Adversary Politics and Land

Abstract

The focus of the book is a discussion of the adversary basis of party politics in Britain and its inimical impact on viable land policies since the Second World War. Particular emphasis is placed on the scope for, and basis of policy initiation by Conservative and Labour governments in the face of the cumulative social, economic, bureaucratic and political constraints which impinge on the policy-making process. Dr Cox argues that these constraints leave only a relatively limited room for manoeuvres by governments and that most of the post-war policies of Conservative and Labour governments have been initiated in ignorance of these constraints. As a consequence, post-war policies have failed in implementation either by generating property speculation or by hindering urban development.

Labour and the Land: The Making of the Community Land Act, 1976

“…131 In fact, Labour does not seem to have understood the modern property market and the way it was enmeshed with the financial industry. 132 Instead, past failures were interpreted not as a sign of error, but of timidity. As David Lipsey put it, for example, the Land Commission failed because it 'was not radical enough'.…”

Planning Gains, Providing Homes

“…Since then there have been two further national attempts to tax betterment, both at times of public concern about rising land prices, neither of which succeeded. The key lessons are that little betterment was collected, the administration was complex, tax avoidance was widespread, land was withheld from the market (in part in the hope of a change of government and hence policy) and inadequate funds were made available for public land banking to counteract land withholding (Cox, 1984;Hall et al, 1973).…”

“…Thus it is possible to conceive of planning gain as a site specific, locally negotiated betterment levy on development value which is hypothecated to meet local need through enforceable contracts. This approach to taxing development value has almost certainly raised far more than each of the three previous attempts to tax betterment through nationally determined and levied taxes (see the evidence for the latter in Cox, 1984;Cullingworth, 1980;Hall et al, 1973). This is for two reasons.…”

Regulating Time, Regulating Society: Control and Colonisation in the Sphere of Public Leisure Provision

“…This has largely been informed by the Thatcher-inspired break-up of the post-World War II liberal democratic consensus about the function of the public sector in (leisure) service provision (Cox, 1984;Coalter, Long & Duffield, 1986). As this consensus has been subjected to challenge, a number of positions regarding the public sector has emerged, from neo-Marxist regulation theory (Henry, 1993;Ravenscroft, 1998), to socialdemocratic constructivism (Coalter, 1995(Coalter, , 1998 and market-dominated pluralism (Roberts, 1978;Veal, 1989Veal, , 1998) and, we speculate here, a new form of consumer corporatism (Mcintosh, Leipziger, Jones, & Coleman, 1998;Parker, 1999).…”