Yielding to single-issue bullies, defending Britain’s shores and seeking a new planner for Birmingham concerns John Gummer this week
It is not often that one hears about estate agents being pushovers when there’s money to be made. Therefore I was surprised to hear about an incident in my own patch in Suffolk. The Abbotts chain, which operates all over East Anglia, was planning to let out their disused cattle market site to a consortium of farmers. They had it on their books, they had a tenant – dot a few i’s and the deal is done. Or so you would think…
The whole enterprise was aborted by animal rights activists, whose delicate sensibilities were offended by the prospect of a re-opened market. So they they sent letters threatening both the site and the lives and property of Abbotts’ employees, despite the fact that the market was to be run according to the best welfare standards and that, without it, livestock has to travel on longer and much more stressful journeys.
Sadly, Abbotts, instead of facing down the bullies, backed down and spiked the deal. The company thought it would be the way to protect its staff. In fact, of course, it has done the opposite. It has endangered both it and others. Now that Abbotts is known to be an easy touch, there’s no telling what the next demand will be. What is more, by giving way, it has put all the employees of every other estate agency which runs a cattle market at greater risk.
There’s an issue for firms outside the rural areas, too. This time it was the animal rights brigade, but it could just as well be the militant Greens on a construction site. These are different groups but the same problem applies, and one which the property industry needs to take very seriously. After months working to close a deal and years in planning departments, the whole shooting match can be torpedoed by a small group who put their own views above any democratic process.
I yield to no one in my support for the right to protest, but civil rights are not there to give carte blanche to the bully. There is only one answer to the blackmailer and it is NO! Anything else encourages more extreme action and endangers more lives and property.
The threatening seas
Great Britain is a threatened island. No, I haven’t been won over by the Euro-sceptics! It is just that the huge cliff-fall at Beachy Head has yet again reminded us of the power of the sea. Hundreds of thousands of tons have fallen into the water in the biggest landslip in hundreds of years of records. Happily, neither lives nor property were lost, but that was luck, not judgment. All round the south and east coasts the sea is pounding ever more fiercely, and climate change means that waves in the Atlantic have risen by 3m (10ft) in the past 10 years. As the land is sinking at the same time, the effect on Great Britain is dramatic.
The property industry has a stake in the protection of our coastal areas. Thousands of homes are in danger and the situation is getting worse. Yet the Ministry of Agriculture has slashed the grants for sea defence work. Local authorities that used to get 70% have to get by on 50%. Many of them are small and underfunded and yet the threat is huge and the remedy expensive. From Yorkshire (remember the Scarborough Hotel that fell into the sea?), round the East Anglian coast to Kent and Sussex, towns and buildings are now seriously at risk.
All this strikes home to me, not just because I represent 119km (74 miles) of threatened coastline but because 12 years ago I was the first minister in the world to insist that we take global warming into account in planning the height of our sea defences. As a result, this island is uniquely well prepared. We must not waste that asset but face up to the cost of protecting “this blessed plot, this England”.
Genius sought in Birmingham
It is sad to see that, after eight years of sterling work, Les Sparks OBE, director of planning and architecture at Birmingham, is moving on. His time there has been among the most exciting in the city’s history. Apart from changing Motorway City into a place with squares, park benches and bistros, he has given a purpose to the Birmingham operation which will be sorely missed.
Developers have found Birmingham much more friendly towards exciting schemes during the past 10 years. It has become, and is becoming, a showpiece to quieten the grumblings about the difficulty of brownfield development. Theresa Stewart, Birmingham’s Labour leader, will need to work hard to find someone with Sparks’ grasp of inner-city problems. I can only hope that she can find a successor with the same entrepreneurial flair.
