A field guide to the NIMBYs of the British Isles
“No no we really need that derelict petrol station.”
Britain has a housing crisis, which is unlikely to be solved without building a lot more housing. That much, everyone – with the possible exception of a few wonks who once got a lot of retweets for an entirely obvious statement like, “Of course, interest rates are a factor, too”, enjoyed it a bit too much, then accidentally made a career out of it – agrees.
Unfortunately, rather a lot of people also agree that, while we may need a lot of housing somewhere, one place we really shouldn’t put it is here. Round here, you see, there aren’t enough school places, or GP practices. It’s hard enough to get on a train already in the morning, even if you drive to the station instead of walking so you get there nice and early. Can we not put it a bit further away? Like, I dunno, on the Isle of Man or somewhere? (Good luck with that, they don’t want it there either.)
Not every argument against housing is entirely ridiculous. Thanks to years of austerity, and the Treasury’s persistent belief that it should control every penny of tax ever collected so it can dole it out at will, public services really do lack capacity, and local authorities often see no benefit whatsoever from population growth (though this is surely an argument against austerity and the Treasury, rather than against new housing, per se). And there are arguments against building on greenfield – previously undeveloped land – wherever possible, even if some people (hello) believe there is not enough brownfield to meet demand. It would be unreasonable to stick every individual complaint against every scheme in a basket and call the people who made them names.
But one of the reasons for the housing crisis is that people don’t want us to build on brownfield either, and also I’ve never claimed to be a reasonable man. So let’s fire up the example-o-tron.
“No, it’ll ruin the character of the area.”
An easy one to start off with. This one’s helpfully vague: you don’t have to spell out what the character of the area is, so it functions as a simple “change, bad, brrr” argument. That, at least, is the only explanation I can see for Val Shawcross’ campaign to become the Labour mayor of Croydon by promising to defend that borough’s “green attractive soul” from, erm, some flats. (She lost. Oh well, there’s always 2026.) In the same vein, there's the story of Rick Wilson, the Green who won a by-election to Rutland County Council on the classic Green Party platform of opposing both housing and a new solar farm.
These are far from the most egregious examples. At the more cynical end of general “down with this sort of thing-ism” are those campaigns which use the catch all “character” to blur the line between “wrong kind of architecture” (okay, we can talk about that) and “wrong kind of people” (f*** right off), thus enabling them to build a broad coalition between people who don’t like flats and massive racists. No, I’m not going to cite any examples, this newsletter doesn’t have a legal budget.
“No, it’s too tall.”
Iain Duncan Smith, the future former Conservative MP for the increasingly Labour-friendly constituency of Chingford & Woodford Green, was found campaigning earlier this year, under the slogan, “Residents are clear, they want #HomesForFamilies not Labour’s #highrise blocks.”
The blocks in question were four storeys tall. The only way these are high-rise is if you are a borrower. Still, at least – unlike unexplained references to an area’s “character” – no one could possibly think “high-rises” are some kind of dog whistle, right?
“No, it’ll ruin the village feel.”
Pimlico does not have a village feel. It is in central London. It has a central London feel. If you want a village feel, move to a f***ing village.
“No, it doesn’t have enough parking.”
Extra points if the development in question is right next to a commuter station, such as Streatham Common, and the politician who opposes it later becomes a council’s cabinet member for new housing and regeneration. Not thinking of any Lambeth councillors for Streatham Common in particular.
“No, we need that tiny pub car park.”
Okay, we can debate the aesthetics of putting a 26-storey block right there, but guys, if you’re driving to a pub in central Manchester, you’re doing this wrong on at least two counts.
“No, we really need that massive car park, even though it’s right next to a station we’ve just spent £15bn ensuring fast and frequent services across London from.”
To be fair to Sam Tarry, Labour MP for Ilford South, he does also talk about air pollution, overstretched services, and all that jazz. To be fair to people who might need a home, a massive Tesco car park next to a Crossrail station is the definition of a perfect brownfield site, so FFS.
(I wrote that bit on Monday. On Tuesday, before it was even published, Sam Tarry was de-selected by his CLP. Never let it be said you should not cower before my mighty words.)
“No, we need that average-sized car park, even though it’s right next to a station, and we have the backing of a secretary of state, so do one.”
Oh no, Transport for London is trying to solve its financial problems by doing exactly what people keep telling it to and using some of its assets to develop much-needed housing, whatever will we do? Step forward a hero, in the shape of then-transport secretary Grant Shapps, who activated previously unused veto powers to defend the Cockfosters station car park. Thank you, Superman, you’ve saved our city!
“No, we really need that petrol station.”
In 2017, brave campaigners on the Isle of Dogs joined together to prevent 2,000 homes on another car park, this one in the Isle of Dogs branch of Asda. One of their complaints was that it would create a wall of skyscrapers. (This on a site basically over the road from Canary Wharf, but whatever.) Another was that it would mean “the Asda petrol station closing without being replaced — leaving no fill-up for car-owners anywhere on ‘the island’.”
Let’s ignore the fact that the Isle of Dogs has six DLR stations, a tube station, and now Crossrail, too. Ignore the fact that hardly anyone in zone 2 drives anyway. Focus instead on the fact that there is another petrol station literally 400m from the northern edge of the Isle of Dogs, a five minute drive from the other one.
Guys, I think it’s possible that some people just don’t want to build any housing.
(Incidentally, I got more abuse for my original write up of this story than for anything else I have ever done on the internet. Someone sent me an unsolicited dick pic, presumably to communicate what they thought I was, and also that they had some quite serious issues.)
“No, we really need those branches of lovable independent sandwich shops Subway and Greggs.”
All that, and it’ll destroy the “character” of West Norwood, too!
“No, we really need that used car dealership / derelict power station / huge ex-industrial site with nothing on it that’s been lying empty opposite a major London tourist attraction for literally decades.”
I’m going on too long here, just click the links, I can’t say anything to make these examples sound any more ridiculous than they already are.
“No, we really need that unfathomably ancient mulberry tree.”
The Bethnal Green mulberry tree, in the grounds of the derelict London Chest Hospital, is at least 200, and possibly as much as 500, years old. Developers wanted to redevelop the site, which lies right next to Victoria Park, as housing; their plans included proposals to move the tree to a new home. In 2021, following a highly visible campaign to save the tree, the High Court reviewed the situation, decided that the developers hadn’t properly considered the risk the tree wouldn’t survive the journey, and quashed planning permission. The site remains derelict.
I’m not going to get into the value of this particular tree, or point out that property developers and indeed gardeners viciously murder vast numbers of plants every year, and we don’t spend fortunes on legal action to save all of them. I am merely going to note that I live near this site, and so one day I went out to visit the famous tree to see what all the fuss is about, and you know what I found? A massive fence that means you can’t see it. You can’t even work out where it is.
I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but has anybody even seen this tree? How can we be sure the tree is still there? I’m just asking questions, guys.
“No, it’ll ruin our view.”
There are loads of these obviously. In London, though, they’re helped on by the planning system, which has named certain corridors – from Primrose Hill to the Palace of Westminster, say – “protected views”, in which development that might make it harder to see things from afar will be blocked.
I don’t, contrary to my general radicalism on this topic, think that this is an entirely bad thing. I too am partial to the view from Primrose Hill. But the system still throws up absurdities, such as, for example, the campaign to prevent some flats in Stratford, conducted by residents of Richmond, 15 miles away on the other side of London, on the grounds that the development would be, on the absolute clearest of days, visible behind the view of St Paul’s Cathedral they can see through a small gap in the trees in Richmond Park, and thus make their lives not worth living. The campaign won backing from the local Libdem MP Sarah Olney. Of course it did. Of course it bloody did.
“No, the only people who’ll benefit are developers.”
I’ve not linked to a specific example for this one, because it’s so ubiquitous. It’s often stated as a sort of gotcha, that new housing would make money for a company, and thus anyone who opposes it must be naive/evil/in the pay of that company. (My bank details are available to evil corporations on request.)
The fact that almost anything produces money for a corporation because we live in a capitalist economy doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. Neither does the fact that another group of people it would benefit are the people who’d get to live in the homes, and a third is “literally everyone else” because not having enough homes in the places where the jobs are is crushing the economy.
Not every development is, in itself, good: that is obvious to anyone who has ever seen, well, an upsetting proportion of modern housing. More than that, it’s possible that not every development I’ve discussed above is good, either: I’m a big mouth, my information is mostly second hand.
But the current planning system is far, far too weighted in favour of the people who would block housing, rather than the people who’d benefit from it. At the moment we’re not building on the sites of used car dealerships and power stations because a few shouty people who should really find something else to do don’t want us to. Surely we can agree that this is not okay?
The upsetting thing is that things are, in the short term, likely to get worse, not better. As interest rates rise, house prices might fall, yes. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be more affordable, because mortgage payments will be higher, too. Worse, in our current housing market, when prices fall, developers – for entirely rational reasons – stop building.
Still. At least the NIMBYs will be happy, I suppose.
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