Tim Worstall

Monty Don.

I don’t normally wander into the gardening pages but this by Monty Don rather amused.

This is – or damn well should be – the age of the allotment. We need to
Dig for Sanity. There is, rightly, a lot of hostility to the way that
supermarkets operate a food tyranny pumping out bland, uniform products
with little respect for health, taste or provenance and killing local
growers and shops in the process – despite the occasional cheeky young
chappie brought in to sanitise their image. But small shops are
growing. Farmers’ markets are particularly successful in cities, and
for the first time since the war it is reckoned that vegetable seeds
will outstrip flower seeds in 2006.

So the supermarkets run a food tyranny but local shops and farmer’s markets are growing. Some tyranny, eh?

The importance of this is the empowerment that it gives people, however
small or seemingly insignificant their gardens might be. If you can
grow anything edible, be it running multiple allotments (this summer I
visited a man in Nottingham who had had nine on the go at one time, but
at 76 he was now restricted to three crammed with superb vegetables) or
a pot by the back door, you can step off the remorseless food
treadmill. It is surprising how liberating this is. A few lettuces,
nectarines, spuds or artichokes suddenly free you up. You don’t have to
knuckle under the brutal supermarket regime. Once you engage with the
simple enough business of feeding yourself, of soil and water, weather,
season and harvest, it becomes personal. It is about you, your family
and friends. Food becomes an aspect of those relationships as well as
your intimacy with your plot.

Brutal supermarket regime. Ah, yes, that one of ever cheaper, cleaner food with ever more choice. Damn you capitalist pig dogs!

Isn’t it lovely to know that John Prescott’s planning rules for new buildings appear to outlaw the provision of houses with gardens?

Joined up government they call that.

In

7 responses

  1. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    “Isn’t it lovely to know that John Prescott’s planning rules for new buildings appear to outlaw the provision of houses with gardens?”
    Er, what? That’s news to me and, I imagine, John Prescott. Can you point to the particular planning rule that outlaws gardens, please? Or have you just been duped by another over-excited Torygraph article?
    Tim adds: Why, yes, it was the Telegraph.
    http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2005/11/prescotts_plans.html
    “But although the suburb as a whole would have a lush green feel, the traditional garden would be confined to history, with individual houses having little more than a backyard.”

    Reply
  2. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    And how exactly does a proposal from Essex County Council, which as far as I can see has not even been adopted as actual policy, for something along the lines of most new housing in that area to have gardens of no more than 15ft by 15ft, equal “John Prescott’s planning rules for new buildings outlawing the provision of houses with gardens”?
    The truth is, John Prescott hasn’t and in fact can’t “outlaw gardens”. But the Torygraph is obviously desperate to scare the more gullible of their readers into thinking he can, and some of them (well, you anyway) seem to fall for it every single time.
    Tim adds: What is the required density for new housing? Does that provide ample gardens for all? For any?

    Reply
  3. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    “What is the required density for new housing? Does that provide ample gardens for all? For any?”
    You mean you don’t actually have any idea what the planning policies are? But Tim, you spend so much time pontificating about this subject, it’s almost as if you’re claiming to be an authority or something.
    You will, then, probably be very surprised to learn that the government’s planning policy calls for local authorities (who actually say yay or nay to new developmens) encourage a range of 30 to 50 dwellings per hectare for new developments. Now, think about how big a hectare is – do you reckon there’s room for gardens at 50 dph? You bet there is – in fact, it would be hard NOT to include sizable gardens building at 50 dph or less. I would guess that most of the terraced housing in London with gardens is built at well above 50dph.
    It’s ironic, really, that the same newspaper (the Torygraph) that makes such, stupid, ignorant attacks on the government for ‘outlawing gardens’ (“high density housing is bad!”) is the same one that attacks it for not building at high enough densities to avoid
    ‘concreting over the countryside’ (“high density is good!”). But don’t let such merry self-contradiction bother you.
    It woulb be nice if you corrected the error in your post and committed yourself to actually finding out the first thing about planning policy before ranting about it in future, but I won’t hold my breath.
    Tim adds: 50 per hectare? That’s 200 m2 for each house and garden! I’ve just paced out the flat I live in and its 120/130 m2. Damn small if you ask me. Council house guidance (council house mind you!) in the 1920s was a 1/4 acre of garden each. Which is 5 times the land on offer here.
    BTW, I am one of those who would gladly pave over the countryside.

    Reply
  4. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    Tim, (a) we don’t live in the 1920s (and the idea of 1,000sqm of garden for every council house sounds rather fanciful, even for the 1920s), and (b) 200sqm per house allows for plenty of room for a garden and a big house if the architects use the innovative technique of building on more than one floor, with access between the floors by means of something called “stairs”.
    Now, answer me this question: have Prescott’s planning policies outlawed the provision of houses with gardens? Or were you just talking through your hat?
    Tim adds: If planning permission will only be given to 30-50 hph developments, then yes, Prescott has outlawed the building of houses with large gardens.
    When calculating the area available don’t forget to factor in hte area that must be devoted to roads and pavements as well, eh?

    Reply
  5. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    “If planning permission will only be given to 30-50 hph developments, then yes, Prescott has outlawed the building of houses with large gardens.”
    Tim, that’s simply untrue, as is evidenced by the fact that the relevant policy guidance note (PPG3) has been in place for several years, during which there has been quite a lot of houses built with gardens – some of them large, though I notice you originally said all gardens, which suggests to me that you’re going to try to define your way out of the problem.
    So no, you’re still wrong I’m afraid. When will you be correcting the post?
    Tim adds: Ooooh…about the time that you agree that Prescott has , by this insistence upon density, banned large gardens.
    You first, eh?

    Reply
  6. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    “about the time that you agree that Prescott has , by this insistence upon density, banned large gardens.”
    But he hasn’t. Even if a density range of 30 to 50 dwellings per hectare made large gardens impossible (which it doesn’t), Planning Policy Guidance Note 3 is just that, *guidance* to local authorities rather than prescriptive rules for what they must always do. The government can advise, cajole and even bully when it comes to densities, but it cannot ‘ban’ or block particular developments on these grounds.
    So no, not me first. Admit it: Prescott hasn’t banned gardens, large or small.

    Reply
  7. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    I take it the silence means you can’t be bothered, then.

    Reply

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