Reason 2: Exposure of the Electoral System
The first past the post system can work quite well in some constituencies. This will depend on how many candidates stand and what the predominant political views are. Take for example a constituency in one of the old coal mining areas where the sitting Labour MP could have a majority of 20,000 or more. If a Conservative stood there would be little chance that the Labour candidate would not be a clear winner with the Conservative getting a very small share of the votes. In more mixed constituencies with a three way split and possibly with several small parties, it can happen that the winning candidates will have had more votes cast against them, than for. If the total votes cast for the winners opponents exceeds the the winners votes, the split vote, rather than the winners popularity, has brought about the victory.
A similar situation can arise nationally with the total votes cast for each party There is much talk at the moment of the Labour Party winning the majority of the seats despite being third in the current opinion polls. There is a real risk that Gordon Brown will have to be asked by the Queen to form a Government because his party won more seats than the other parties put together despite being second or third in the national popular vote when all the votes are divided up between the parties. Lack of popularity does not always prevent a party winning.
It is these two forms of what may be called, 'the popular vote contradiction' which could be exposed by the coming election results one and for all. This always happens to varying extents in most elections but the present position of Labour in the polls and the growing popularity of the LibDems due to the Clegg effect, is raising expectations. Given that Gordon Brown has not yet been elected as the PM, not even by his own party, to return to power with a third rate popularity vote could be too much for many voters to tolerate. The popular vote contradiction will not just cause academic interest but public outrage and disillusionment in equal measure. Perhaps this is why PM Brown is promoting a watered down form of proportional representation to head the opposition off at the pass. Even this decision seems beyond him as he has promised a referendum. Where did I hear that before?
Granted, the first past the post system normally has the advantage of giving a clear cut decision but this is by no means guaranteed in this General Election. In any case more and more people will come to realise that a clear cut decision should not be achieved at the cost of fairness.
Reason 3: The Hung or Balanced Parliament
The British Constitution is a story of the Executive gradually conceding power from the top down. Often the concessions have been begrudging and have often turned out to have been rather thin. Starting with the Reform Act of 1832 it took just short of 120 years to arrive at one person one vote. Lets hope that we do not have to wait much more than the 170 years we have been enduring an unsophisticated electoral system which has favoured one branch or the other of the political establishment. On this occasion the usual model may not deliver that certainty and a House of Commons with no clear party majority will emerge. The Queen, acting as a Constitutional Monarch is perfectly well equipped to deal with this situation even if the Cabinet Secretary thinks it is necessary to have a special contingencies plan in place just in case some constitutional nightmare was about to be acted out on the black tarmac of Whitehall or the red tarmac of the Mall. The electorate may not understand the rarely applied conventions about choosing someone to try and form a Government but it will be the Queens task to find someone in the House of Commons who would enjoy sufficient confidence to form a Government. In such situations that person does not even have to a leader from any of the parties but would in such a case have to be an outstanding character. Unfortunately there are not likely to be many of them in the next House of Commons so one of the party leaders would be the most likely. I can however imagine Vince Cable being considered if the financial establishment gets the jitters at seeing the UK preparing a coalition government. This is rather strange since first past the post voting systems are the exception rather than the rule and probably has more to do with not having a Conservative government more than anything else. In any case the Constitutional Monarch has to tread carefully, lsien to the advice of her Prime Mister Mr Brown and then consult with the other party leaders. She can asl the advice of anyone she likes and has a large number of Privy Councillors to choose from. As most people have no idea that this is the only real political job she has it is bound to be misunderstood by many. Hence the need for caution and her long experience should provide it. That is why a Monarch is never out of the country when an election result is due. If a coalition works then electoral reform will be inevitable as the electorate will want a voting system in which such outcomes are more likely. If so there will be more work for the Queen.
So, will my enjoyment of the prospect of a hung Parliament be translated into seeing the actual thing come to pass. We will know whether it is likely by the small hours of the 7th May,but if it is really on the cards, the following week will be taken up with a lot of toing and froing between Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Even if all of this is new to the Cabinet Secretary I can assure you that the Monarch will have seen much of it before. It is at times like these that I am pleased that our Chief Executive is not in place because of being an elderly political time server. We have had a glimpse of that model with Speaker Martin's career. Ironically, she is not only elderly but she is pursuing her specialist subject on behalf of her subjects because of an even more unacceptable political device from ancient times, the hereditary principle. Having seen the creatures that modern political systems too often throw up, so to speak, as Presidents, I am at lost to suggest a reliable alternative. Hey ho.
Dacier
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
6 Reasons for enjoying the General Election 2010: Pt.1
Reason 1: The Internet
For once I feel I have a voice either via this blog or through Twitter. I have been interested in politics from the first time I heard my mum and dad calling to each other as another result was announced by the BBC Home Service. My parents were Conservatives and I now know that this was the 1951 election which brought Churchill back into power after the post-war Labour landslide had rejected his party's policies despite his wartime leadership.
Once the results came out on election night TV the whole process became much more dramatic and so by the 1964 election when it looked clear that the old grouse moor Tories would be bowing out the true election night tradition for me began. I had access to a TV! Where the Internet makes everything so much better is that if you have the time to spare you can track the election debate from start to finish. For those who have never engaged with the political process, especially those young people who feel elections will not make any difference to them, there is a chance that the Internet might just draw them in. There is certainly no lack of comment, from the comic through to the serious world of the political analyst, whether dealing with voting projections or the stature of the party leaders. The statistics for Twitter alone show how many go in for re-active TV viewing.
There will be those who say that the Leadership Debates have changed the election campaign into a sort of Pop Idol event to the exclusion of the traditional hustings and interviews. At the moment I see no signs that the latter will come to an end. What I do see is the possibility of previously disillusioned voters engaging with these new electioneering methods. Whether the leaders will agree to such debates again remains to be seen but with the arrival of the Internet, television is only one part of the democratic process . The Internet will have an increasingly important role if computer literate youngsters become convinced that an election can lead to improvements in their lives, rather than waste, ineffectiveness and broken promises. This is crucial because an election with few voters is meaningless and there are elites who would be very pleased to fill the vacuum thereby created. In five years time who knows where the Internet Election will be.Such speculations should make it interesting and intellectually enjoyable. To those who say that nothing changes I answer, 'Yes it does, and often for the worse. If you don't vote you can't complain, and one day it could have serious consequences if you did complain.' There is no benign circuit hard wired into our political institutions. I am therefore enjoying this election because it means so much for the future of democracy in the UK.
Dacier
Comments: Unfotunately many comments come through in code and cannot be moderated. If your comment does not appear it is unlikely to have been censored. It just couldn't be read.
For once I feel I have a voice either via this blog or through Twitter. I have been interested in politics from the first time I heard my mum and dad calling to each other as another result was announced by the BBC Home Service. My parents were Conservatives and I now know that this was the 1951 election which brought Churchill back into power after the post-war Labour landslide had rejected his party's policies despite his wartime leadership.
Once the results came out on election night TV the whole process became much more dramatic and so by the 1964 election when it looked clear that the old grouse moor Tories would be bowing out the true election night tradition for me began. I had access to a TV! Where the Internet makes everything so much better is that if you have the time to spare you can track the election debate from start to finish. For those who have never engaged with the political process, especially those young people who feel elections will not make any difference to them, there is a chance that the Internet might just draw them in. There is certainly no lack of comment, from the comic through to the serious world of the political analyst, whether dealing with voting projections or the stature of the party leaders. The statistics for Twitter alone show how many go in for re-active TV viewing.
There will be those who say that the Leadership Debates have changed the election campaign into a sort of Pop Idol event to the exclusion of the traditional hustings and interviews. At the moment I see no signs that the latter will come to an end. What I do see is the possibility of previously disillusioned voters engaging with these new electioneering methods. Whether the leaders will agree to such debates again remains to be seen but with the arrival of the Internet, television is only one part of the democratic process . The Internet will have an increasingly important role if computer literate youngsters become convinced that an election can lead to improvements in their lives, rather than waste, ineffectiveness and broken promises. This is crucial because an election with few voters is meaningless and there are elites who would be very pleased to fill the vacuum thereby created. In five years time who knows where the Internet Election will be.Such speculations should make it interesting and intellectually enjoyable. To those who say that nothing changes I answer, 'Yes it does, and often for the worse. If you don't vote you can't complain, and one day it could have serious consequences if you did complain.' There is no benign circuit hard wired into our political institutions. I am therefore enjoying this election because it means so much for the future of democracy in the UK.
Dacier
Comments: Unfotunately many comments come through in code and cannot be moderated. If your comment does not appear it is unlikely to have been censored. It just couldn't be read.
Reflections on St.George's Day
Flying the Flag?
Why is it that as a mongrel Englishman I feel uncomfortable while writing this note about our national day? The Celtic nations within the United Kingdom have no inhibitions about their various ways of celebrating their national day. I suspect it is something to do with not feeling the need because whatever the Celts might do, being English automatically meant that you were British and that was enough. This attitude seems to be echoed by our American cousins who often talk of England when they really mean Britain. With the promotion of Wales and Scotland through their devolved governments this is changing. With Northern Ireland now having a form of devolution the picture is nearly complete within our nation's formal title, 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'.
A new Patrotism?
The reasons for this discomfort are many and various. Firstly, the embarrassment which many people have about talking about patriotism. Following your government, right or wrong, is not a good idea, but there is surely nothing wrong in saying that you love where you live, you like the people around you ,and you appreciate its wide ranging culture, its quirks and its eccentricities. I get particularly moved by both our natural and man-made landscapes and the histories they reveal and there is nothing wrong with being proud of an understood heritage. Nor is there anything wrong in saying you can't stand the government of the day whilst saying 'but it is ours' rather than that of an invading or colonial power. Even this brings on feelings of guilt to anyone who knows some colonial history But, that was then and this is now, and I have always found it a remarkable fact of post imperial life that so many citizens of our old colonies are more than happy to be on speaking terms, and I have always found great affection for Britain coming from the many Commonwealth students I have taught. That is why I feel that the present wars both bring out patriotic feelings for our troops but great doubts with regard to the judgements of our politicians.
English Devolution?
The movement for devolution has shown Englishmen like me, contrary to my initial fears, that bringing decisions and a budget nearer to Cardiff and Edinburgh has made, and highlights some difference, not least student fees and prescription fees. Although it seems an odd thing to say, decisions which affect only England, should also be brought nearer to London. The time must surely have come to exclude Welsh and Scottish MP's from votes which exclusively deal with matters within the borders of England. English MP's cannot vote on matters dealing with matters being voted on by the Welsh Assemby or the Scottish Parliament. The exclusuion of the Celtic vote would mean that for English matters the Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland could revert to its old title of the Parliament of England which was abolished with the Act of Union with Scotland in 1706. Matters of defence and Foreign affairs and anything else not within the remit of the devolved instutions would remain where they are now. There would probably be no need for yet another building but this would become clearer once the principle of English devolution was established. The nonsense of English Regional Assemblies, who knows what they are anyway, could fall by the constutional wayside. Futhermore the case for fewer MPs would be strengthened and the art of scrutinising the national executive branch of the national government might be rediscovered.
With an effective and accountable English Parliament in place there would be no embarrassment in flying a flag above its rooftops which at its simplest represents the triumph of Good over Evil.
Why is it that as a mongrel Englishman I feel uncomfortable while writing this note about our national day? The Celtic nations within the United Kingdom have no inhibitions about their various ways of celebrating their national day. I suspect it is something to do with not feeling the need because whatever the Celts might do, being English automatically meant that you were British and that was enough. This attitude seems to be echoed by our American cousins who often talk of England when they really mean Britain. With the promotion of Wales and Scotland through their devolved governments this is changing. With Northern Ireland now having a form of devolution the picture is nearly complete within our nation's formal title, 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'.
A new Patrotism?
The reasons for this discomfort are many and various. Firstly, the embarrassment which many people have about talking about patriotism. Following your government, right or wrong, is not a good idea, but there is surely nothing wrong in saying that you love where you live, you like the people around you ,and you appreciate its wide ranging culture, its quirks and its eccentricities. I get particularly moved by both our natural and man-made landscapes and the histories they reveal and there is nothing wrong with being proud of an understood heritage. Nor is there anything wrong in saying you can't stand the government of the day whilst saying 'but it is ours' rather than that of an invading or colonial power. Even this brings on feelings of guilt to anyone who knows some colonial history But, that was then and this is now, and I have always found it a remarkable fact of post imperial life that so many citizens of our old colonies are more than happy to be on speaking terms, and I have always found great affection for Britain coming from the many Commonwealth students I have taught. That is why I feel that the present wars both bring out patriotic feelings for our troops but great doubts with regard to the judgements of our politicians.
English Devolution?
The movement for devolution has shown Englishmen like me, contrary to my initial fears, that bringing decisions and a budget nearer to Cardiff and Edinburgh has made, and highlights some difference, not least student fees and prescription fees. Although it seems an odd thing to say, decisions which affect only England, should also be brought nearer to London. The time must surely have come to exclude Welsh and Scottish MP's from votes which exclusively deal with matters within the borders of England. English MP's cannot vote on matters dealing with matters being voted on by the Welsh Assemby or the Scottish Parliament. The exclusuion of the Celtic vote would mean that for English matters the Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland could revert to its old title of the Parliament of England which was abolished with the Act of Union with Scotland in 1706. Matters of defence and Foreign affairs and anything else not within the remit of the devolved instutions would remain where they are now. There would probably be no need for yet another building but this would become clearer once the principle of English devolution was established. The nonsense of English Regional Assemblies, who knows what they are anyway, could fall by the constutional wayside. Futhermore the case for fewer MPs would be strengthened and the art of scrutinising the national executive branch of the national government might be rediscovered.
With an effective and accountable English Parliament in place there would be no embarrassment in flying a flag above its rooftops which at its simplest represents the triumph of Good over Evil.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Briefing Notes for Candidates and Electors on Rural Housing Issues
i) What are the problems?
If we want to have viable rural communities they need a sound demographic spread. The outgoing youngsters and the incoming or remaining older ones will be the cause of an elderly community. National market forces mean that those who retire from high value property markets can down size and reap the benefits from the high value of the property they are selling. Young people starting out to make a home and raise a family will not be able to compete unless they can inherit a local property or have already established a means of high income. The only hope for buying a property depends on whether they can get a run down building or site and rebuild through their own resources. Those who have done this are fully aware of how lucky they have been.
The only way of stopping the imbalances of property values between, say London, and Herefordshire would be intervention through planning controls and regulating what properties can or cannot be available to outside purchasers. Add to this the increase of city bonuses and the differences in incomes and it is no wonder that some villages and even towns become deserts from September through to March as has happened in other parts of the country. If intervention occurs however local people who want to sell will be denied the opportunity to secure the best price under unrestricted market conditions. Intervention by national Government seems unlikely but it is the only way that market forces can be prevented from emptying the countryside of young people. In so doing government subsidy would be necessary to compensate present owners
The other problem is having something to make young people want to stay or settle. In France the process of ‘desertification’ has meant that more and more farms have been left to rot. The result, an influx of British ex-pats taking advantage of the much lower prices. This is not always popular with the French. The result? : a potential elderly British population in France.
The Consequences: A viable community depends on a range of ages so that various facilities can operate. An elderly populations will give employment to doctors, but the need for schools will fall. A house bound community will be dependent on others to deliver their supplies. Public transport is unlikely to be needed for older members of the community who cannot venture out, and not very convenient for those who would like to due to the difficulty of getting to a bus stop and so on.
Elderly residents may find it hard to shoulder the burdens of local civic duties, running a church or other social activities. Young people will look elsewhere to nearby towns for their entertainment and probably change to urban living where they have a better chance of earning a living and getting accommodation. Add to this the decline in agriculture and the ‘desertification’ process gains momentum.
Shops, Churches, Chapels, Pubs, Youth Clubs, Community Centres all need money and physical support from the local community if they are to survive.
ii) What could be done?
Schools need to be maintained as a reason for youngsters to find a way of staying or moving in. Although the bureaucrats will always tell you that a bigger better school many miles away will be much better, it rarely is, and the result of the closure of the village school is to rip the heart out of the community
If nothing is done to reduce the consequences of a free housing market by national government then local communities need to nurture the idea of cheaper housing through housing associations. Currently housing associations are being told by national government to reduce their rents in line with the fall in inflation, with the result that their building budgets will be reduced. Political pressure has to be brought to bear on national politics because there is little which can be done locally in this respect. The one thing which can be done is to try and establish the places where land might be available and where demand for the housing would fit in with employment and transport opportunities etc.
Council Housing may make a come back but this seems too far in the future to make a significant contribution to halting the drift away to the towns by the young and the creations of detached elderly communities.
Empty properties should be monitored so that the local authority should make use of its powers to discourage this wasteful use. 3% of the national housing stock remains empty for more than 6 months with 1.6% being from the private sector. 20% of the population live in rural areas. Government policy on their website.
This site gives a wealth of information regarding housing generally and how owners can be helped to bring their property back into the housing pool. Such properties should be identified and the Empty Homes Agency will try to involve housing associations and the local authority in returning such properties to the housing stock. Whilst rotting ruins may be seen as having some visual amenity there is a growing recognition that if the owners cannot make use of them as part of the housing stock, local authorities will have to intervene more.
Since 2006 local authorities may issue last resort enforcement orders under the Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs). For once there seem to be some intervention powers which could be used after a property has been empty for more than six months. In rural communities there are often properties which have been left empty for much longer. Rather than going on the open market perhaps the next stage is for local authorities to find ways to bring them into a social housing pool or to give assistance to local young people in financing their purchase. Is the return of the local authority mortgage well overdue?
The second homes problem should also be analysed and consideration be given to regulation but this is again a problem of national policy rather than local. It is also complicated by the restriction of choice that central intervention could bring about. The debate to date has been rather simplistic because the phrase in effect covers several categories.
Those who buy to let for the purposes solely of letting the property out as a holiday home on commercial terms should be discouraged in areas where there is a housing shortage. In some parts of the country where the local population has moved on the empty properties are at least used to contribute something to the economy for part of the year. Those who simply buy to let as all year round homes can bee seen as making a contribution to the local housing pool as long as rents and housing benefits are in a realistic ratio.
Second Homes in Transition could cover those properties where the owners have purchased a property with a view to retirement and may be taking advantage of the differences in national house values. Others may have purchased the property as their main residence as they are in tied accommodation and the ‘second home’ is their insurance or, as is more likely, their eventual residence on retirement. The same can apply to properties which have been inherited but the new owner has to seek their living elsewhere, pending retirement. In the meantime these properties are sometimes let out as holiday lettings while be the owner may visit for weekends or longer breaks in the winter months. Others may choose to keep the property unlet.
The Second Home as a bolt hole pure and simple is probably the least valuable to the local community in removing a potential home from the market. These maybe seen as the least complicated and where the property is isolated or without facilities may not be viable units in the housing stock. However, where they would be viable there is a case for intervening by way of legislation creating special planning permission and setting maximum quotas. If a perfectly sound starter home is going to be removed from the market for this purpose then present free market laws will not prevent it. Such a property might be an ex-council house situated in a viable community with a shop, pub and good communications.
Sometimes the owners of such properties will not have any intention of getting involved in the local community because that would contradict the rationale of ‘getting away from it all’ and their retirement plans may be centred elsewhere. These owners may contribute to the local community if they shop in the area and employ local firms for building etc. They now have to make a full contribution to Council Tax. Restrictions of selling for this purpose would have to involve compensation of some kind to the original owner if the restriction reduces the sale value.
Purpose built second home complexes such as those round water parks etc are not available for housing as such due to the planning conditions, rather like mobile holiday parks which cannot be use throughout the year, and so should not be a housing issue apart from questions of land use generally.
Improvements and extensions to existing properties to accommodate younger people do happen but the biggest bug-bear is the difficulty of getting planning permission for new houses outside the designated development zones. Again there is little that can be done at the immediate level of local government and the real decisions are made at higher levels. Classic reasons for refusing permission will be that the property would be out of keeping with the landscape (even where the proposal is to rebuild a property which had been in the landscape for many years before planning control was invented) or the access is restricted for emergency vehicles, or access onto the road is inconsistent with the highways policy etc. Within these rules it seems that conversion of barns into dwellings often seems to be acceptable in many cases as does, on occasions, the demolition of an old house to make way for a modern replacement. An additional house adjoining an existing farmhouse or nearby, seems to fall outside the criteria, while housing estates can gradually grow within designated development areas. It is very frustrating for people who have access to land for building but cannot get planning permission but is it equally frustrating to see green field building occurring in a way which would undermine the visual impact of the countryside. All this against a struggling agricultural industry and at a time when food security is becoming recognized as an emerging issue. Somewhere a compromise has to be drawn as a countryside with declining agricultural use and a population imbalance might look pleasant for a while, but it will not last as the people who used to keep it that way gradually leave..
What should be done? The bullet of rural housing needs to be bitten, as indeed does the national problem of a housing shortage. From the citizens point of view this means that the opinions in favour of housing initiatives in the rural community have to be expressed and organized with both local and national politicians. The present situation is destructive of the rural community in the ways outlined above and as a society we either have to accept the consequences of a free property market e.g., desertification and demographic imbalance, or develop equitable methods of intervention.
Dacier
If we want to have viable rural communities they need a sound demographic spread. The outgoing youngsters and the incoming or remaining older ones will be the cause of an elderly community. National market forces mean that those who retire from high value property markets can down size and reap the benefits from the high value of the property they are selling. Young people starting out to make a home and raise a family will not be able to compete unless they can inherit a local property or have already established a means of high income. The only hope for buying a property depends on whether they can get a run down building or site and rebuild through their own resources. Those who have done this are fully aware of how lucky they have been.
The only way of stopping the imbalances of property values between, say London, and Herefordshire would be intervention through planning controls and regulating what properties can or cannot be available to outside purchasers. Add to this the increase of city bonuses and the differences in incomes and it is no wonder that some villages and even towns become deserts from September through to March as has happened in other parts of the country. If intervention occurs however local people who want to sell will be denied the opportunity to secure the best price under unrestricted market conditions. Intervention by national Government seems unlikely but it is the only way that market forces can be prevented from emptying the countryside of young people. In so doing government subsidy would be necessary to compensate present owners
The other problem is having something to make young people want to stay or settle. In France the process of ‘desertification’ has meant that more and more farms have been left to rot. The result, an influx of British ex-pats taking advantage of the much lower prices. This is not always popular with the French. The result? : a potential elderly British population in France.
The Consequences: A viable community depends on a range of ages so that various facilities can operate. An elderly populations will give employment to doctors, but the need for schools will fall. A house bound community will be dependent on others to deliver their supplies. Public transport is unlikely to be needed for older members of the community who cannot venture out, and not very convenient for those who would like to due to the difficulty of getting to a bus stop and so on.
Elderly residents may find it hard to shoulder the burdens of local civic duties, running a church or other social activities. Young people will look elsewhere to nearby towns for their entertainment and probably change to urban living where they have a better chance of earning a living and getting accommodation. Add to this the decline in agriculture and the ‘desertification’ process gains momentum.
Shops, Churches, Chapels, Pubs, Youth Clubs, Community Centres all need money and physical support from the local community if they are to survive.
ii) What could be done?
Schools need to be maintained as a reason for youngsters to find a way of staying or moving in. Although the bureaucrats will always tell you that a bigger better school many miles away will be much better, it rarely is, and the result of the closure of the village school is to rip the heart out of the community
If nothing is done to reduce the consequences of a free housing market by national government then local communities need to nurture the idea of cheaper housing through housing associations. Currently housing associations are being told by national government to reduce their rents in line with the fall in inflation, with the result that their building budgets will be reduced. Political pressure has to be brought to bear on national politics because there is little which can be done locally in this respect. The one thing which can be done is to try and establish the places where land might be available and where demand for the housing would fit in with employment and transport opportunities etc.
Council Housing may make a come back but this seems too far in the future to make a significant contribution to halting the drift away to the towns by the young and the creations of detached elderly communities.
Empty properties should be monitored so that the local authority should make use of its powers to discourage this wasteful use. 3% of the national housing stock remains empty for more than 6 months with 1.6% being from the private sector. 20% of the population live in rural areas. Government policy on their website.
This site gives a wealth of information regarding housing generally and how owners can be helped to bring their property back into the housing pool. Such properties should be identified and the Empty Homes Agency will try to involve housing associations and the local authority in returning such properties to the housing stock. Whilst rotting ruins may be seen as having some visual amenity there is a growing recognition that if the owners cannot make use of them as part of the housing stock, local authorities will have to intervene more.
Since 2006 local authorities may issue last resort enforcement orders under the Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs). For once there seem to be some intervention powers which could be used after a property has been empty for more than six months. In rural communities there are often properties which have been left empty for much longer. Rather than going on the open market perhaps the next stage is for local authorities to find ways to bring them into a social housing pool or to give assistance to local young people in financing their purchase. Is the return of the local authority mortgage well overdue?
The second homes problem should also be analysed and consideration be given to regulation but this is again a problem of national policy rather than local. It is also complicated by the restriction of choice that central intervention could bring about. The debate to date has been rather simplistic because the phrase in effect covers several categories.
Those who buy to let for the purposes solely of letting the property out as a holiday home on commercial terms should be discouraged in areas where there is a housing shortage. In some parts of the country where the local population has moved on the empty properties are at least used to contribute something to the economy for part of the year. Those who simply buy to let as all year round homes can bee seen as making a contribution to the local housing pool as long as rents and housing benefits are in a realistic ratio.
Second Homes in Transition could cover those properties where the owners have purchased a property with a view to retirement and may be taking advantage of the differences in national house values. Others may have purchased the property as their main residence as they are in tied accommodation and the ‘second home’ is their insurance or, as is more likely, their eventual residence on retirement. The same can apply to properties which have been inherited but the new owner has to seek their living elsewhere, pending retirement. In the meantime these properties are sometimes let out as holiday lettings while be the owner may visit for weekends or longer breaks in the winter months. Others may choose to keep the property unlet.
The Second Home as a bolt hole pure and simple is probably the least valuable to the local community in removing a potential home from the market. These maybe seen as the least complicated and where the property is isolated or without facilities may not be viable units in the housing stock. However, where they would be viable there is a case for intervening by way of legislation creating special planning permission and setting maximum quotas. If a perfectly sound starter home is going to be removed from the market for this purpose then present free market laws will not prevent it. Such a property might be an ex-council house situated in a viable community with a shop, pub and good communications.
Sometimes the owners of such properties will not have any intention of getting involved in the local community because that would contradict the rationale of ‘getting away from it all’ and their retirement plans may be centred elsewhere. These owners may contribute to the local community if they shop in the area and employ local firms for building etc. They now have to make a full contribution to Council Tax. Restrictions of selling for this purpose would have to involve compensation of some kind to the original owner if the restriction reduces the sale value.
Purpose built second home complexes such as those round water parks etc are not available for housing as such due to the planning conditions, rather like mobile holiday parks which cannot be use throughout the year, and so should not be a housing issue apart from questions of land use generally.
Improvements and extensions to existing properties to accommodate younger people do happen but the biggest bug-bear is the difficulty of getting planning permission for new houses outside the designated development zones. Again there is little that can be done at the immediate level of local government and the real decisions are made at higher levels. Classic reasons for refusing permission will be that the property would be out of keeping with the landscape (even where the proposal is to rebuild a property which had been in the landscape for many years before planning control was invented) or the access is restricted for emergency vehicles, or access onto the road is inconsistent with the highways policy etc. Within these rules it seems that conversion of barns into dwellings often seems to be acceptable in many cases as does, on occasions, the demolition of an old house to make way for a modern replacement. An additional house adjoining an existing farmhouse or nearby, seems to fall outside the criteria, while housing estates can gradually grow within designated development areas. It is very frustrating for people who have access to land for building but cannot get planning permission but is it equally frustrating to see green field building occurring in a way which would undermine the visual impact of the countryside. All this against a struggling agricultural industry and at a time when food security is becoming recognized as an emerging issue. Somewhere a compromise has to be drawn as a countryside with declining agricultural use and a population imbalance might look pleasant for a while, but it will not last as the people who used to keep it that way gradually leave..
What should be done? The bullet of rural housing needs to be bitten, as indeed does the national problem of a housing shortage. From the citizens point of view this means that the opinions in favour of housing initiatives in the rural community have to be expressed and organized with both local and national politicians. The present situation is destructive of the rural community in the ways outlined above and as a society we either have to accept the consequences of a free property market e.g., desertification and demographic imbalance, or develop equitable methods of intervention.
Dacier
Friday, 5 March 2010
Caravan Touring and Wasting Time
In one way wasting time is a privilege which we should all occasionally exercise, although what might seem a waste of time to one person is valuable endeavour to another. I was checking out an e –bay entry for a seller of a caravan today and was advised that ‘time wasters’ would not be welcome. As I have difficulty in deciding what is a waste of time I promptly moved back to my inbox and deleted this impatient vendor once and for all.
My wife and I might ‘waste our time’ or spend it, by going off in our old caravan. Current value £300. Never shy of the controversial we would be prepared to go head to head with the devil incarnate of the anti-caravanning world, namely the national petrol head leader, Jeremy Clarkson. Why, because caravanning as has the potential to be a low impact leisure facility, it tends to cross seasonal boundaries, and it is democratic pastime: it’s said to be the national sport in Holland, now that is sad.
It is low impact because a touring caravan is not a permanent feature. Many of the locations where used are purely temporary, or at least, rather small and hidden, when compared with the vast aluminium cities of Porth Cawl or the east coast. It is flexible as to season as many of us choose to take our main breaks in early or late season or during the winter months, thus leaving room for the prisoners of the school holiday booking season free of us older types. Finally, it is democratic because our green and pleasant land becomes available to all, whether in a £300 van or in a gin palace on wheels. It is mainly a middle to working class pastime, although the touring caravan was invented by the upper class. Mr Toad of Wind in the Willows was recently cited by a spokesperson for the Caravan Club as a fictional example of an early enthusiast. It was also pointed out that he only went off the rails, and the road come to that, when he dumped his caravan (the horse drawn) in favour of the speed which could be achieved by the solo motor car i.e., when he joined the Clarkson Camp.
In addition to all these benefits it is a significant contribution to the rural economy. Large static sites are sometimes unfortunate eyesores, but not always, while touring sites can be very small, allowing a regular contribution to the income of a farm. In spite of these benefits there is a large body of snobs out there who would rather pay silly prices for the poor standards which often prevail in many of our hotels. We do not like hotels much anyway. They are usually too hot, the beds and bedding are unpredictable, and the regimentation of the breakfast slot is contradictory to our idea of leisure.
Of course last year’s rise in caravan and tent sales is reminiscent of the boom of the sixties. The bookings reported by both the Caravan Club and Camping and Caravan Club (we belong to the more flexible latter organisation as we occasionally use one of our many tents) will not last. As with the last boom, this will be ended by a series of bad summers. People who buy the dream need to acquire certain fortitude, and realise that leisure is not just about having relaxation provided but to a great extent working for it. I suppose to that extent it can become a sport when you travel light or the weather gets heavy.
The national speed limit for caravans and trailers is 60 mph on motorways and dual carriageways and 50 mph for the rest. This is safe for the caravan driver and provided he or she keeps an eye open for tail backs, should not inconvenience solo drivers any more than a heavy lorry. Granted, you will see caravans breaking all these rules, even using the outer lane of a motorway which is out of bounds to all trailers, but this is a question of enforcement in the same way as it is for those motorists getting away with the horrendous breaches of the Highway Code every day
Mr Clarkson’s real bug bear is his belief that caravans cause holiday traffic hold ups and he greeted with great glee the experiment on the M5 on the climb out of Bristol which confined caravans to the nearside lane. I have heard nothing of his views regarding the result of that research. This is not surprising as he, along with Jonathan Ross, is the cause of many a quick channel change when his presence spoils one of our favourite programmes. The research showed that most caravan drivers got into the nearside lane for the climb even before the prohibition came into effect and that the worst offenders were fully paid up members of the middle lane club and lorry divers who took up nearside and middle lanes while they seem locked together on conversation. Apparently the middle lane driver is seeking to overtake its stubborn competitor which sometimes seems to go on for 5 minutes.
Why caravanning is picked on by so many is something which deserves a PhD thesis. Motor Sport and luxury road legal sports cars with ridiculous top speeds are apparently perfectly acceptable. Likewise football and coarse fishing because thousands take part and so the disruption and pollution they cause is brushed away, usually at public cost . So before you join the Clarkson tirade brigade just examine your own motives and take a look around and put some toleration lenses in your specs. Failing that take a look at your own leisure footprint and impact before becoming an uninformed snob.
My wife and I might ‘waste our time’ or spend it, by going off in our old caravan. Current value £300. Never shy of the controversial we would be prepared to go head to head with the devil incarnate of the anti-caravanning world, namely the national petrol head leader, Jeremy Clarkson. Why, because caravanning as has the potential to be a low impact leisure facility, it tends to cross seasonal boundaries, and it is democratic pastime: it’s said to be the national sport in Holland, now that is sad.
It is low impact because a touring caravan is not a permanent feature. Many of the locations where used are purely temporary, or at least, rather small and hidden, when compared with the vast aluminium cities of Porth Cawl or the east coast. It is flexible as to season as many of us choose to take our main breaks in early or late season or during the winter months, thus leaving room for the prisoners of the school holiday booking season free of us older types. Finally, it is democratic because our green and pleasant land becomes available to all, whether in a £300 van or in a gin palace on wheels. It is mainly a middle to working class pastime, although the touring caravan was invented by the upper class. Mr Toad of Wind in the Willows was recently cited by a spokesperson for the Caravan Club as a fictional example of an early enthusiast. It was also pointed out that he only went off the rails, and the road come to that, when he dumped his caravan (the horse drawn) in favour of the speed which could be achieved by the solo motor car i.e., when he joined the Clarkson Camp.
In addition to all these benefits it is a significant contribution to the rural economy. Large static sites are sometimes unfortunate eyesores, but not always, while touring sites can be very small, allowing a regular contribution to the income of a farm. In spite of these benefits there is a large body of snobs out there who would rather pay silly prices for the poor standards which often prevail in many of our hotels. We do not like hotels much anyway. They are usually too hot, the beds and bedding are unpredictable, and the regimentation of the breakfast slot is contradictory to our idea of leisure.
Of course last year’s rise in caravan and tent sales is reminiscent of the boom of the sixties. The bookings reported by both the Caravan Club and Camping and Caravan Club (we belong to the more flexible latter organisation as we occasionally use one of our many tents) will not last. As with the last boom, this will be ended by a series of bad summers. People who buy the dream need to acquire certain fortitude, and realise that leisure is not just about having relaxation provided but to a great extent working for it. I suppose to that extent it can become a sport when you travel light or the weather gets heavy.
The national speed limit for caravans and trailers is 60 mph on motorways and dual carriageways and 50 mph for the rest. This is safe for the caravan driver and provided he or she keeps an eye open for tail backs, should not inconvenience solo drivers any more than a heavy lorry. Granted, you will see caravans breaking all these rules, even using the outer lane of a motorway which is out of bounds to all trailers, but this is a question of enforcement in the same way as it is for those motorists getting away with the horrendous breaches of the Highway Code every day
Mr Clarkson’s real bug bear is his belief that caravans cause holiday traffic hold ups and he greeted with great glee the experiment on the M5 on the climb out of Bristol which confined caravans to the nearside lane. I have heard nothing of his views regarding the result of that research. This is not surprising as he, along with Jonathan Ross, is the cause of many a quick channel change when his presence spoils one of our favourite programmes. The research showed that most caravan drivers got into the nearside lane for the climb even before the prohibition came into effect and that the worst offenders were fully paid up members of the middle lane club and lorry divers who took up nearside and middle lanes while they seem locked together on conversation. Apparently the middle lane driver is seeking to overtake its stubborn competitor which sometimes seems to go on for 5 minutes.
Why caravanning is picked on by so many is something which deserves a PhD thesis. Motor Sport and luxury road legal sports cars with ridiculous top speeds are apparently perfectly acceptable. Likewise football and coarse fishing because thousands take part and so the disruption and pollution they cause is brushed away, usually at public cost . So before you join the Clarkson tirade brigade just examine your own motives and take a look around and put some toleration lenses in your specs. Failing that take a look at your own leisure footprint and impact before becoming an uninformed snob.
Tony’s Legacy: Will it be Blair or Bliar when the Jury Returns?
With the sun at last shining and a General Election required within the next few weeks the view from my room is far from bleak. This is in contrast to the future which awaits the Blair Legacy. Tony Blair was seen by many as the antidote to Thatcherism and a way in which politics could return to principles of social cohesion and fairness. Of course, that is where the dream began to unravel since it soon became obvious that the principles which were to govern were nothing to do with political philosophy, but more to do with the principles of rhetoric, marketing and spin. Anyone who knows anything about this unholy trio will know that they are for the most part strangers to such principles, sometimes reserving the greater disdain for the principle of truth. For those who spin webs the fate that awaits them is often self entanglement. Such is the case with the Iraq War and it is that which will cast a shadow over the few achievements, whatever you think they might be, of Blairite New Labour.
About six years ago I was holding forth in a book shop in Hay to another customer about the shortcomings of Prime Minister Blair, when a homely lady emerged from behind an adjoining stack and admitted with some emotion, ‘ I’m so ashamed. I voted for that man: I feel betrayed’. I greatly admired her courage for speaking out as I suspect it has taken many of us sometime to approach the public confessional.
Tony Blair chose to play fast and loose with some fairly basic principles and institutions, including the Rule of Law, Cabinet Government, Collective Responsibility, Parliamentary accountability and International Law. Some of these featured in his own end of the Constitution Show that dreary Thursday morning of 29th January when he appeared before the Chilcot Inquiry. Outside the gathered crowd carried posters referring to him as ‘Bliar’, a point missed by the commentator I saw doing his bit to camera outside the building, while those with tickets filed in, in some cases in search of some explanation as to why their loved ones had died.
Before his appearance the case was forming in my mind that here was a man, whilst he endeavoured to be a ‘nice sort of guy’, was rather adrift in a sea of troubles unable to find neither guiding light nor sound anchorages to see him through. The book title which kept coming into my head on that dreary Thursday as I saw his robust debating technique gather momentum was that of ‘He knew he was Right.’ Of course Trollope’s character was far from being right and in Mr Blair‘s case he probably did sincerely believe that there were WMD’s beyond doubt. His problem now, like any scientist in the laboratory or lawyer in a court, is that we are now watching the process of seeing whether the facts on which it was based can be proved.
The justification he gave the Chilcot inquiry would seem to be no more than his assertion that he believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he believed this beyond reasonable doubt. This would not be enough for a jury to convict without a bundle of proved facts and inferences, the evidence, which removes all doubt from the mind of the jury: just one reasonable doubt should prevent a juror from finding guilt. It would seem however that Mr Blair is asserting that war was justified beyond his own doubt, period.
Whether or not the evidence was there to justify his certainty is what Chilcot should decide upon but in the meantime Mr Blair’s case presents several problems, some of his own making. If we run the clock back to Sunday 12th December 2009 he appeared in an interview with Fern Brittan. His expressed conviction at Chilcot as to the existence of WMD’s appears to have been undermined by his earlier frankness with Fern Brittan
I paraphrase the interview thus:
"If you had known then that there were no WMDs, would you still have gone on?"
Blair replied: "I would still have thought it right to remove him [Saddam Hussein]",
Adding, "I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat.".... "I can't really think we'd be better with him and his two sons in charge, but it's incredibly difficult. That's why I sympathize with the people who were against it [the war] for perfectly good reasons and are against it now, but for me, in the end I had to take the decision." Guardian 12/12/09
No wonder the search for the number one justification, the existence of WMD’s, had been such a scruffy affair with allegations of alleged plagiarism, sexing up of documentation, and a bogus 45 minute deployment time. Oh, and by the way, since the Detroit bomber was charged in the US, we now know, if we are to believe the Federal charge sheet, that WMD’s can been hidden in undergarments. If only the UN inspectors had known that when they were trying to do their job.
I must confess that I forced myself to watch the Fern Brittan interview as I had not yet had breakfast and I didn’t want to be put off my grapefruit by an apologist’s master class. My self denial was however rewarded, not only by the admission of the backup reason for going to war but also by his claim that when making decisions on matters of life and death, like War, his faith didn’t appear to come into it. Oh dear I thought, so what is the point of your Christianity? O.K., perhaps George Bush would seem to have been informed rather badly in these matters but in his case I suspect it was possibly a matter of deficient critical reading skills. But in Tony’s case I remain somewhat puzzled as to why he bothered to go in for the interview given that the programme’s brief is within the BBC’s religious/ ethical Sunday morning slot. As a sometime Anglican and now a Catholic, can we really believe that his faith was irrelevant?
By the time he was questioned at Chilcot about the interview it seemed he still hadn’t realised that he was in a hole and that the time for digging had long since passed. Not a bit of it. What on earth was all that business about having had a great deal of experience in giving interviews but he hadn’t been prepared for Fern? Was his rather fumbled comment an admission that he had inadvertently revealed something he would have rather left out? He defended himself by saying that he had not used the phrase ‘regime change’. Of course he hadn’t: it was superfluous. He had said that even without WMD’s it would have been right to remove Saddam. Was it any wonder that some MP s who had relied on his assurances from the dispatch box were now feeling somewhat peeved.
In effect this all combines to show that in the absence of WMD’s he would not have been able to convince Parliament, not least because International Law does not allow one nation to go into another’s territory to remove a nasty person other than by way of self defence. In the absence a legal authority it is no more than an illegal act of war. This was probably why the international lawyers at the Foreign Office were also somewhat peeved when Lord Goldsmith’s advice to Cabinet was preferred to theirs. It was pointed out by one of them when before Chilcot, that the Attorney General was not a practitioner of international law.
This is clearly the weak spot in the Blair justification. Witness the crumbling of Alistair Campbell when asked by Andrew Marr ( BBC 1: Sunday 7th February), that if Chilcot fails to find unequivocal evidence to support Blair’s assertions from the dispatch box, the conclusion will have to be that the Prime Minister mislead Parliament. At this the ex-Cabinet Office hard case broke down and, breathing somewhat heavily, made a halting reference to the vilification of an honourable man. None of the debate away from the placards in the street had struck me as that, so this must have touched a nerve. Was the alliance with Bush, the dislike of Saddam’s ghastly psychopathic oil -rich regime and all the hype, so powerful that it swept Blair and his henchmen along on a self made wave of enthusiasm into an unjustifiable and illegal war?
The evidence of Clare Short on the 2nd February seems to support this theory. Unlike Blair’s performance the abiding impression was that here was a witness who had nothing to fear from Chilcot because all she had to do was tell the uncomplicated truth. It would seem that from Tony’s performance to date, the truth is anything but uncomplicated. Like Thatcher before him, he adopted a presidential role whereby he chose to exclude his colleagues from the decision making process to the point where he now tells us it was all on his shoulders. He apparently had no friend to turn to and not even his faith could help him with the decision. In a system which professes a convention of cabinet collective responsibility, constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy this need not have happened. Having for some reason felt that his shoulders alone were broad enough, it is on his own head that it now shall be. The time for vilification has passed: the word ‘pity’ comes to mind but doesn't quite make the journey.
About six years ago I was holding forth in a book shop in Hay to another customer about the shortcomings of Prime Minister Blair, when a homely lady emerged from behind an adjoining stack and admitted with some emotion, ‘ I’m so ashamed. I voted for that man: I feel betrayed’. I greatly admired her courage for speaking out as I suspect it has taken many of us sometime to approach the public confessional.
Tony Blair chose to play fast and loose with some fairly basic principles and institutions, including the Rule of Law, Cabinet Government, Collective Responsibility, Parliamentary accountability and International Law. Some of these featured in his own end of the Constitution Show that dreary Thursday morning of 29th January when he appeared before the Chilcot Inquiry. Outside the gathered crowd carried posters referring to him as ‘Bliar’, a point missed by the commentator I saw doing his bit to camera outside the building, while those with tickets filed in, in some cases in search of some explanation as to why their loved ones had died.
Before his appearance the case was forming in my mind that here was a man, whilst he endeavoured to be a ‘nice sort of guy’, was rather adrift in a sea of troubles unable to find neither guiding light nor sound anchorages to see him through. The book title which kept coming into my head on that dreary Thursday as I saw his robust debating technique gather momentum was that of ‘He knew he was Right.’ Of course Trollope’s character was far from being right and in Mr Blair‘s case he probably did sincerely believe that there were WMD’s beyond doubt. His problem now, like any scientist in the laboratory or lawyer in a court, is that we are now watching the process of seeing whether the facts on which it was based can be proved.
The justification he gave the Chilcot inquiry would seem to be no more than his assertion that he believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he believed this beyond reasonable doubt. This would not be enough for a jury to convict without a bundle of proved facts and inferences, the evidence, which removes all doubt from the mind of the jury: just one reasonable doubt should prevent a juror from finding guilt. It would seem however that Mr Blair is asserting that war was justified beyond his own doubt, period.
Whether or not the evidence was there to justify his certainty is what Chilcot should decide upon but in the meantime Mr Blair’s case presents several problems, some of his own making. If we run the clock back to Sunday 12th December 2009 he appeared in an interview with Fern Brittan. His expressed conviction at Chilcot as to the existence of WMD’s appears to have been undermined by his earlier frankness with Fern Brittan
I paraphrase the interview thus:
"If you had known then that there were no WMDs, would you still have gone on?"
Blair replied: "I would still have thought it right to remove him [Saddam Hussein]",
Adding, "I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat.".... "I can't really think we'd be better with him and his two sons in charge, but it's incredibly difficult. That's why I sympathize with the people who were against it [the war] for perfectly good reasons and are against it now, but for me, in the end I had to take the decision." Guardian 12/12/09
No wonder the search for the number one justification, the existence of WMD’s, had been such a scruffy affair with allegations of alleged plagiarism, sexing up of documentation, and a bogus 45 minute deployment time. Oh, and by the way, since the Detroit bomber was charged in the US, we now know, if we are to believe the Federal charge sheet, that WMD’s can been hidden in undergarments. If only the UN inspectors had known that when they were trying to do their job.
I must confess that I forced myself to watch the Fern Brittan interview as I had not yet had breakfast and I didn’t want to be put off my grapefruit by an apologist’s master class. My self denial was however rewarded, not only by the admission of the backup reason for going to war but also by his claim that when making decisions on matters of life and death, like War, his faith didn’t appear to come into it. Oh dear I thought, so what is the point of your Christianity? O.K., perhaps George Bush would seem to have been informed rather badly in these matters but in his case I suspect it was possibly a matter of deficient critical reading skills. But in Tony’s case I remain somewhat puzzled as to why he bothered to go in for the interview given that the programme’s brief is within the BBC’s religious/ ethical Sunday morning slot. As a sometime Anglican and now a Catholic, can we really believe that his faith was irrelevant?
By the time he was questioned at Chilcot about the interview it seemed he still hadn’t realised that he was in a hole and that the time for digging had long since passed. Not a bit of it. What on earth was all that business about having had a great deal of experience in giving interviews but he hadn’t been prepared for Fern? Was his rather fumbled comment an admission that he had inadvertently revealed something he would have rather left out? He defended himself by saying that he had not used the phrase ‘regime change’. Of course he hadn’t: it was superfluous. He had said that even without WMD’s it would have been right to remove Saddam. Was it any wonder that some MP s who had relied on his assurances from the dispatch box were now feeling somewhat peeved.
In effect this all combines to show that in the absence of WMD’s he would not have been able to convince Parliament, not least because International Law does not allow one nation to go into another’s territory to remove a nasty person other than by way of self defence. In the absence a legal authority it is no more than an illegal act of war. This was probably why the international lawyers at the Foreign Office were also somewhat peeved when Lord Goldsmith’s advice to Cabinet was preferred to theirs. It was pointed out by one of them when before Chilcot, that the Attorney General was not a practitioner of international law.
This is clearly the weak spot in the Blair justification. Witness the crumbling of Alistair Campbell when asked by Andrew Marr ( BBC 1: Sunday 7th February), that if Chilcot fails to find unequivocal evidence to support Blair’s assertions from the dispatch box, the conclusion will have to be that the Prime Minister mislead Parliament. At this the ex-Cabinet Office hard case broke down and, breathing somewhat heavily, made a halting reference to the vilification of an honourable man. None of the debate away from the placards in the street had struck me as that, so this must have touched a nerve. Was the alliance with Bush, the dislike of Saddam’s ghastly psychopathic oil -rich regime and all the hype, so powerful that it swept Blair and his henchmen along on a self made wave of enthusiasm into an unjustifiable and illegal war?
The evidence of Clare Short on the 2nd February seems to support this theory. Unlike Blair’s performance the abiding impression was that here was a witness who had nothing to fear from Chilcot because all she had to do was tell the uncomplicated truth. It would seem that from Tony’s performance to date, the truth is anything but uncomplicated. Like Thatcher before him, he adopted a presidential role whereby he chose to exclude his colleagues from the decision making process to the point where he now tells us it was all on his shoulders. He apparently had no friend to turn to and not even his faith could help him with the decision. In a system which professes a convention of cabinet collective responsibility, constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy this need not have happened. Having for some reason felt that his shoulders alone were broad enough, it is on his own head that it now shall be. The time for vilification has passed: the word ‘pity’ comes to mind but doesn't quite make the journey.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Nearly all the Very Real Truth about Wood Burning Stoves: Possibly
Having criticised a recent Guardian article ( see post for 5th January 2010 entitled, Wood Burning Stoves: The Truth? I dont think so ) I feel obliged to say a bit more about wood burning stoves. Over the years I have read several weekend supplement articles which skim the surface and so I thought it was time to write a more comprehensive piece. Wood burning stoves are not for everyone. They take a bit of work, wood supplies might not always be easily available and special care needs to be taken if you plan to buy a multi-fuel stove when you live in a smokeless zone. Having the option of burning coal can be seen as a comforting, but certainly not green, back up, should seasoned wood be in short supply.
Buying in wood fuels is no longer a cheap option as demand has increased considerably in recent years, but there is a lot of unmanaged woodland still in the UK and gradually this is being increased. Sadly you can still see ‘waste’ wood being burnt alongside roads and railways. Wood is no longer permitted as land fill but it is unclear where it now goes. There is a long way to go before woodland becomes threatened and in the meantime processed wood based fuels will become more widely available.
If you are wondering whether a wood burning stove might fit in with your energy requirements here is the story of our involvement with this method of heating. Whatever you do think long and hard about the costs and work out how you will keep it supplied with fuel.
.
My first sighting of a wood burning stove was one of those box Jotol stoves which are designed to burn wood by slow combustion. Apart from some rather nice relief’s’ in the cast iron it was not much to look at, especially for someone raised in front of various open fires and glowing ranges. This was in the early seventies on our first visit to the Centre for Alternative Technology just after it had opened to the public.
From then on the number of models increased and our first stove was a Hunter Multi Fuel which we installed in a brand new house back in 1989. Unfortunately it was very difficult to get decent wood fuel and for much of the time we burnt Homefire ( coal briquettes) which we literally glimpsed through a glass darkly. It had a horizontal rectangular opening with two doors which made refuelling awkward and although it knocked out a good heat its drawbacks meant that when mains gas came through it was soon disposed of. We learnt a great deal from this experience and the open fire was still seen as a much more convenient means of warming the front room at grandma’s cottage in Hereford. Supplies of logs were easily available and we continued with the open fire when we took on the cottage in the early eighties.
Another reason for sticking with the open fire was that at the time the pollution was not much different between it and the wood burner. Take for example these claims from Conservation at Home: A Practical Handbook by Michael Allaby published in 1988,
‘Benjamin Franklin designed the prototype of the ‘modern’ wood burning stove...a stove like this may look beautiful, but environmentally it is a disaster. By burning wood very slowly with very little air, it produces a range of unburned hydrocarbons, many of which are known to cause cancer, together with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, all of which are released into the outside air along with radioactive potassium 40.’
The open fire in contrast threw a bit more ash into the atmosphere but since it used much more air some of the pollutants were burnt off. Both means of heating also produce sulphur dioxide but the open fire lets 90% of the heat go up the chimney whilst causing doors to swing open in the drafts needed to supply the necessary oxygen. So the question always being asked was whether the big outlay on a stove was worth it.
You can still find versions of Franklin’s original design for sale and they are still used to heat many mountain holiday log cabins in North American. When you can cut vast quantities of big logs from your holding they can still make sense if efficiency and pollution issues are ignored. For those of us who have to buy in the bulk of their wood it is not a practicable option but the Franklin has the great advantage of being able to turn from an open log fire into a closed cast iron cupboard for slow burning overnight.
After our experience in the seventies I remained very sceptical about wood burning stoves even though stove design had moved on from the old smouldering versions. But in 1989 I discovered a new system ( explained below) when visiting the Clearview Stoves small showroom in Ludlow. I had not really got the point at that stage but then a good friend of ours bought one and he started his proselytising. Then we came across another installation and then another. In the end we had seen five different installations and were impressed despite several conservation and environmental reservations.
The crunch came when I had to check out the TV aerial when we went digital. The open fire had not been lit the previous day so all was cool in the fireplace. At the top of the chimney it was a different story. Much to my surprise I found that there was a nice lot of warm air being emitted. Distressingly I soon realized that the bulk of this warm air was being extracted by the chimney in the form of the heat stored in the night storage heaters as supplemented by the Yorkist Stove in the kitchen. ( More on the Yorkist Stove in a later post) So that’s what they meant when they said up to 90% of the heat from an open fire escapes up the chimney! Even when its not burning any other heat you have paid for will be sucked up up and away. It so happened therefore that this was my ladder to Damascus and from then on Sian and I started to take the prospect of a wood burning stove much more seriously
Energy conservation now started to be set against pollution issues and the process of conversion continued. By chance we visited the Clearview Showroom in Ludlow, now occupying a small mansion, and we concluded that this was a very good product. However, still being sceptical we put a wood burner well down the list behind upgraded insulation and a solar panel. We were also put off by the cost and started to look at slightly cheaper options which would offer a multi-fuel grate just in case our wood supply proved unreliable. We soon found out that the Clearview didn’t need any special grate. It was multi-fuel anyway. Most importantly, Clearview make a lot of the fact that their stoves burn in a way which keeps the glass front door clean so that the log fire can be seen. Other manufacturers offer similar systems with varying degrees of success so I had better explain the basic idea.
With old style slow burning stoves much of the by-products remain un-burnt because of the lower temperatures involved. The idea behind many new stoves is that the drafts of hot air within the firebox are made to pass over the glass window and burn off any deposits which have not already been burnt by the high temperatures in the stove. Ideally this works best when well seasoned wood is being used and there is no back boiler to reduce the temperature in the fire box. As a result you will be able to see a flaming log fire while reducing pollutants. Designs which need less air to burn hot will also reduce drafts. In any case, with no open chimney effect more heat is kept in the house whether the stove is burning or not.
After lots of thought we ordered a Clearview as we had concluded that this was the stove of choice among our contacts and we had seen so many of them in action. Another important factor was that it was a local product. There is a bewildering choice now available and there is a very wide range of prices so do nothing in a hurry. My advice to anyone considering a purchase is to go and see as many stoves in operation as possible, preferably in the homes of people who know what is involved in running a stove. Some might not bother to season their wood properly so if there is a smoked up window this does not necessarily mean the stove is at fault.
Dry wood obviously burns better than damp wood. Its heat output is higher and heat is not wasted heating up the moisture in the wood which goes up the chimney as steam to condense there or go into the atmosphere. A stove run like this will not give a good result. The window will be black and no fire will be visible and tars will accumulate high in the chimney where the have condensed. This causes a fire hazard.
Provided the heat is maintained throughout the length of the flu the risk of soot build up is greatly reduced. This is why manufacturer’s and good suppliers stress the need for a well insulated flu. This is achieved by means of one of the lining systems on offer. Unfortunately this can often double the cost of an installation. Much depends on the kind of chimney already in use for an open fire.
The high temperature which creates a secondary burn should, it is claimed, reduce the amount of tar and thus some of the pollutants. Carbon dioxide is still given off, how much is still subject fo debate, but if the sources of your wood are from sustainable woodland it will be doing a good deal to re-absorb it and thus making the wood burner carbon neutral. For overnight burning in order to avoid the worst consequences of slow burning the trick is to make the fire up sometime before bed time and run the stove with a good deal of flame. This burns off many of the pollutants so that by the time the stove is shut down for the night the fire continues in the form of glowing ‘char coals’.
Organising your wood purchasing to have seasoned wood is essential. Ideally wood which has been seasoned for 2 years should be aimed for. It is now possible to buy a handy moisture meter to make sure the wood is at the right moisture content. The number of wood suppliers is increasing and if you can find a local supplier who runs a sustainable wood then your carbon footprint shrinks greatly and keeps some people in work within your local economy. If you have your own woodland then a major element is removed from the process and you will know exactly what you are burning.
Is it all worth it? In our case the answer is a resounding yes but this outcome has only been achieved by following the points above. The most important point is to get the right stove for you and make sure it is a modern model. Don’t be tempted to buy on price alone and make sure you take advice from as many independent people as possible. The biggest advantage in comfort terms is that a closed stove can almost eliminate drafts. If you are buying a stove with more than a 5kw output an airbrick is required by building regulations so make sure that this is placed as near to the fire as possible.
The next advantage is in the savings you make when you no longer lose 90% of your heat up the chimney. These results will come whether you burn coal or wood. If you burn wood you should be able to reduce your carbon footprint and the amount of pollution involved in keeping yourself warm. Where we live we don’t have a gas supply and we would not install oil or LPG central heating on principle and price. That leaves us with electricity which is inefficient in the loss of energy involved in getting it to us and, unless consumption is at night, can be very expensive. Consequently we have night storage heaters and a night running immersion heater. The washing machine, washing up machine and the bread maker are all run at night whenever possible.
The wood burning stove when all the above factors are taken into account has made a great difference to our comfort, our carbon footprint and our emissions and brought our electricity bill down. It is our top ‘green’ installation after our update of the insulation and the installation of our hot water solar panel and heat store water tank. There is still quite a lot more to do but we manage to keep quite cosy at a reasonable cost.
See earlier posts:
Further posts will appear on sustainable fuel supplies, solar panels, the Yorkist ( or York) Stove etc
Buying in wood fuels is no longer a cheap option as demand has increased considerably in recent years, but there is a lot of unmanaged woodland still in the UK and gradually this is being increased. Sadly you can still see ‘waste’ wood being burnt alongside roads and railways. Wood is no longer permitted as land fill but it is unclear where it now goes. There is a long way to go before woodland becomes threatened and in the meantime processed wood based fuels will become more widely available.
If you are wondering whether a wood burning stove might fit in with your energy requirements here is the story of our involvement with this method of heating. Whatever you do think long and hard about the costs and work out how you will keep it supplied with fuel.
.
My first sighting of a wood burning stove was one of those box Jotol stoves which are designed to burn wood by slow combustion. Apart from some rather nice relief’s’ in the cast iron it was not much to look at, especially for someone raised in front of various open fires and glowing ranges. This was in the early seventies on our first visit to the Centre for Alternative Technology just after it had opened to the public.
From then on the number of models increased and our first stove was a Hunter Multi Fuel which we installed in a brand new house back in 1989. Unfortunately it was very difficult to get decent wood fuel and for much of the time we burnt Homefire ( coal briquettes) which we literally glimpsed through a glass darkly. It had a horizontal rectangular opening with two doors which made refuelling awkward and although it knocked out a good heat its drawbacks meant that when mains gas came through it was soon disposed of. We learnt a great deal from this experience and the open fire was still seen as a much more convenient means of warming the front room at grandma’s cottage in Hereford. Supplies of logs were easily available and we continued with the open fire when we took on the cottage in the early eighties.
Another reason for sticking with the open fire was that at the time the pollution was not much different between it and the wood burner. Take for example these claims from Conservation at Home: A Practical Handbook by Michael Allaby published in 1988,
‘Benjamin Franklin designed the prototype of the ‘modern’ wood burning stove...a stove like this may look beautiful, but environmentally it is a disaster. By burning wood very slowly with very little air, it produces a range of unburned hydrocarbons, many of which are known to cause cancer, together with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, all of which are released into the outside air along with radioactive potassium 40.’
The open fire in contrast threw a bit more ash into the atmosphere but since it used much more air some of the pollutants were burnt off. Both means of heating also produce sulphur dioxide but the open fire lets 90% of the heat go up the chimney whilst causing doors to swing open in the drafts needed to supply the necessary oxygen. So the question always being asked was whether the big outlay on a stove was worth it.
You can still find versions of Franklin’s original design for sale and they are still used to heat many mountain holiday log cabins in North American. When you can cut vast quantities of big logs from your holding they can still make sense if efficiency and pollution issues are ignored. For those of us who have to buy in the bulk of their wood it is not a practicable option but the Franklin has the great advantage of being able to turn from an open log fire into a closed cast iron cupboard for slow burning overnight.
After our experience in the seventies I remained very sceptical about wood burning stoves even though stove design had moved on from the old smouldering versions. But in 1989 I discovered a new system ( explained below) when visiting the Clearview Stoves small showroom in Ludlow. I had not really got the point at that stage but then a good friend of ours bought one and he started his proselytising. Then we came across another installation and then another. In the end we had seen five different installations and were impressed despite several conservation and environmental reservations.
The crunch came when I had to check out the TV aerial when we went digital. The open fire had not been lit the previous day so all was cool in the fireplace. At the top of the chimney it was a different story. Much to my surprise I found that there was a nice lot of warm air being emitted. Distressingly I soon realized that the bulk of this warm air was being extracted by the chimney in the form of the heat stored in the night storage heaters as supplemented by the Yorkist Stove in the kitchen. ( More on the Yorkist Stove in a later post) So that’s what they meant when they said up to 90% of the heat from an open fire escapes up the chimney! Even when its not burning any other heat you have paid for will be sucked up up and away. It so happened therefore that this was my ladder to Damascus and from then on Sian and I started to take the prospect of a wood burning stove much more seriously
Energy conservation now started to be set against pollution issues and the process of conversion continued. By chance we visited the Clearview Showroom in Ludlow, now occupying a small mansion, and we concluded that this was a very good product. However, still being sceptical we put a wood burner well down the list behind upgraded insulation and a solar panel. We were also put off by the cost and started to look at slightly cheaper options which would offer a multi-fuel grate just in case our wood supply proved unreliable. We soon found out that the Clearview didn’t need any special grate. It was multi-fuel anyway. Most importantly, Clearview make a lot of the fact that their stoves burn in a way which keeps the glass front door clean so that the log fire can be seen. Other manufacturers offer similar systems with varying degrees of success so I had better explain the basic idea.
With old style slow burning stoves much of the by-products remain un-burnt because of the lower temperatures involved. The idea behind many new stoves is that the drafts of hot air within the firebox are made to pass over the glass window and burn off any deposits which have not already been burnt by the high temperatures in the stove. Ideally this works best when well seasoned wood is being used and there is no back boiler to reduce the temperature in the fire box. As a result you will be able to see a flaming log fire while reducing pollutants. Designs which need less air to burn hot will also reduce drafts. In any case, with no open chimney effect more heat is kept in the house whether the stove is burning or not.
After lots of thought we ordered a Clearview as we had concluded that this was the stove of choice among our contacts and we had seen so many of them in action. Another important factor was that it was a local product. There is a bewildering choice now available and there is a very wide range of prices so do nothing in a hurry. My advice to anyone considering a purchase is to go and see as many stoves in operation as possible, preferably in the homes of people who know what is involved in running a stove. Some might not bother to season their wood properly so if there is a smoked up window this does not necessarily mean the stove is at fault.
Dry wood obviously burns better than damp wood. Its heat output is higher and heat is not wasted heating up the moisture in the wood which goes up the chimney as steam to condense there or go into the atmosphere. A stove run like this will not give a good result. The window will be black and no fire will be visible and tars will accumulate high in the chimney where the have condensed. This causes a fire hazard.
Provided the heat is maintained throughout the length of the flu the risk of soot build up is greatly reduced. This is why manufacturer’s and good suppliers stress the need for a well insulated flu. This is achieved by means of one of the lining systems on offer. Unfortunately this can often double the cost of an installation. Much depends on the kind of chimney already in use for an open fire.
The high temperature which creates a secondary burn should, it is claimed, reduce the amount of tar and thus some of the pollutants. Carbon dioxide is still given off, how much is still subject fo debate, but if the sources of your wood are from sustainable woodland it will be doing a good deal to re-absorb it and thus making the wood burner carbon neutral. For overnight burning in order to avoid the worst consequences of slow burning the trick is to make the fire up sometime before bed time and run the stove with a good deal of flame. This burns off many of the pollutants so that by the time the stove is shut down for the night the fire continues in the form of glowing ‘char coals’.
Organising your wood purchasing to have seasoned wood is essential. Ideally wood which has been seasoned for 2 years should be aimed for. It is now possible to buy a handy moisture meter to make sure the wood is at the right moisture content. The number of wood suppliers is increasing and if you can find a local supplier who runs a sustainable wood then your carbon footprint shrinks greatly and keeps some people in work within your local economy. If you have your own woodland then a major element is removed from the process and you will know exactly what you are burning.
Is it all worth it? In our case the answer is a resounding yes but this outcome has only been achieved by following the points above. The most important point is to get the right stove for you and make sure it is a modern model. Don’t be tempted to buy on price alone and make sure you take advice from as many independent people as possible. The biggest advantage in comfort terms is that a closed stove can almost eliminate drafts. If you are buying a stove with more than a 5kw output an airbrick is required by building regulations so make sure that this is placed as near to the fire as possible.
The next advantage is in the savings you make when you no longer lose 90% of your heat up the chimney. These results will come whether you burn coal or wood. If you burn wood you should be able to reduce your carbon footprint and the amount of pollution involved in keeping yourself warm. Where we live we don’t have a gas supply and we would not install oil or LPG central heating on principle and price. That leaves us with electricity which is inefficient in the loss of energy involved in getting it to us and, unless consumption is at night, can be very expensive. Consequently we have night storage heaters and a night running immersion heater. The washing machine, washing up machine and the bread maker are all run at night whenever possible.
The wood burning stove when all the above factors are taken into account has made a great difference to our comfort, our carbon footprint and our emissions and brought our electricity bill down. It is our top ‘green’ installation after our update of the insulation and the installation of our hot water solar panel and heat store water tank. There is still quite a lot more to do but we manage to keep quite cosy at a reasonable cost.
See earlier posts:
Further posts will appear on sustainable fuel supplies, solar panels, the Yorkist ( or York) Stove etc
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