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undisambiguated
my objection is the pretense that it's notYou are, you've been seeking to make this a debate about gentrification from the start.
my objection is the pretense that it's notYou are, you've been seeking to make this a debate about gentrification from the start.
Just why would walking cycling and air quality groups campaign for them if they’re all about property owner self interest?horses and carts. Stop pretending I'm trying to promote some agenda. I'm not.
I have nothing to push, but I think it's worth trying to highlight the negative effects of what the council is seeking to impose and you're busy championing.
The LTN schemes have not been designed to move towards 'a more equal society', though they should have been. Just the opposite, they're about property owner self interest and they will further entrench inequality as a predictable consequence. If your intention really is to deal with inequality and inequity of opportunity there are an awful lot of initiatives much higher up any list of ways to achieve it.
my objection is the pretense that it's not
I've argued this is about insiders and outsiders, so I'm not too surprised residents around the edges would prefer to be inside. I've also said that I see no reason to doubt the various residents share attitudes to traffic and peace and quiet, irrespective of their tenure. None the less, in terms of material benefits insider owner occupiers and landlords will benefit more than tenants.You were complaining about anecdata earlier - what do you to support that?
I live in a LA managed housing estate in the LTN. I’ve not met a neighbour who is against it (yet), most have been saying that they’ve been badgering Jim Dickson about this for a few years (some since the No 3 bus route was diverted from its old route down Rymer Road if you remember that) and wanted to expand it to include Hurst Street into it too.
so don't improve anywhere because it will make some places better than other places? Keep Brixton Shit!People who bought a home on a street with through traffic campaign to remove that through traffic, then they reap a clear material benefit when they come to sell. Pretty clear gentrification in action.
so don't improve anywhere because it will make some places better than other places? Keep Brixton Shit!
Every street must be equally polluted. If theres anywhere that's nice at the moment that's historic privilege - we should find a way to open it up to heavy motor traffic so it becomes shit too.
It's not really a positive manifesto, is it?
wow! I didn't know that. Puts it all in perspective.In my LJ neighbourhood the things required to make it less "Shit" are properly funded youth services.
There is an agreed plan with local community for improving the Loughborough road /CHL junction. One that all the community support.
This would improve LJ. Make it less "shit" in way that community support.
Now community has been told it wont happen. So stuck with Brixton Liveable Neighbourhood bollocks.
Apparently the scheme was to "expensive".
Despite being what the community wants.
wow! I didn't know that. Puts it all in perspective.
In my LJ neighbourhood the things required to make it less "Shit" are properly funded youth services.
There is an agreed plan with local community for improving the Loughborough road /CHL junction. One that all the community support.
This would improve LJ. Make it less "shit" in way that community support.
Now community has been told it wont happen. So stuck with Brixton Liveable Neighbourhood bollocks.
Apparently the scheme was to "expensive".
Despite being what the community wants.
I fully accept it's contentious but what makes it nuts exactly?What about if this scheme involved something even more politically contentious and basically nuts like increasing council tax bands for houses within LNs?
You seem to be saying that because Lambeth have failed to deliver other things, therefore we shouldn't have this thing. It doesn't follow, as far as I can see.
As I think you know, the funding for the LN stuff comes from TfL. So I don't think it's exactly the case that money is being spent on this instead of other things. Abandoning the LN schemes would not suddenly make a load of cash available for other stuff.
The LN schemes should be judged on their own merits. As someone who lives here, we are stuck with Lambeth Council. We can all complain about Lambeth. I myself resent Lambeth for making a hash of the earlier LJ scheme, and various other things. Nothing can ever happen if people oppose something because Lambeth are involved. Because nothing like this can happen through any other means. The alternative is simply for nothing to happen - that is the pragmatic view.
Some people might be of the view that it would be better for nothing to change. That these schemes are so terrible, that they will create something worse than doing nothing. Fair enough if they think that, in which case, say that. But talking about how things could be better if they were better, ie if we were in some hypothetical parallel universe where Lambeth were marvellously competent and there was decent funding for everything, doesn't get anyone anywhere, and seems just serve as a diversion from discussing what's actually on the table.
Isn't there a lot of whataboutery going on here? What about if Lambeth funded the adventure playground properly (from a different funding pot)? What about if this scheme involved something even more politically contentious and basically nuts like increasing council tax bands for houses within LNs?
Also, when arguments against are relying on Lambeth's bad implementation of these schemes - that's reasonable to criticise their implementation, I've no problem with that, but also worth bearing in mind that what is being "imposed" is not actually some hairbrained project thought up by Lambeth - it's implementation of London-wide, long term transport planning policy, developed by the Mayor's office and TfL. I fully expect various aspects of the way it is put in place to be messed up by lambeth but the basic principles are fairly well thought through and documented in TfL policy. And NB that the funding from TfL seems to be conditional on the actual results of the changes being monitored and reviewed.
You seem to be saying that because Lambeth have failed to deliver other things, therefore we shouldn't have this thing. It doesn't follow, as far as I can see.
As I think you know, the funding for the LN stuff comes from TfL. So I don't think it's exactly the case that money is being spent on this instead of other things. Abandoning the LN schemes would not suddenly make a load of cash available for other stuff.
The LN schemes should be judged on their own merits. As someone who lives here, we are stuck with Lambeth Council. We can all complain about Lambeth. I myself resent Lambeth for making a hash of the earlier LJ scheme, and various other things. Nothing can ever happen if people oppose something because Lambeth are involved. Because nothing like this can happen through any other means. The alternative is simply for nothing to happen - that is the pragmatic view.
Some people might be of the view that it would be better for nothing to change. That these schemes are so terrible, that they will create something worse than doing nothing. Fair enough if they think that, in which case, say that. But talking about how things could be better if they were better, ie if we were in some hypothetical parallel universe where Lambeth were marvellously competent and there was decent funding for everything, doesn't get anyone anywhere, and seems just serve as a diversion from discussing what's actually on the table.
Isn't there a lot of whataboutery going on here? What about if Lambeth funded the adventure playground properly (from a different funding pot)? What about if this scheme involved something even more politically contentious and basically nuts like increasing council tax bands for houses within LNs?
Also, when arguments against are relying on Lambeth's bad implementation of these schemes - that's reasonable to criticise their implementation, I've no problem with that, but also worth bearing in mind that what is being "imposed" is not actually some hairbrained project thought up by Lambeth - it's implementation of London-wide, long term transport planning policy, developed by the Mayor's office and TfL. I fully expect various aspects of the way it is put in place to be messed up by lambeth but the basic principles are fairly well thought through and documented in TfL policy. And NB that the funding from TfL seems to be conditional on the actual results of the changes being monitored and reviewed.
Because council tax ought to be based on ability to pay (using house value as a proxy for this, in theory). If you are someone who bought their house in Brixton 30 or 40 years ago, then a change in value of your house only really affects your wealth if and when you sell it and move to a different area. If you cash in on this increase in value, then that's what capital gains tax is for. You are suggesting that someone like that should suddenly be taxed more, when none of their financial circumstances have changed, and because some improvements have been made to their local environment. If anything that sounds like accelerating gentrification - make some improvements, then crank up the cost of living there through increasing taxes.I fully accept it's contentious but what makes it nuts exactly?
Please explain in detail why some property owners should be given not only an improved environment or quality of life but also free money as extra capital gains. When others, as Gramsci has said, get worse traffic and no such gain?
Pretty much yes.Its part of London wide project that is well thouught out by TFL and Mayor and the Council are just the contractors getting it done?
Because it's part of the policy to carry out consultations as part of the process.So why the pretence of consultation if that is the case?
Pretty much yes.
Because it's part of the policy to carry out consultations as part of the process.
There isn't any capital gains tax on main homes, as you well know, nor are Council Tax bands based on ability to pay, as you also know. So apart from some pointless distraction about a tiny subset of the local owners, the ones who've bucked all the trends and stayed around for a long time, you haven't said anything.Because council tax ought to be based on ability to pay (using house value as a proxy for this, in theory). If you are someone who bought their house in Brixton 30 or 40 years ago, then a change in value of your house only really affects your wealth if and when you sell it and move to a different area. If you cash in on this increase in value, then that's what capital gains tax is for. You are suggesting that someone like that should suddenly be taxed more, when none of their financial circumstances have changed, and because some improvements have been made to their local environment. If anything that sounds like accelerating gentrification - make some improvements, then crank up the cost of living there through increasing taxes.
Of course in your caricature version of gentrification Brixton, all houses within LNs are owned by blow-in yuppies who've bought them with loands from their wealthy parents, and everyone living outside of them is... something else, so these concerns wouldn't arise.
There isn't any capital gains tax on main homes, as you well know, nor are Council Tax bands based on ability to pay, as you also know. So apart from some pointless distraction about a tiny subset of the local owners, the ones who've bucked all the trends and stayed around for a long time, you haven't said anything.
Do you want to try again and explain why some property owners should get both publically funded environmental improvements and enhanced capital gains yet not pay any extra Council Tax?
It's not me caricaturing: the proposed Victorian street LTNs are a patchwork of social housing, private landlords (who are by definition wealthy) and owner occupiers the majority of whom are well off people who did not grow up in the area. I've said all this before. That's how it is and has been for a long time. Other parts of the borough, of London, of the country have very different profiles.
So the consultation is bollox really.
TFL and Mayor Sadiq have asked Labour Council to get there plans for transport done.
TFL and Mayor really want the scheme ( which is part of london wide plan) put in place.
Kind of makes local democracy redundant.
Right. And yet, you're pushing forward a plan that clearly rewards some already wealthy insider property owners for doing nothing except put me me me pins on a map, and that makes no provision for any sort of mechanism by which anyone other than those property owners gains any material benefits, though some outsiders will lose, both materially and environmentally.. And you and your fellow campaigners have pushed back against any mention of gentrification, inequality and so on. Benefits are for all you've kept saying because that's what's in the script, when it's obviously not so.I don't disagree that if people make huge financial gains through property increasing in value, whether through the luck of the market or through public investment in local infrastructure, then this should be taxed.
Of course it's simplified, but it's well established.And if I think about the various houses I've lived in in and around Brixton, who the landlords were, and who the neighbours were, it doesn't match your picture where the majority of owners are recent arrivals and wealthy. I can't provide any hard evidence, but I doubt you can either. I think your picture is massively over-simplified.
So the consultation is bollox really.
looks like it. Both the replies have patted you on the head and told you that it's going to happen whether anyone likes it or not.So the consultation is bollox really.
You are for whatever reason focused on material benefits. I am focused on all the other benefits, which apply to loads more people than the property owners you keep going on about. Those other benefits are more important in my opinion. You keep claiming that the driving force behind the scheme is primarily monetary gains for property owners who happen to be inside the LNs. I do not believe that is what is motivating this. Clearly we'll never agree on that. I don't deny that an effect of some of these schemes may be that some people make an (unquantifiable) monetary gain. I don't have a problem in principle with things that might try to adjust that - although I don't really have any workable ideas for quite how you achieve that.makes no provision for any sort of mechanism by which anyone other than those property owners gains any material benefits,