tiny number of people. The results include soaring inequality and exclusion; the massive cost of renting or buying a decent home; the collapse of wildlife and ecosystems; repeated financial crises; and the loss of public space. Yet for 70 years this crucial issue has scarcely featured in political discussions.

Today, I hope, this changes, with the publication of the report to the Labour party – Land for the Many – that I’ve written with six experts in the field. Our aim is to put this neglected issue where it belongs: at the heart of political debate and discussion.

Since 1995, land values in this country have risen by 412%. Land now accounts for an astonishing 51% of the UK’s net worth. Why? In large part because successive governments have used tax exemptions and other advantages to turn the ground beneath our feet into a speculative money machine. A report published this week by Tax Justice UK reveals that, through owning agricultural land, 261 rich families escaped £208m in inheritance tax in 2015-16. Because farmland is used as a tax shelter, farmers are being priced out. In 2011, farmers bought 60% of the land that was on the market; within six years this had fallen to 40%.

Homes are so expensive not because of the price of bricks and mortar, but because land now accounts for 70% of the price

Worse still, when planning permission is granted on agricultural land, its value can rise 250-fold. Though this jackpot was created by society, the owner gets to keep most of it. We pay for this vast inflation in land values through outrageous rents and mortgages. Capital gains tax is lower than income tax, and council tax is proportionately more expensive for the poor than for the rich. As a result of such giveaways, and the amazing opacity of the system, land in the UK has become a magnet for international criminals seeking to launder their money.

We pay for these distortions every day. Homes have become so expensive not because the price of bricks and mortar has risen, but because the land that underlies them now accounts for 70% of their price. Twenty years ago, the average working family needed to save for three years to afford a deposit. Today, it must save for 19 years. Life is even worse for renters. While housing costs swallow 12% of average household incomes for those with mortgages, renters pay 36%.

Because we hear so little about the underlying issues, we blame the wrong causes for the cost and scarcity of housing: immigration, population growth, the green belt, red tape. In reality, the power of landowners and building companies, their tax and financial advantages and the vast shift in bank lending towards the housing sector have inflated prices so much that even a massive house building programme could not counteract them.

The same forces are responsible for the loss of public space in cities, a right to roam that covers only 10% of the land, the lack of provision for allotments and of opportunities for new farmers, and the wholesale destruction of the living world. Our report aims to confront these structural forces and take back control of the fabric of the nation.

A Labour government should replace council tax with a progressive property tax, payable by owners, not tenants. Empty homes should automatically be taxed at a higher rate. Inheritance tax should be replaced with a lifetime gifts tax levied on the recipient. Capital gains tax on second homes and investment properties should match or exceed the rates of income tax. Business rates should be replaced with a land value tax, based on rental value. A 15% offshore tax should be levied on properties owned through tax havens.

To democratise development and planning, we want to create new public development corporations. Alongside local authorities, they would assemble the land needed for affordable homes and new communities. Builders would have to compete on quality, rather than by amassing land banks. These public corporations would use compulsory purchase to buy land at agricultural prices, rather than having to pay through the nose for the uplift created by planning permission. This could reduce the price of affordable homes in the south-east by nearly 50%.

We propose a community participation agency, to help people, rather than big companies, become the driving force in creating local plans and influencing major infrastructure. To ensure a wide range of voices is heard, we suggest a form of jury service for plan-making. To represent children and the unborn, we would like every local authority to appoint a future generations champion.

Councils should have new duties to create parks, urban green spaces, wildlife refuges and public amenities. We propose a new definition of public space, granting citizens a legal right to use it and overturning the power of private landowners in cities to stifle leisure, cultural events and protest.

We propose much tighter rent and eviction controls, and an ambitious social housebuilding programme. We also want to create new opportunities for people to design and build their own homes, supported by a community right to buy of the kind that Scotland enjoys. Compulsory sale orders should be used to bring vacant and derelict land on to the market, and community groups should have first rights to buy it.

To help stabilise land prices and make homes more affordable, we propose a new body, called the Common Ground Trust. When people can’t afford to buy a home, they can ask the trust to purchase the land that underlies it, while they pay only for the bricks and mortar (about 30% of the cost). They then pay the trust a land rent. Their overall housing costs are reduced, while the trust gradually accumulates a pool of land that acts as a buffer against speculation, and creates common ownership on a large scale.

We call for a right to roam across all uncultivated land and waterways (except gardens and similar limitations). We want to change the Allotments Act, to ensure that no one needs wait for a plot for more than a year. We would like to use part of the Land Registry’s vast surplus to help community land trusts buy rural land for farming, forestry, conservation and rewilding. We would like a new English land commission to decide whether to make major farming and forestry decisions subject to planning permission, to help arrest the environmental crisis. And we want to transform the public’s right to know, by ensuring that all information about land ownership, subsidies and planning is published freely as open data.

These proposals, we hope, will make the UK a more equal, inclusive and generous-spirited nation, characterised not by private enclosure and public squalor, but by private sufficiency and public luxury. Our land should work for the many, not just the few.

Bob Hoskins offers his unvarnished opinion on the architectural dilemmas facing the South Bank

BBC Omnibus | 1982 | 50m – Bob Hoskins offers his unvarnished opinion on the architectural dilemmas facing the South Bank. BFI collections: Building the South Bank and Beautiful South
http://www.bfi.org.uk/distribution/test

1982: Omnibus – Bob Hoskins took Barry Norman on a riverside walk along the South Bank to illustrate his concerns about property speculation and development along the riverfront in central London.

Throwback: Bob Hoskins talks about urban planning in London’s South Bank

By WILLIAM MENKING • Friday May 10, 2019

The actor Bob Hoskins was the star of the 1980 film, The Long Good Friday, a London gangster movie that reflected on major anxieties, opportunities, and economic changes taking place in the U.K. In 1982 Hoskins led Barry Norman and the BBC on a riverside walk along the South Bank, and while pointing to new concrete office blocks he calls “Mars Bars” he confronts change in the guise of urban development along the Thames.

The coming redevelopment Hoskins claims (and was he ever right) will make the 1960s “redevelopment epidemic look like a rash.” Next to a Coin Street vacant lot, once the site of row houses, but torn down for the 1951 Festival of Britain, he points to another Mars Bar. You see that (the BBC overlays outlines the proposed structures) is what happens if you “don’t consult with local people.” In 1970 “a big property group said they would build flats, shops, and a hotel if they could build a great tower for their staff. Once they got that tower the company brass pushed off down to Surrey and their building was sold off and the new owners are new doing up a bit to let and now they say they are moving out of the tower as well.” Now thanks to these planning decisions what we have is an area that “looks and feels completely dead.” Hoskins was not just a great actor but with deep understanding of culture implicitly understood bottom-up planning. We need planners with his insight and passion.

@BBCArchive – #OTD 1982: Bob Hoskins took Barry Norman on a riverside walk along the South Bank to illustrate his concerns about development in London

#OTD 1982: Bob Hoskins took Barry Norman on a riverside walk along the South Bank to illustrate his concerns about development in London pic.twitter.com/cF5UC6wP9Q

— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) May 9, 2017

‘My dad was such a good actor he convinced The Krays he was a gangster’ – Bob Hoskins’ daughter on his gentle side

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity/my-dad-good-actor-convinced-8084578

HOSKINS, who died in 2014, was often cast as a cockney hardman, but in a new book his daughter reveals that was as far removed as possible from his real personality.
By Rod McPhee 30 MAY 2016

WHEN Bob Hoskins lost his battle with Parkinson’s , a nation mourned the loss of the lovable movie hardman.

In reality, his family say he was a gentle soul who loved cookery and archaeology, not the underworld criminal like his characters in The Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa…

Council plan to bulldoze allotments stopped – thanks to their own records from 85 years ago

Kirklees wanted to make way for a school but campaigners fought the plan – and have won a High Court battle

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/council-plan-bulldoze-allotments-stopped-16252125

By James Brewster and Lauren Ballinger – 09 MAY 2019

A battling allotment holder has scored a High Court triumph in his fight to stop Kirklees Council taking over his prized plots for construction of a new primary school.

Jonathan Adamson, who cultivates four plots at the Cemetery Road allotments in Birkby , was served with notice to quit by the metropolitan borough council in September last year.

He was told his plots were needed to provide playing fields and car parking space for the primary school, on which work is due to start imminently.

Mr Adamson supports the new school, but wants the plans reconfigured so as to spare his allotments, London’s High Court heard.

Although he and other allotment holders have been offered alternative plots, they are “not satisfied” with them, said top judge, Mr Justice Kerr.

Mr Adamson argued in person that he could not be deprived of his plots without permission from Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire.

The council fought his judicial review challenge tooth and nail – but now Mr Adamson has been handed a stunning victory by the judge.

The council’s September 2018 decision to “appropriate” the allotments for education purposes was overturned.

And Mr Adamson, together with 13 other allotment holders who supported him, had their notices to quit quashed.

The judge’s ruling involved an in-depth survey of the history of allotments in Huddersfield going back to 1920, long before the council came into existence.

It was in that year that an Act of Parliament authorised the council’s predecessor, the Huddersfield Corporation, to purchase the Ramsden Estate – of which the allotments now form part – for £1.36 million, payable over 80 years.

The council denied that the Corporation had ever formally appropriated the land for use as allotments and that the Secretary of State’s consent was therefore not required.

But, after analysing Corporation minutes going back decades, Mr Justice Kerr found that it had done just that when the land was “zoned for allotments” at a meeting in 1935.

The allotments had been described as “permanent” at the time and the Corporation had directed that local maps be amended to show them.

The allotment holders therefore had “security of tenure” and, under the Allotments Act 1925, they could not be stripped of their plots without the Secretary of State’s say so.

The judge rejected council arguments that Mr Adamson had delayed too long in bringing his case to court.

And Kirklees’s plea that Mr Brokenshire was “highly likely” to approve the appropriation of the allotments for the new school also fell on fallow ground.

The judge paid tribute to the “skill and courtesy” with which Mr Adamson presented his case and ordered the council to pay his legal costs – which came to £12,199.

Kirklees Council said it was “disappointed” with the decision.

They added: “A new primary school is needed in this area to meet the demands for places.

“As a council we’re committed to ensuring all children in Kirklees have access to the same high standard of education. This school is an important part of this.

“This decision will delay us in providing the new school local children deserve.

“We will be presenting additional information to the judge and hope this decision will be reviewed. We will also be seeking permission from the Secretary of State to proceed with the development following this decision.

“Allotments are part of our local communities and it’s important that we have enough spaces for those that want them.

“The amount of unused space on this site means that it is possible to have both a fantastic new school and a vibrant allotment site.

“Affected allotment plot holders were offered new plots in the same allotment where work has been done to bring them up to a very high standard with new paths, edging, and access to water, so tenants can get straight into the art of growing.”

Extinction Aversion

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/04/extinction-aversion/ Craig Murray 23 Apr, 2019

Man made climate change has appeared to me for three decades to be sufficiently proven, and it has that cardinal virtue of a scientific hypothesis, you can see the things which it predicts will happen, come to pass before your eyes, like being uncomfortably hot in your Edinburgh flat on Easter Monday.

Direct action of the illegal kind is a very important weapon in the arsenal of protest. It represents a challenge to the state’s monopoly of force. While it may appear non-violent, in fact by imposing your body into a space and blocking it off, that is an assertion of physical force. What the Extinction Rebellion protests showed this week was the reticence of the Metropolitan Police in dealing with nice, middle class and largely white protestors. That reticence is to be welcomed; the fact that it is not extended to other groups is what is to be deplored. The alternative is to argue for everyone to get beaten up by Plod equally, which is not a sensible line to take.

I broadly support the Extinction Rebellion protest. In terms of gatecrashing climate change on to the political agenda, they have had a good and entirely necessary effect. Their use of what was in effect force, certainly did some harm in restricting the movement of people around London, and in some cases will have impacted the ability of struggling people to earn their living. It also disrupted public transport systems which are a good thing. But these are minor items if you accept that climate change is whirling its way to becoming an existential threat – and that is a premise which I do accept. The disruption is outweighed by the intent to do a much greater good, in terms of the justification of the people doing the protesting. Whether it succeeds in prompting real action by government and achieving a balance of good, is a different question. I fear we have to get rid of the Tories first.

I accept that climate change is a worldwide phenomenon and action in individual states of limited utility. But individual states can inspire by example, not least by showing that a switch to a greener economy can lead to a major stimulation of economic growth. I do not pretend to expertise in green economics. What follows are rather some homely policy nostrums which I believe should form a part of a coherent approach to green policy.

1) Home Insulation

The Tory Government has effectively abandoned and cancelled home insulation schemes; in effect nothing whatsoever is happening. Yet the government’s own plan to reach committed emissions targets by 2050 explicitly depends on one third of all savings being achieved by insulation in Britain’s existing stock of over 20 million very poorly insulated homes.

There is the clearest case here for government action. The aim should be to upgrade 4 million homes a year. Full funding should be provided to local authorities and housing associations for their stock. Householders should face a legal obligation to bring home insulation up to high defined standards – with generous means-tested grants available from central government funds, which should meet 100% of the cost for all those in straitened circumstances, and a decreasing percentage thereafter based on income and wealth. Private landlords should be forced to comply and self-fund up to the value of four months’ rent, with grants available for higher costs. Failure to comply should lead to the landlords’ property being confiscated by the local council, with tenancies protected.

Those are the broad outlines of a policy which would provide massive employment and contribute to a major Keynesian boost for an economy crippled by years of austerity, as well as make a major difference to emissions.

2) Ocean Energy

Wind energy has made massive strides, and to a lesser extent solar and hydro. But disappointingly little has been done to harness the restless energy of the seas. Government support for research programmes into utilising wave and current energy is pitifully small, given the potentially vast and reliable energy resource available, to the UK in particular.

On tidal energy, those objecting to the Severn or Wash barrage schemes on the grounds of effect on wildlife habitat are failing spectacularly to see the wood for the trees. Of course biodiversity is massively important, but we are fighting a battle in which some resources will need to be sacrificed. The Severn, Wash and Swansea Bay schemes do not require substantial technological innovation – they are basically just low head hydro – and should be pushed ahead as urgent projects. Simultaneously major research funding should be given to innovation. I suspect the harnessing of currents rather than waves would be the first to fruition.

3) Aviation Fuel Tax

Cheap flights are the opiate of the people. I cannot buy in to the argument that aviation fuel tax is only viable if everybody does it. Planes landing can very easily be taxed on any fuel they have in their fuel tanks brought in from third countries. If hub passengers transiting are reduced in favour of fuel tax free destinations, I cannot see that as a bad thing. An aviation hub is a particularly undesirable thing to become, from any sensible environmental view.

Flying is a major contributor to pollution and there is far too much of it. The tax free fuel status that makes flights cheaper than trains is ludicrous. Aviation fuel should be taxed at the same levels per calorific value as road fuels.

4) Expand Rail Networks

Nationalisation and re-integration is of course the sensible prelude to any development of rail transport. The UK is chronically behind most of the developed, and even much of the developing, world in terms of high speed rail lines. This needs to be rectified as does the chronic over-concentration of transport resource on South East England. HS2 should run on to Aberdeen and Inverness, not just be confined to the southern third of the UK.

On a wider note, with demand for rail transport buoyant, re-establishment of many Beeching axed lines should be undertaken with a view to a simple containerised nationwide freight distribution system as well as passenger transport. Rail is far more energy efficient than road. The preponderance of road transport is simply the result of perverse incentive from government policy.

Light rail and tram systems should be expanded in cities. Here in Edinburgh, the poor planning and execution of the start of a tram system should not put us off. Trams should be a local service, not fast and stopping frequently, but rather akin to buses, as in Manchester. They should not be confused as in Edinburgh with an express airport service, with very few and inaccessible stops.

5) Encourage Micro-Generation: Abolish Nuclear

The UK had an immensely successful programme of encouraging domestic solar generation through feed in tariffs, so the Tories cut it, as they cut the less successful insulation grants. Generous feed-in tariffs for domestic generation should be rebooted, while technologies such as heat pumps and exchangers should be zero rated for VAT (as should bicycles).

By contrast, the massively expensive nuclear power projects should be scrapped immediately. I lived almost all my adult life under the impression nuclear energy involved some fiendishly clever technology, until I realised it generates from bog standard steam turbines, and the nuclear part is simply a ludicrously complicated, incredibly expensive and devastatingly dangerous way to – boil water.

The real attraction to governments of nuclear power is the precise reason governments dislike micro-generation – nuclear power promotes a massively centralised security state, and links in well to weaponisation. It is the most expensive electricity of all, and should be immediately closed down.

The above represent my own thoughts on possible short term policy responses to climate change. I acknowledge quite freely that it is not my area of expertise and is perhaps insufficiently radical, and certainly insufficiently broad and detailed. It has however focused my mind on the great economic stimulus that can be gained from wholesale pursuit of the necessary technologies at the government level.

I have deliberately concentrated on unilateral measures rather than international negotiation, because I am sceptical there is sufficient will for progress on the latter or that governments around the world intend to stick to commitments. I have viewed it from a UK not a Scottish perspective because action is required immediately, and Scotland starts from a much better place anyway.

That I am thinking on this at all is in a way evidence that Extinction Rebellion achieved their aim from their immediate action, though it is those in power they seek to influence, not random bloggers. I am very sceptical of their declared desire to ‘negotiate with government’. If David Cameron were still in power, he would undoubtedly ‘hug a swampie’ and make all kinds of green noises, then continue shutting down environmental programmes. Those around Theresa May are quite clever enough to recommend such an approach, as a potential Tory rescuing image as the party otherwise crashes to electoral disaster.

I would recommend Extinction Rebellion to keep blocking the roads and stay clear of the politicians. If they could refine their tactics to concentrate more on direct action against the big polluters and their financial backers, and move away from shocking the public through inconvenience, that might be tactically good for a while. But on the whole, I applaud. Vigorously.

Danish billionaires plan to rewild large swath of Scottish Highlands

Scotland’s largest private [Viking] landowners want to reverse years of land ‘mismanagement’, says adviser
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/21/danish-billionaires-anders-and-anne-holch-povlsen-say-plan-is-to-restore-scottish-highlands

Rewilding and Malthus

ON DECEMBER 27, 2016 BY GRAHAM   In September I was fortunate to attend the excellent Future of Wild Europeconference at Leeds University. Over three days, keynote speakers and early-career researchers in the environmental humanities gave presentations on rewilding, ethnography and many other fascinating topics related to political ecology.
https://theculturalwilderness.wordpress.com/2016/12/27/rewilding-and-malthus/

When the Nazis Tried to Bring Animals Back From Extinction

By Lorraine Boissoneault www.smithsonian.com – March 31, 2017
Their ideology of genetic purity extended to aspirations about reviving a pristine landscape with ancient animals and forests
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-nazis-tried-bring-animals-back-extinction-180962739/

Brown bears and wolves to be reintroduced to woods near Bristol after council gives permission

By Alex Wood 4 JUL 2018 Bear Wood could reopen in time for next summer, and will house brown bears as well as lynx, wolves and wolverine in woodlands https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/brown-bears-reintroduced-woods-near-1749087

The trouble with rewilding

Posted on 14 December 2016 by entitlecollective By Irma Allen*  A rewilding movement that bases itself on arguments around overpopulation, without interrogating the power structures that are enabling it, is in danger of failing to generate the kinds of solidarities, social justice outcomes and progressive visions of wildness that we so desperately need.
https://entitleblog.org/2016/12/14/the-trouble-with-rewilding/

In September I was fortunate to attend the excellent Future of Wild Europeconference at Leeds University. Over three days, keynote speakers and early-career researchers in the environmental humanities gave presentations on rewilding, ethnography and many other fascinating topics related to political ecology.

Pretty much my first academic conference, I found it hugely stimulating, and a great opportunity to accost authors of papers I was citing in my dissertation at coffee break. It was also not without a share of controversy and a range of different and at times conflicting visions were presented as to what a ‘wild Europe’ might mean and how to get there.

Irma Allen of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm also attended the conference and has written about her impressions in a thought-provoking blog, The Trouble with Rewilding. Here, she poses some challenging questions about what she felt was revealed concerning  the ideological underpinnings of the rewilding movement. Three main issues  concern her: the racialized Malthussian origins of rewilding; concerns about land abandonment and passive rewilding in Europe being facilitated by importing ‘virtual’ agricultural land; and rewilding initiatives being concentrated in the historically marginalized regions of Central and Eastern Europe.

1. Malthus and the discourse of over-population

Environmentalism has a dark history of Malthussian ‘Limits to Growth’ thinking and misanthropy. A focus on and at times pre-occupation with over-population as the primary driver of environmental destruction, frequently accompanied by the reification of a sublime Nature above human well-being, has lead to an assumption that the only truly healthy Nature is one devoid of humans.

As Allen says, this issue was most famously addressed by William Cronon in his 1996 essay The Trouble with Wilderness (pdf) (Cronon 1996):

Perhaps partly because our own conflicts over such places and organisms have become so messy, the convergence of wilderness values with concerns about biological diversity and endangered species has helped produce a deep fascination for remote ecosystems, where it is easier to imagine that nature might somehow be ‘left alone’ to flourish by its own pristine devices. The classic example is the tropical rain forest, which since the 1970s has become the most powerful modern icon of unfallen, sacred land ‘a veritable Garden of Eden’ for many Americans and Europeans. And yet protecting the rain forest in the eyes of First World environmnetalists all too often means protecting it from people who live there.

Those who seek to preserve such ‘wilderness’ from the activities of native peoples run the risk of reproducing the same tragedy ‘being forceably removed from an ancient home’ that befell American Indians. Third World countries face massive environmental problems and deep social conflicts, but these are not likely to be solved by a cultural myth that encourages us to ‘preserve’ peopleless landscapes that have not existed in such places for millennia.

‘exporting American notions of wilderness in this way can become an unthinking and self-defeating form of cultural imperialism’

Cronon goes onto argue that the dichotomy that the concept of wilderness creates- that of a separation of anything touched by humans from pristine Nature- leads us to de-value the more prosaic world that we inhabit, and thus disregard the nature and the natural that is all around us, in our backyards, or even in the heart of the city. If we hold an essentially illusory image of ‘the wilderness’ – since nature untouched by humans hardly exists anymore, and arguably has not for a long time- as the only true nature worth preserving or paying attention to, we will neglect to look after the less exciting but equally important diversity than can often be found all around us.

In her post, Allen goes onto trace these Malthussian strains from one of the originators of rewilding, deep ecologist Dave Foreman, to the founder of Rewilding Europe, Toby Aykroyd, who also gave a presentation at the Leeds conference. Allen found that Aykroyd is also the founder of the Population and Sustainability Network, which focusses on the links between reproductive health, population and the environment, and provides free family planning services in developing countries- all well and good she says, but – when motivated by concern over natural resources and carrying capacities, and linked to power-laden development agendas, this shades into murkier territories and rationales that I find deeply uncomfortable. –

In my dissertation on rewilding (available here) I also referenced some of these associations:

The darker side of misanthropic environmentalism still pervades more extreme rewilding discourses and can readily be found on online forums and blogs (see for example The Happy Anachronism blog, 2012; The Rewild West n.d.). Drastic reductions in human population, either forced or through some kind of ecological collapse, are seen by these writers as a necessary and even desirable pre-requisite to any genuine rewilding (Foreman 2015). At times, these views can seem uncomfortably close to certain strands of Nazi ideology, which was itself strongly informed by belief in the purity of pristine Nature, underpinned by their mythology of the urwald (primeval forest) which they associated with the Fatherland and Aryan supremacy (Biehl and Staudenmaier 1995; Schama 1996).

While some find thinking about this uncomfortable and would rather not have it discussed, or claim that it is no longer relevant, the conservation movement needs to own openly to its origins in a history of forced evictions of native peoples in order to create protected wilderness areas (Dowie 2011), a practice that is still going on today.

In this way, ‘wilderness’ can be seen a cultural artifact, literally created by the forced removal of people (Ginn and Demeritt 2008). This is what Monbiot (1994) calls forced rewilding  (it is a curious aspect of his work that he gives scant mention of these issues in his more recent influential rewilding book Feral [2013]).

Perhaps oddly, neither Allen in her post, nor as far as I could see from a quick search on the PSN website, make any mention of the demographic transition-the well researched process of development, by which birth rates decline, sometimes dramatically, with economic development, as infant mortality declines and people move away from subsistence farming, and no longer require large numbers of children to ensure enough survived to work the land (Galor and Weil 2000).

Given that the data has been in on this process for decades and just keeps getting stronger, psychological explanations are being employed, as referenced by Allen,  to explain why overpopulation is still routinely referred to as ‘the elephant on the room’, a kind of ‘public secret’ when in fact it has always been a core underpinning of the environmental movement, championed most prominently by Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich (1968). A challenge for rewilding then will be to make a clean break with such Malthussian ideology.

Dolly Jorgensen, who also spoke at the conference, comes to the same conclusion in her review of rewilding:

Taken as a whole, rewilding discourse seeks to erase human history and involvement with the land and flora and fauna

(Jorgensen, D. 2014)

In response, Prior and Ward (2016) make the case that many rewilding ‘experiments’ are indeed well integrated with human activity and presence, citing two examples of beaver re-introductions in Scotland, and the Oostvaardersplassen reserve in the Netherlands. However, my own research last summer suggests that people are likely to continue to use ‘rewilding’ in many different ways, and even if efforts are made to shake off the idea of rewilding being about the reconstruction of an imagined ‘pristine’ nature, there is bound to be some considerable slippage in public discourse. Rewilding will remain strongly associated with wilderness discourse and continue to draw from a broad church, including Malthussian deep-ecology.

Rather than focus on over-population, Allen sees over-consumption as being a more significant issue, bringing her to her second issue: exporting productive land overseas to allow increased conservation at home.

2. Virtual land trade in Europe

Citing the 2010 OPERA report (von Witzke and Noleppa 2010) on land-sparing, Allen points to data suggesting that Europe’s dramatic increase in productive land abandonment- hailed by some as an opportunity for passive rewilding ( Navarro and Pereira 2012) and regreening (the topic of my last post)  has come only at the expense of a ‘virtual land grab’ outside the EU, mainly in developing countries, who have seen a consummate loss of forest cover. If so, this would provide a challenge to those, like myself, who have argued for intensification of agriculture as a way of freeing up farmland for nature.

However more recent data show that post-2008, the trend within the EU of increasing its virtual land imports has reversed, declining more than a third from the peak of 2007/8:

Source: Noleppa, S., & Cartsburg, M. (2014). Another look at agricultural trade of the European Union: Virtual land trade and self-sufficiency. Hffa Research.

While Europe still imports a large amount of ‘virtual farmlandland’, mainly in the form of oilseed crops, primarily soya from South America, the trend for other crops is in the other direction as Europe increases efficiency and raises yields. Moreover, a proportion of this virtual acreage is for the production of crops to meet the EU biofuel mandates. Under scenarios explored in the earlier study, this could already account for some 3-4m ha, rising by another 10% if biofuel mandates are increased.

Allen also points to the issue of land-grabbing in Europe, fingering EU-backed neo-liberal policies. While this may be a serious problem, dislocating traditional farming communities, this cannot be the same land that is being abandoned, but is rather for intensive production- which itself could lead to more abandonment of marginal land and subsequent re-greening. Implicit in her post is also a degree of ‘anti-capitalist’ rhetoric, which ignores the considerable data for overall long-term improvement of living conditions under capitalism.

Allen argues that rather than welcoming the process of depopulating rural areas and land abandonment, rewilding should align itself with High Nature Value farming (HNV) and the benefits known to be provided to wildlife by by small farms- in other words, a land-sharing approach:

The key point here is that there is nothing neutral about processes of rural depopulation. Rather than passively celebrate their demise, should rewilding advocates not align themselves with small-scale farmers, whose practices, at least in Europe, can often encourage far greater biodiversity, and are themselves perhaps part of the very notion of ‘wild’ we might want to cultivate – non-homogenous, diverse, non-standardised, and self-willed?

This does seem to obviate the whole point of what rewilding seeks to achieve: If rewilding means anything at all distinctive, it is as a challenge to conventional conservation policies, which are deeply meshed within agri-environment schemes coming out of Europe the past 40 years. In contrast to rewilding, whereby natural processes are given priority to lead where they may (not unproblematic in itself), HNV farming has more in common with what we already have, which seeks to maintain specific habitats, generally those found in pre-WW2 pre-industrially farmed landscapes.

Agri-environment policies are already geared to promote land-sharing. But with world food demand set to rise dramatically over the coming decades, we will also need land-sparing, including new technologies to increase yields. A stalling in  innovation is cited as one of the major reasons for the slow-down in agricultural yield increases globally, and in Europe especially, where GMOs for example are strongly opposed and largely restricted. The OPERA report concludes that excessive regulations and bureaucracy have stifled agricultural innovation in the EU, while an increase in lower-yielding Organic agriculture across the EU would only lead to in an increase in virtual land imports.

3. Bio-capitalism in Eastern Europe

Allen’s final point is to question how, although rewilding generally has been focussed on the developed world, yet within Europe, most initiatives seem to be in the poorer eastern countries. This is true at least for one of the more prominent rewilding organisations, Rewilding Europe, which has most of its projects located in the poorer European countries of eastern Europe.

I think this is another valid point which is worthy of further discussion and research. This could be focussed for example on how eastern Europe may be at an earlier stage of the demographic transition through which more devloped countries have already passed, and how this relates to forest transitions. From informal discussions and other presentations at the Leeds conference, there were suggestions that RW Europe, and perhaps other organisations, see the depopulation of rural areas much to their advantage, and their assumption that alternative livelihoods in eco- and wildlife tourism can seemlessly make up for the decline in farming in these areas needs to be demonstrated rather than assumed.

Conclusion

Irma Allen has raised some perhaps uncomfortable questions for the rewilding movement. Its Malthussian origins should not be ignored and vigilance is needed to ensure it just does not become just the latest vehicle for misanthropic green fascism. Nevertheless, there are some contradictions in her arguments, and a danger of replicating these very same issues in her own apparent preference for small farms and extensive agriculture, while opposing agricultural technology that is badly needed to feed a still growing world population aswell as freeing up more land for nature. This is not to undersate the social disruptions which are likely to accompany such transitions, and further study should be undertaken to assess the social impacts of both agricultural intensification and any possible ‘green-grabbing’ being carried out in the name of rewilding.

References

Biehl, J. and Staudenmaier, P. 1995 Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience AK
Press

Cronon, W. (ed) 1996 Uncommon Ground- Rethinking the Human Place in Nature
W.W.Norton & Co. New York/London

Ehrlich, P. 1968 The Population Bomb MacMillan

FAO. 2016. State of the World�s Forests 2016.
Forests and agriculture: land-use challenges and opportunities. Rome.

Foreman, D. 2015 [online] An Interview with Dave Foreman
http://www.thewildernist.org/2015/03/interview-dave-foreman/ [last accessed 12-07-2016]

Galor, O. and Weil, D.N. 2000 Population, Technology and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond American Economic Review Vol. 90, No. 4 (Sept 2000), pp 806-828

Ginn, F. and Demeritt, D. 2008 Nature: A Contested Concept Ch.17 in Clifford, N.J. et al 2008 Key Concepts in Geography, Sage Publications Ltd.

Jorgensen, D. 2014 Rethinking Rewilding Geoforum 65 (2015) 482-488

Monbiot 1994 No Man’s Land: an investigative journey Through Kenya and Tanzania, MacMillan, London

Monbiot, G. 2013 Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea and Human Life Allen Lane

Navarro, L.M. and Pereira, H. M.2012 Rewilding Abandoned landscapes in Europe  Ecosystems (2012) 15: 900-912

Noleppa, S., & Cartsburg, M. (2014). Another look at agricultural trade of the European Union: Virtual land trade and self-sufficiency. Hffa Research.

Prior, J. and Ward, K. 2016 Rethinking rewilding: A response to JorgensenGeoforum 69
(2016) 132-135

Schama, S. (1996), S. 1996 Landscape and Memory Vintage

Von Witzke, H., & Noleppa, S. (2010). EU agricultural production and trade: Can more efficiency prevent increasing ‘land-grabbing’ outside of Europe? Study Commissioned by OPERA.