The College of Estate Management’s special series of six lectures held last year have been published.*
In the first, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead talked about property in the Gladstone epoch. In 1875 Gladstone, aged 65 and living in a terrace in London, decided to move house. His ministerial salary of £5,000 (worth £250,000 today) having disappeared, he had £6,000 a year left, of which £5,000 was committed. The other residents in the terrace had an income of at least £25,000.
At that time, Lord Jenkins pointed out, steady house prices were the working assumption, regardless of an individual’s personal fortune. Gladstone got £35,000 (about £1.75m today) for the unexpired portion of the crown lease, which had 43 years of its 99-year lease to run. He found a suitable purchaser, Sir Arthur Guinness – “and thereby ensured that no 11 no longer dragged down the average income of the neighbourhood”.
The other speakers were less idiosyncratic. Lord Mackay, the Lord Chancellor, discussed the common law of property and contract and the need for a review that went back to basics.
Jocelyn Stevens talked about conservation: “To apply the same . . . protection to the major industrial or commercial buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries . . . as are applied to medieval churches or domestic Georgian structures is . . . unacceptable.”
Lord Walker said that it had been a disaster to split the departments of environment and transport. Walker was the first Secretary of State for the Environment.
Sir Richard Rogers drew on his Reith lectures: “Our aim must be to search for a dynamic equilibrium between society, cities and nature.
Finally, the Bank of England’s Eddie George argued the case for permanently low inflation as the basis for sustained expansion.
* People, property and prosperity. College of Estate Management, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AW.
