RSPB is very cross

PERHAPS THESE DO-GOODERS OUGHT TO SPEND A BIT LESS TIME THINKING ABOUT THE PLIGHT OF BIRDS AND A BIT MORE TIME THINKING ABOUT THE PLIGHT OF DEVELOPERS LIKE THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY DO!!

BESIDES BRITAIN’S RIVERS ARE IN RUDE HEALTH, AND ARE ABSOLUTELY BRIMMING WITH NUTRIENTS!!

I comprehensively don’t have a clue what this issue is about, still less how it affects the ability of anyone under 30 to buy a house.

Could the right people to annoy pls advise me how I should feel about it?

there's a bunch of batshit mental Natural England regulations that make it impossible to build anything in large swathes of the country

gove wants to scrap some of them to make it possible to build some of the many, many houses the UK desperately needs

now all the usual suspects who are appalled by the idea of a new house being anywhere near them have decided they have deeply held beliefs about nutrient neutrality

"I comprehensively don’t have a clue what this issue is about"

It's a fight between a well-established charity and the Conservative Party / their developer cronies. You don't need to know the detail to see who the good guys are. 

do you think all the people who currently aren't able to buy anywhere to live just don't shit? is the aggregate amount of sewage produced by the UK population going to go up if some more of them own a house?

it's one of those things where everyone pretends a bad law passed 5 years ago is actually something that's been on the books since the magna carta

also where a quango uses psychopathically strict over-enforcement of a rule as a tool to achieve the political aims of its employees (preventing any houses being built)

I expect this is just bleating to increase housebuilder profits. A crude measure, but divide Taylor Wimpey's operating profit by completions and their profit is £48k per house. They are moaning that it is "up to" £25k per unit to meet these requirements. Let's not forget that not so long ago Persimmon found a way to pay its CEO £100m for 1 year's work. 

I expect NIMBYism, unwillingness of people in the UK to live in flats and profiteering by housebuilders are far bigger barriers to home ownership. This govt backtracked on planning reforms, but finds a convenient scapegoat in not having rivers already in a terrible state made worse. 

Disappointing contribution from laz.

"I comprehensively don’t have a clue what this issue is about"

This has never stopped him pontificating at length in the past.

the rules don't prohibit building.  They prohibit pollution (caused either by sewage or construction site run-off).  If you can build without causing additional river pollution, then go for it.  If you decide not build because you're not permitted to pollution rivers, then you're a cock.

I expect this is just bleating to increase housebuilder profits.

AND WHY SHOULDN’T WE INCREASE HOUSEBUILDER PROFITS?!?

THEY ARE GOOD PEOPLE - AND I AM NOT JUST SAYING THAT BECAUSE SOME OF THEM DONATE MONEY TO THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY - AND IT IS ONLY FAIR THAT THE GOVERNMENT STEPS IN AND PICKS UP THE BURDEN WITH TAXPAYER MONEY!!

Yes, you're completely free to build as long as your building doesn't create any additional pollution.

Definitely a serious, practical rule for a grown-up country and not an absolutely mental NIMBYs charter being abused to the maximum extent possible. 

We care deeply about the housing crisis in abstract we just virulently object to every single specific thing that might be done to alleviate it. 

Also worth bearing in mind there are at least 750k empty homes in Britain, and plenty of local people in e.g. the south west who give up their potential home to some BOMAD funded twerp with a second home (who no doubt objects to the onshore windfarm and locals only housing estate in the next field). 

If it is all puffery then so be it, but this govt are specialists in blaming marginal green mumbo jumbo and wokeist views, when the reality is they refuse to take tough decisions that their core vote will hate. 

As far as I can tell, the policy only requires no additional run-off into already polluted waterways. The approach advocated by pancakes translates to me as "I want to build a big housing estate in the middle of fooking nowhere, contributing zero to local infrastructure, and allowing sewer overflow to run off into local rivers". Even the capitalist approach is kindly fook off or pay for the externality you are freeriding on. 

This country is in the shit because of decisions these w**kers made. What they are saying is abandon any remaining principles or we will be more in the shit. How about they just fook off and rich housebuilders, pensioners, landowners etc. cough up? 

owning a "spare" home is one of the worst environmental crimes a non multimillionaire can do. Tax the shit out of second homes.  And make the tax system fairer on disposals - so boomers are encouraged to move to sized-appropriate homes, and freeing up space for the next generation.  

the right of everyman to buy and own as many houses as he can possible afford is a fundament of the british social and economic system, and cock off if you don’t like it

That's the problem with net zero - everyone seems supportive until they realise that it impairs something they consider to be a god given right. 

muh truck 

Muh right to own lots of extra houses 

Well. Quite. We simply must have a weekend place to get away to, because the countryside is the best thing about britain and being British, well the Cotswolds anyway, never really been anywhere else, but you wouldn’t want to live there during the week well would you, just nothing to do, and the traffic to get out of town on a Friday is simply awful so we have to compromise on square footage to live in west London don’t you know but that means an awful commute to the City for David for the rest of the week but at least the drugs are easy to come by in W11 it’s important to contribute to the local economy but the air quality here could learn some lessons from the countryside that funny little Mr Khan well they say he’s done well for himself, no I wouldn’t want one of those mega temple things near us quite frankly, we usually leave the other ‘car’ if you can call the little tank that in the country it looks a bit out of place here until we finish digging out the basement perhaps it could go under the pool well not under it exactly but you get the picture sorry must dash Fenella’s bringing her crystals round and I’m not dressed yet. 

It's actually all about food prices.  By far the biggest source of nutrients in rivers is farming and, in particular, intensive poultry farming.  It's a huge problem to sort and of course it will result in further increases in the cost of producing food so hence they are keen to avoid that currently.

House building makes a minimal contribution but there are swathes of the country where hundreds of thousands of homes are not being built because planning has been refused on the basis of a small amount of additional nitrogen ending up in rivers.  It ignores the fact that modern housing is less likely to result in local sewage works being overloaded because it splits surface water and sewage with the former being held back in ponds and slowly released into local rivers to also alleviate flooding.

No doubt somebody is cross with George Monbiot for being cross with the RSPB for apologising. None of it matters. They have got their publicity and called out the government for breaking their promises. Job done. 

Yes but it's the usual "oh but China" crap that excuses not fixing anything. Yes "go after" the farmers too in the sense that they are freeriding on a public good so should pay for it. If the entire country just paid the commercial price for the cost of damaging public assets or detracting from others' ability to use it things would be fine, but obviously everyone wants the status quo for themselves. It's like the "cut the green taxes" BS, when all it is doing is equalising the playing field against polluters who are damaging people's health and the environment because they mistakenly believe it's their right (though no doubt they get all sniffy if someone is having a fag next to them in a public space). 

A National Housebuilders Association press release about it admitted that there are solutions if they could be arsed to collaborate, but as usual they want the taxpayer/someone else to take all the risk while they collect mega-profits for shitty boxes the govt could better for half the price and rent at reasonable rents so nobody has to give a fook about homeowning and all the estate agents and mortgage brokers could get in the sea. But these same aunts chose to sell off the 40% plus of state housing people lived in at the start of the 80s, so are now reduced to asking favours off donors sitting on massive landbanks to meet housebuilding targets. 

It’s widely known the RSPB are socialist class warriors intent on destroying all country sports, ruining the countryside and its infrastructure 

Chris Packham types 

Have to laugh that the FT today is reporting on M&S's judicial review of Gove's refusal to allow the demolition and redevelopment of its Marble Arch store. Which one is Gove - pragmatist or environmental campaigner? The answer is whatever gets cash in the Tories' coffers or helps some political grandstanding in a Tory constituency likely to go at the next election or at least be v. close.

I suppose I have a self-interest in there being more houses to sell but on the other hand don't have a self-interest in seeing what I can do with my own land limited even further.  On the other hand if sheep weren't allowed to graze in winter I wouldn't entirely miss dog walking through a combination of liquid mud and sheep poo.