A Real-Live Worst-Case Scenario

Needing a bit of a break from being a bit of a one topic blogger recently (you have signed the petition haven't you?) I did what bloggers often do and set out looking for something to write about.

My first target was this ariticle found via Greenie Watch. Essentially it outlines that the famous “Hockey Stick” graph that forms the foundation for a lot of global warming theory (see Chasing the Unicorn) is not only faulty but based on falsified statistical analysis.

But then also on Greenie Watch I found a link to this article from the Times Online. It was one of those “Just when I'm getting out. They pull me back in” kind of moments.

Bulldozing thousands of historic Victorian terraces, concreting over green fields, giving the nod to a tower block that will shadow the Houses of Parliament. It's all in a day's work for John Prescott the deputy prime minister, reports Richard Girling

John Prescott has had a busy month. Ten days ago, at a symposium in a hotel near Accrington, his department reaffirmed its determination to flatten thousands of Victorian houses in northern England. On Monday Prescott announced changes to the planning system that would nullify local democracy and accelerate the building of 1.1m homes in London and the southeast. On Wednesday, against the opposition of his own advisers, he gave permission for the tallest block of flats in Europe to be built over shadowing Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

Prescott is the worst case scenario in the abuse of eminent domain and the sheer horror of central planning. This man's policies make Kelo look like fixing a parking ticket. Dangling cash incentives, Prescott's Pathfinder regeneration plans entice local governments to demolish anything and everything.

However, there was a snag. To earn their Pathfinder grants, local authorities would have to “deliver” demolition quotas. To meet Prescott’s aim of creating “sustainable communities”, people would have to have their homes knocked down. The more typically northern a street — terrace houses, corner shops, pubs — the more certainly it faced the wrecking ball.

Cash-hungry councils immediately issued compulsory purchase orders on grids of historic Victorian terraces. This blighted local markets and created the very conditions — rock-bottom property prices and zero demand — that were supposed to trigger the clearances in the first place. Owners were offered compensation at current market rates which, being depressed by the threat of demolition, gave them no hope of affording another house.

And it would seem that there is no consideration that will stand in the way of this progress.

At nearby Darwen, owners of recently refurbished properties, some of them newly mortgaged with unblemished structural surveys, were informed that their homes were unfit for habitation. It made no difference that English Heritage, the government’s own official adviser, suggested that in general it was more cost- efficient to restore Victorian houses than to replace them; or that Brian Clancy, a past president of the Institution of Structural Engineers, examined in detail a sample of eight condemned Darwen houses and could find nothing wrong with them. One was “an ideal little first-time buyer house”; others were “an absolute palace” and “an absolutely wonderful property”.

I understand it is quite a stretch to get from Kelo to Prescott, but the cliche goes that every journey starts with the first step. We have taken that one step forward. Now we need take two steps back. And while I understand the thinking that this can't happen here and that arguing its possibility would be exercise in dramatics I think the tale of John Prescott underscores the need to protect our property rights. Just because it is unlikely to ever get that bad here, doesn't mean that it can't get worse than it is today.

Protect property rights. Sign the petition.

Technorati Tags: Eminent Domain, Kelo, Property Rights, property-rights, Supreme Court

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 03:42 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment