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Lesson 1 - How can economic activities be classified

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Why do inequalities exist in different employment sectors (3)

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The area around the Park is home to some of the most exciting residential developments in the city.

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East London History, Facts About The East End

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The East End of London has seen more changes than most other areas in the city in recent years. Following severe damage during the Second World War, much of the area was rebuilt.

Despite this fact, the area did not ever really regain its former status as a hub of docklands industry.

The Olympics and the Regeneration of the East End

Recently, parts of the East End have been transformed once again after the London 2012 Olympics, which were held in Stratford.

The East End before the 2012 Olympics

Despite post-war regeneration, parts of the East End remained run-down and relatively deprived compared to other areas in the capital. It had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and real issues with crime and there were not many local prospects for the people living in and around Stratford in particular.

But, the East End had something that much of London simply could not offer - land and space. There was the potential for development and a local population that could benefit from more housing that was built to a better standard and more jobs for local people. It was estimated before redevelopment started that the initiative could create over 3,000 jobs and around 4,000 new homes in and around Stratford thus improving the lives of many locals.

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

The heart of the 2012 Olympics was the Olympic Park itself. This housed many of the game's venues and the athlete's village. Located in Stratford, the park was renamed after the games to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in honour of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, which also took place in 2012. During the games it was home to the main stadium, the Aquatics centre, the velodrome and various other venues.

The park also housed the Orbit - this is an artwork that is also used as an observation tower for visitors. Many visitors used the tower to get a fantastic view over the Olympic Park during the games. It has two viewing platforms set at 76m and 80m.

The aim of the park build was not just to give the Olympics a home for a few weeks during the summer - the project was all about legacy as well. The park was designed to play a long-term role in the regeneration of the East End and in the sporting and recreational facilities available to locals, other Londoners and visitors.

New transport and shopping links

In order to manage the many visitors who would come to the Olympics, the East End's transport and services infrastructure needed to be worked on quite a lot. It wasn't enough to build a park full of brand-new venues; people had to have easy access to the East End and to better shopping facilities.

The station areas at Stratford were developed, bringing in high-speed trains and new connections that could get visitors from central London to the Olympic Park quickly, effectively and in mass numbers in less than 10 minutes. Surrounding tubes and bus services were also improved.

Stratford shopping centre, which was old and more than a little jaded turned into a large Westfield centre, offering more upmarket shops, restaurants and services for both visitors and the locals who would continue shopping there once the games were over.

East London after the 2012 Olympics

Stratford locals will benefit from the existing infrastructure in the area that was built for 2012, including the better transport connections and shopping centre. Athlete accommodation is also being turned into new housing.

The original Olympic Park is being redesigned with facilities opening gradually over the next few years. The stadium itself will be used for various sporting events and concerts. It is the home of the Rugby World Cup in 2015. After that, it will be used jointly by West Ham football club, who are moving to Stratford from their current stadium at that point, and UK athletics.

Some of the other Olympic venues will also stay in place, although some may be reduced in size and adapted. The Copper Box arena is now home to the London Lions basketball team and offers a sports hall and gym facilities for locals. The Aquatics centre will be open to the public for swimming and water sports as well as event and there will be a hockey and tennis centre and a VeloPark.

From 2014 visitors will once again be able to go up the Orbit. It will also be possible to hire the tower for private functions and events.

The park was originally also designed as a nature area and this will be preserved into the future. The north end of the build will be a public park, full of different plants and wildlife. This area of the park will also have a café and a Tumbling Bay playground and activity area for the kids.

East London History - East End Facts

I grew up on the fringes of London's true East End and have been fascinated by the ever changing history and landscape of the area.

Visitors and tourists to London may only ever explore the City centre but for those that care to travel further east, a rich and rewarding travel adventure awaits. So much of London's history owes a debt to the East End. Colourful characters, famous architecture, hidden treasures of changing life over the years.

Author by Malcolm Oakley.

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2012 Olympics, Regeneration of East London

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The East End of London has seen more changes than most other areas in the city in recent years. Following severe damage during the Second World War, much of the area was rebuilt. Despite this fact, the area did not ever really regain its former status as a hub of docklands industry.

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There are many aspects to London's Olympic legacy: more people playing sports, new public facilities, world-class venues, a squeezed public purse. But what have been the experiences of the people in Stratford who saw the Olympics come and go and live in its wake?

We asked residents to share their stories of how the regeneration and local changes have impacted them. From £5 cappuccinos to a new local swimming pool, have we seen the loss of the "real" East End or the transformation of a former wasteland into an oasis of urban beauty?

In the ten years since I moved to the area I've seen it change dramatically. Mostly for the better - the Queen Elizabeth Park is a fresh alternative to our other green space, Victoria Park. You can let the kids go nuts for a couple of hours in the playspaces, hire a bike for a couple of hours or just grab a picnic and enjoy the peace surrounding the wetlands areas...But not all change is for the better. It no longer feels "East End" anymore. With every shiny new bulding that's gone up, a little bit of the character that gave Stratford its appeal is disappearing.

The old locals that would regale you with stories of the East End in days gone by as soon as you sat down with a cup of tea are long gone. The market stalls in the Stratford centre are slowly being replaced with ones selling artisan breads and posh cheeses...As much as I love living a hop, skip and a jump away from shops that would normally mean a schlep up to the West End, a swanky new cinema and a beautiful new open space to explore, there will always be a part of me that misses the working class, slightly tatty but much loved Stratford of my childhood. (TishyP)

I can't help but feel that Newham residents are somehow missing out. To me there is a clear divide of "them and us" and that started when Westfield was opened and that part of Stratford was declared "Stratford City" with an E20 postcode with Stratford High Street as the dividing line! There is a terrible problem with social housing, with many people living in overcrowded accommodation, myself included!...Then there's the social cleansing! If you are unemployed forget about being put on Newham's housing register. I myself witnessed an elderly couple in retirement age being told that they would be moved out of the borough as there wasn't accommodation for them in the borough! There is numerous stories like this happening in Newham, yet all the while big plush, luxury apartments are being built, that no-one in Newham would be able to afford! It feels as though the undesirables are being moved out to make way for the desirables. (Longlashes79)

House prices have become very silly to put it mildly. If you are on a low income then you won't stand a chance of buying your own home. Today I can buy a cappuccino for £5. This is E17 not Park Lane. Under all the hype there are still very real social problems that were here before the regeneration and still remain today that I feel are deliberately being swept under the carpet. (Ruth Kosminsky)

One in every 35 Londoners is a dollar millionaire, new study shows

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'This is east London, not Park Lane': Stratford's regeneration, in your words

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You told us what the Olympic-led transformation has really been like for you in London's East End, from cherished public parks to £5 cappuccinos and accusations of social cleansing

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What makes a place successful or unsuccessful (1) (7)

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Bold plans to invest £68m to transform Middlesbrough and create 5,000 jobs could turn the town into the "city centre of Teesside".

An ambitious Media and Innovation Village forms the centrepiece of the proposals which also includes large scale further regeneration of the town centre.

Middlesbrough Council will stump up the £68m over the next four years - which it hopes will trigger £625m worth of total investment into the town.

Under the plans, around 4,250 direct jobs will be created when new office space is built close to Centre Square, at the snow centre planned for Middlehaven, and at a raft of supporting developments - with around 750 more in the supply chain.

The authority has committed to building 5,500 homes - made up of high quality executive housing, 'quality city centre private rented' accommodation, and affordable housing.

More than 57 hectares of land will be regenerated for business and housing use, with 1.7million sq ft of business space to be developed.

And the council hopes that the striking plan, the Middlesbrough Investment Prospectus launched by Mayor Dave Budd and interim chief executive Tony Parkinson, will come to fruition by 2020.

So what's a Media and Innovation Village?

It's the most ambitious part of the council's plans to transform Middlesbrough and could create a "mini Salford Quays on Teesside," according to Mr Parkinson.

Council chiefs say there are no fixed plans for the exact businesses it could contain, but a cinema, bars, cafes and restaurants are the sorts of firms that it could attract.

And the council says that Cleveland College of Art & Design, currently based in Linthorpe, is interested in moving to the site in the future.

Developed by New River, which owns the Hill Street Centre, it would be built on the current Middlesbrough Bus Station, which would be relocated to a "more compact but enhanced" location nearby.

The council also wants to provide a Four Star hotel offer in Middlesbrough and could look at this site - or Middlehaven.

What are the rest of the plans?

The council has produced the Middlesbrough Investment Prospectus - setting out what it aims to do to transform the town, looking at seven areas of development and growth:

Teesside Media and Innovation Village

Middlehaven

The Commercial and Cultural District - high quality office space on land close to Centre Square

Business and Enterprise

Redeveloping the railway station, Albert Road and other historic buildings

Supporting the student village at Gresham as part of the University quarter

Build more than 5,500 homes to raise an extra £5m in council tax revenue.

Enterprise Zone

After the success of Bedford and Baker Streets, the council is hoping to encourage business growth on Albert Road by creating an Enterprise Zone.

This greatly reduces the cost of setting up a business by providing rates relief and will provide an incentive for private owners to redevelop and let buildings on Albert Road, which has fallen into disrepair over the past 20 years.

That's especially important as it's a gateway from the Railway Station - which will be redeveloped by Network Rail and the council - through to proposed developments at Centre Square and the rest of the town centre.

A direct train to and from London is part of the plan for the station, while making greater use of the town's historic buildings and redeveloping the Cornerhouse building is also on the agenda.

Will the council build on Centre Square?

There are plans to create modern, high quality office space that can attract the biggest businesses - and create 1,500 jobs.

But that development will be on land near the crown court and the duck pond, leaving the main central square as public land - and enhancements are planned.

The council wants to attract a large business to Teesside and needs the right offices to do that - saying that older office blocks, such as Centre North East and Church House, are no longer fit for purpose.

And most large office spaces - including CNE and Church House, as well as Reed House and Crowne House among others - have either been redeveloped for a different use, or the council are in discussions over their futures.

This sort of development will make Middlesbrough the "city centre" of Teesside, says Mayor Budd, and will be the catalyst for more retail, leisure and food businesses and supply chain jobs such as cleaning.

What about Middlehaven - is the snow centre still going ahead?

Plans are "right on track" for the snow centre, after a planning application was submitted this summer.

The £30m development would create 350 jobs - but its role as a major tourist attraction is integral to help drive visitors to Middlesbrough and encourage other businesses to the town.

And 20 hectares of public land at Middlehaven is ready for development - while the council is also supporting ongoing expansions at Middlesbrough College.

It's not all the town centre though

The council is also planning on investing money to launch the Hemlington Grange Business Park, which is where the new Cleveland Police headquarters will be based and close to a raft of new housing developments. Modelled on Stokesley Business Park, the council says research shows there is a strong need for the development which should create 750 jobs.

It is also supporting the Teesside Advanced Manufacturing Park, the growth of DigitalCity and the Boho Zone at Middlehaven.

How will it be paid for?

The council says since the confirmation of the four-year Local Government Settlement, it can effectively plan its budget in the medium term and commit to borrowing some of the funds to kickstart the regeneration.

Money will also come from the sale of some council assets, including land for development.

It says once Government funding ends it needs to raise its own revenue - and needs a strong, thriving economy and more people paying council tax to fill the coffers to allow it to provide essential services.

Mayor Dave Budd said: "These are still tough economic times, and the council and the town as a whole have felt the impact of savage budget cuts.

"But the period of austerity has only strengthened our resolve to ensure Middlesbrough continues to look to the future with considerable confidence."

When will this happen - and how likely is it?

Bosses are confident that all of the developments will go ahead, and all but the Media and Innovation Village will be near enough completed by 2020.

Talks are ongoing with developers in each area.

Much rests with the success of the snow centre development, which will be a huge attraction that could be the trigger for a host of other developments.

But all of the projects depend on one another, which is why the council has produced its wide ranging prospectus to transfer its confidence to the business community.

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The £68m bid to turn Middlesbrough into Teesside's 'city centre'

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Bold plans to invest £68m to transform Middlesbrough and create 5,000 jobs could turn the town into the "city centre of Teesside". An ambitious Media and Innovation Village forms the centrepiece of the proposals which also includes large scale further regeneration of the town centre.

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Durham Cathedral, Gatehead's BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Arts and the Tees Transporter Bridge are some of the most iconic landmarks of the North East, where a lifestyle offering culture, country, city and coast also has some of the lowest UK house prices.

The typical property in this corner of England costs £123,781, according to Land Registry data, almost seven per cent lower than a decade ago, while the national average has increased by 23 per cent to £218,255 over the same period.

Lagging behind the region in terms of quality and choice of housing stock is Middlesbrough, where the average home costs £105,754 - almost £20,000 less than in 2007 and considerably cheaper than Newcastle or Gateshead. But the city is on a mission to catch up.

The exodus of Middlesbrough's city-centre residents began in the Eighties, when the industrial works and docks began to close, buy-to-let investors moved in and property values started to drop due to poor tenancies and a lack of jobs.

Credit: Alamy

Now, the private rental sector accounts for a quarter of the housing stock in some parts of the town. "The level of private rent in Middlesbrough, the North East and other Tees Valley authorities has been growing at a very considerable rate," says Kevin Parkes, the city's executive director of economic development and communities. "For Middlesbrough, from 1981 to 1991 it ran from 4 per cent to 8 per cent, and from 1991 to 2001 it nearly doubled again." Middlesbrough's market stagnated as homeowners moved to nearby Stockton and Ingleby Barwick in the hunt for higher-end homes - leaving behind a city with more than half its properties in the lowest band of council tax, for values up to £40,000.

A little over five years ago, Middlesbrough Council took action, releasing land for development to the south of the city. The plan was to build pricier properties and keep wealthier people within its borders, with new offices, shops and parks to create jobs and attract residents.

"We transferred the wealth in one part of the town to help us with regeneration to the north of the town, where we have a lot of deprivation," says Parkes.

More than half the 1,500 units built during the past two years in the Middlesbrough region are council tax band D or above (for homes valued at £68,000 or higher), such the David Wilson development at Nunthorpe, to the south east of the city. Fourand five-bedroom detached houses at Grey Towers Village range from £439,995 to £699,995.

Credit: FAT Architecture

One of Middlesbrough's main problems is that its housing stock lacks variety - not just at the higher end of the market, but also for first-time buyers. "We don't have the product for those young, skilled graduates who are looking for that urban living," Parkes says. "Tyneside has been very successful at building the apartment market recently. That's one thing we're keen to address, putting more types of product into the market."

The development of 140-acre Middlehaven, one of the North East's largest regeneration schemes, has been working to fill this hole since 2003. The riverside scheme, managed by Middlesbrough Council and the Homes and Communities Agency, includes state-of-the-art schools and colleges, a youth centre, plenty of park space, retail units, office buildings, start-up hubs and new homes.

These aren't your run-of-the-mill property developments. The Urban Pioneers project by North Star Housing Group invites local builders, small developers and entrepreneurial individuals to custom-build homes on a park-side plot near the foot of the Transporter Bridge.

Nearby, under the shadow of the Riverside football stadium and Anish Kapoor's Temenos sculpture, is Community in a Cube, an 82-unit, sustainable housing project designed by FAT Architecture.

Overall, the council has pledged to build more than 5,500 homes in various regeneration zones across Middlesbrough, which would increase council tax revenue by £5million and provide local digs for the thousands of students, staff and shoppers drawn to the revitalised city and who have been priced out of other corners of the country.

"I struggle to have sympathy when people talk about lack of affordable housing in the South East," says Ian Baggett, chief executive and founder of North East developer Adderstone Group. "My answer to that would be, you don't have to live there."

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Up the Boro: How Middlesbrough is building a new future

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Durham Cathedral, Gatehead's BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Arts and the Tees Transporter Bridge are some of the most iconic landmarks of the North East, where a lifestyle offering culture, country, city and coast also has some of the lowest UK house prices.

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A moment that changed me: walking home through the London riots in 2011

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The role of government in regeneration (6)

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Labour has cast doubt on the future of HS2 but just what are the arguments for and against a new high-speed rail link between London and the north of England?

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls still supports the government's scheme but warned there should be no blank cheque.

So what are the main arguments?

For: It will help bridge the north-south divide

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg says the government is "healing the north-south divide" by investing in High Speed 2. Chancellor George Osborne predicts the Y-shaped line will be "the engine for growth in the north and the Midlands".

The first phase between London and Birmingham will open in 2026. A V-shaped second section will be added in 2033, going to Manchester and Leeds. The government says it expects 70% of jobs created to be outside London. A government-commissioned report by accountants KPMG suggests that the Midlands and north will benefit more than the capital.

The West Midlands will gain most in absolute terms with a rise of £1.5bn-£3.1bn in output in 2037. The East Midlands will gain most in percentage terms - between 2.2% and 4.3% increase in output in 2037. The real regeneration benefit comes from shrinking journey times between cities in the Midlands and north of England, supporters argue.

Leeds to Birmingham is slashed from 1 hour 58 minutes to just 57 minutes. The East Midlands hub at Toton is 19 minutes from Birmingham. Manchester to Birmingham more than halves from 88 to 41 minutes.

London gains from the line (by 0.5% a year) but less than the cities on HS2 to the north, says KPMG report author Lewis Atter. "The reality is that cities compete with each other. And while London is more productive it is also more expensive." Other parts of the UK not on the line but close enough to benefit from freed up rail capacity also gain by 0.5% a year, he says. But places far away from the line - Wales for example - will probably lose out economically, he says.

Counter-argument: Academics disagree over whether high-speed rail helps or hinders deprived regions. Prof John Tomaney at University College London's Bartlett School of Planning says in France, Spain and South Korea the evidence suggests it is capitals that benefit by sucking more wealth to the centre. He believes that the main effect of HS2 is that Birmingham will become part of the South East labour market.

Two of Tomaney's colleagues at UCL disagree over the research. Prof Peter Hall and Chia-Lin Chen say the Inter-City 125 network boosted cities within two hours of London. And when the TGV brought Lille within one hour of Paris, it morphed into a knowledge-economy city.

But it's a mixed picture. "High-speed rail does not always help old one-industry cities like Doncaster and Newport. And it can boost major cities - Manchester, Leeds, Lille - at the expense of their surrounding old-industrialised regions," wrote Hall.

Tim Harford, author of the Undercover Economist Strikes Back, says history does not support HS2's regeneration claims. From the horse and cart onwards, transport improvements tend to lead to urbanisation and a greater concentration of wealth. So will HS2 have this effect? "Pure theory makes it hard to know. But experience suggests we'll see more agglomeration," says Harford. He believes it would make more sense to improve transport between northern cities rather than include London.

The most ingenious suggestion - made by think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research - is to reverse the construction phases.

Begin with the V-shaped line linking Manchester and Leeds with Birmingham. London to Birmingham could be added later. It would give the north a head start and counter claims - at least initially - that the line would suck investment to the capital. Temporary upgrades on London commuter lines could be used in the interim to ward off overcrowding. Research last year showed that 89% of plans for investment in transport infrastructure have been allocated to projects in London and the South East. Starting in the north would redress the balance.

Against: There's no idea what the final bill will be

Until this summer, HS2 was priced at £32.7bn. But in June the government revised its estimate up by a further £10bn to a maximum of £42.6bn. Rolling stock is expected to cost another £7.5bn.

The Department for Transport says it will not necessarily use the entire £42.6bn, which includes a large contingency fund. It has set HS2 Ltd, the company it owns, a target price of £17.1bn for phase 1 (London to Birmingham). That contains a small contingency fund. But in case of unforeseen problems, the upper limit for phase 1 is £21.4bn, with £21.2bn for phase two. £14.4bn of the £42.6bn budget is contingency money.

The London Olympics, which organisers claim came in under budget, might make people wary. When London's bid was chosen in 2005 it was supposed to cost £2.4bn. In 2007 it was revised up to £9.35bn.

It ended up costing £8.77bn, less than its final budget but more than three-and-a-half times the original budget.

The Public Accounts select committee is alarmed by spiralling costs - from more than £16bn to £21bn plus for phase one - and the fact that contingency spending accounts for a third of the total budget.

Free market think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) has suggested the cost could rise to £80bn. But that figure was reached by adding in lobbying from local councils for extra infrastructure and design changes.

Some Treasury officials are using the figure of £73bn - by adding VAT and inflation over the 20 year project. But this has been interpreted as being an artificial accounting method.

Counter-argument: Government investment in capital projects is £50bn a year, says Atter. This project is spread over 20 years so equates to just 10 months of that budget, he argues.

That's still too much for Alistair Darling, who as chancellor in the last government supported the scheme. The cost has risen too high, he wrote recently. "There are better ways to spend £50bn than on one line."

A Department for Transport spokeswoman dismisses "scare stories" of the project costing £70bn plus. "We need to build HS2 within or under budget. We will."

For: It will boost the UK economy

There are no shortage of optimistic forecasts from the line's backers. It will generate 22,000 construction jobs in the next five years and once the entire line is running create 100,000 jobs.

The KPMG report estimates that within five years of the line opening, UK productivity will rise by £15bn a year (using 2013 money) - an increase of 0.8% in GDP. Better transport connections mean reduced production and transport costs, higher productivity and greater competition between UK regions, it says.

Times columnist Daniel Finkelstein cites Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann's Atlas of Economic Complexity as evidence the line will boost growth. The theory states that the ease with which talented people can link up is a determinant of economic growth.

But both the National Audit Office and Public Accounts select committee have questioned the business case. In 2012, the government said that the benefit cost ratio (BCR) for phase 1 was estimated at 1.4. Once it becomes the full Y-shaped network it rises to 1.9. This means for every pound spent £1.90 is generated.

An alternative scheme of patching up the line would offer a better return on investment, according to a report that engineering firm Atkins produced for the government last year. It offered the taxpayer a return of £6.06 for every pound invested.

Lord Adonis, transport secretary in the last Labour government, says HS2's benefits are not captured by the methodology. "For transport infrastructure such as HS2, connecting densely networked population and economic centres, BCRs tend to be too pessimistic because they have difficulty in capturing wider economic benefits." The Jubilee line extension to Stratford had a BCR of 0.95, he notes.

Counter-argument: The DfT's modelling was criticised for using old data, which assumed business people did little or no work on long train journeys.

But mobile phones and laptops have changed that. By not taking this into account the economic boost from shorter journeys appeared to be stronger than it was, critics say. In its report KPMG sought to address this oversight by cutting the time value gain by 50%. If you factor this in, the economic boost to UK plc decreases from £15bn to £12bn it says.

The KPMG figures are controversial. The HS2 Action Alliance, which campaigns against the project, says there is no independent, peer-reviewed research backing up KPMG's £15bn figure. BBC business editor Robert Peston has called them "spuriously precise". KPMG's forecasts assume that the biggest impediment to narrowing the economic divide between north and south is poor transport. It ignores the impact of other hard-to-calculate factors like skill shortages and lack of developable land, Peston argued.

Against: The demolition of homes and damage to rural England is too costly and disruptive

The most disrupted area in the country will be to the north of London's Euston station. More than half of the properties affected by the scheme between London and Birmingham are in and around Camden.

Across the entire line more than 600 homes will be bulldozed and another 340 homes will be cut off from their wider neighbourhood. Infrastructure supporting the line will be built on 250 acres of green belt land. Sites of special scientific interest will be sliced through by the line.

Historic houses in Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire will be demolished or blighted by the new line, campaigners say.

Homeowners will get the "unblighted" market value of their property, plus 10% (up to £47,000) and moving costs. But campaigners said the money will help only a "tiny fraction" of people.

Counter-argument: HS2 Ltd says it has already tweaked the line to reduce the number of people affected. More tunnels have been added. Around 22.5 miles (36km) of the phase 1 route will now be completely enclosed in tunnel. That is 18% of the 140 miles of rail from London to Birmingham.

HS2 Ltd says that about 60 properties on the proposed phase 1 route are likely to experience levels of noise which will qualify for noise insulation under the Noise Insulation Regulations. The number of properties that may experience a noticeable increase in noise on the phase 1 route has been reduced since consultation by a third from 4,700 to around 3,100.

For: It will be good for the environment

The government claims that HS2 will move millions of air and road trips on to rail. It will open up space on the existing rail network for freight, taking hundreds of HGVs per hour off the roads. "High speed rail is the most efficient way of transporting people between cities," a DfT spokeswoman says. "It requires fewer stops, meaning less energy is expended on repeatedly braking and accelerating."

Counter-argument: Rail expert Christian Wolmar says the climate change case for HS2 has virtually disappeared. Few high-speed train passengers will transfer from air, he argues. Research shows that most users would otherwise have taken conventional train services or simply not have made the trip.

HS2 may also encourage Birmingham to London commuting. And HS2's 250mph trains will use 50% more energy than the Eurostar trains, the HS2 Action Alliance says. The 2006 Eddington transport report predicted that the value of carbon saved over a 60-year period would be £3.2bn. The carbon saving of the line (at the time priced at £33bn) was a poor return on investment, according to Eddington.

Against: There are better value projects the UK could spend the money on

One of the strongest arguments against HS2 is the opportunity cost. Spend £50bn on HS2 and that's £50bn gone from other projects. The UK is heavily in debt, public finances are stretched so spending must be carefully prioritised. But the government has failed to compare the impact of HS2 against spending the money on other projects, sustainability think tank the New Economics Foundation says.

It suggests a £10bn upgrade of the East and West Coast main lines, £6bn on a bus and tram network in four core cities in the Midlands and the North, and £2bn on walking and cycling schemes.

Matt Ridley in the Times noted that for the cost of HS2 you could fix the nation's potholes, upgrade the existing West Coast Main Line, fix other rail bottlenecks, turn busy A-roads into dual carriageways, build a third runway at Heathrow, invest £2bn in cycle networks and provide superfast broadband across the country.

The Magazine looked at 10 other projects including the Sky Cycle scheme in London, a rail tunnel at Welwyn North and a barrage over the Severn estuary.

Counter-argument: Supporters say it's not an either or situation. Some other big schemes like the Northern Hub, which will speed up journeys between Manchester and Leeds, are due to go ahead anyway.

The DfT also points out that it is trebling funding for major road schemes, which could mean as many as 52 major road projects by 2020/21. It will be adding 400 lane miles of capacity to busy motorways.

And if HS2 is not given the green light, it's highly unlikely all the £42.6bn would be invested on innovative transport projects. This is a one-off opportunity to do something big and bold to the rail network, they argue.

For: The West Coast Main Line will be full by 2024

Network Rail says that by the mid 2020s the West Coast Main Line will be full. Most of the crowding will be at the southern end of the line. In 2011, during the morning peak there were on average 4,000 people standing on trains into Euston and 5,000 going into Birmingham, according to the DfT.

Last year, four of the 10 most overcrowded services across the country were London Midland services using the line. Occupancy on the line's commuter trains will grow by 26% between 2011 and 2023, Network Rail says. Demand is also projected to grow on long-distance routes, with an expected rise of 46% between London and Manchester, and 39% between London and Leeds by 2023.

Counter-argument: Question marks hang over passenger demand. The National Audit Office report of May 2013 said the DfT had not provided detailed passenger projections in its business case. And if premium prices are charged for the high-speed service will that reduce demand? HS2 Limited, the DfT owned company preparing the line, had not looked into this crucial question, the NAO said.

The HS2 Action Alliance points out that numbers on the WCML grew dramatically after it was upgraded in 2008. Manchester to London was cut from 2 hours 40 minutes to 2 hours eight minutes. As a result, "there has been a massive switch from air to rail with almost everyone travelling to central London now going by train", the group's briefing document says. It is a one-off change that will not be repeated, the alliance claims.

Most Virgin West Coast trains are half empty during the daytime, it says. Even in the morning peak they are only 60% full, the group says. It is the second emptiest of the main line services. The emptiest is High Speed 1, the £6.1bn line from London to Folkestone that was completed in 2007. The campaigners point to HS1 as evidence that the DfT has form in overestimating passenger numbers. Passenger numbers on HS1 from 2007 to 2011 were two-thirds of the level forecast by the DfT in 1988, according to the National Audit Office.

No campaigners argue that rail passenger growth is stalling. However, figures this month from the Office for Rail Regulation show that passenger numbers grew by 7.3% year-on-year in the period of April to June 2013. Network Rail says that it is misleading to focus on Virgin, which accounts for about 6% of services on the West Coast Main Line. The Economist's Dan Knowles say it is not just the West Coast Mainline but the whole network that needs the new line.

Since 1995 the number of passengers on Britain's railways has almost doubled. The amount of freight has increased by 65%. The rise in numbers defied the recession, he notes.

Against: Euston is not where the logjam is

The busiest line in the UK is not the West Coast. The busiest station is not Euston. So HS2 will not tackle the real problem, opponents say.

Waterloo, Paddington, London Bridge and Liverpool Street are all far busier London stations than Euston, according to Network Rail figures.

The government says that HS2 will free up capacity by taking the long distance trains off existing lines and on to the new high speed line. But this will not help Waterloo, which is in south London. And there is a debate over whether the increased capacity adds up. Most of the trains packed on to commuter lines are stopping services that cannot move on to HS2. A minority are long-distance services - only about a quarter on the West Coast Main Line, according to Network Rail. Therefore its impact will only be "marginal" in relieving the existing lines, according to the HS2 Action Alliance. And marginal gains are not why you spend £50bn.

Counter-argument: Network Rail says this reading is wrong. It agrees that most trains during peak time are commuter services, and that only a few services can be moved from each existing line on to HS2. But this has a disproportionately large effect, it argues. This is because fast long-distance services and slow stopping services currently get in the way of each other.

"If everyone is travelling at the same speed you can get a lot more traffic on to the line," a spokesman for Network Rail says. "It allows us to completely recast the rail timetable." It is a technical argument that few laymen will be able to weigh in on. Network Rail says it could lead to a doubling of the number of trains at peak times on the West Coast Mainline. Milton Keynes and Watford Junction to London could go from six to 12 trains an hour. The East Coast Main Line might be freed up for services between Newcastle to Liverpool and Cambridge to Leeds, for example. On the Midland Main Line there might be new additional stops on the line between Bedford and St Albans, and more stops at Kettering and Wellingborough.

How much extra capacity HS2 will be able to free up on existing lines is a crucial question. But until a draft timetable is released, no-one knows quite what the impact of HS2 will be on capacity.

For: You can't boost capacity on WCML with clever tweaks and upgrades to existing lines

Lord Adonis says another upgrade of the West Coast Main Line is unrealistic and would soon be obsolete. "Patching and mending a 200-year-old railway, working at capacity, is hugely expensive and disruptive."

The last upgrade of the line, completed five years ago, cost £10bn, he says. "It entailed a decade of constant disruption to passengers and freight, and it delivered only a fraction of the capacity and connectivity of HS2."

HS2 will increase capacity from London to Birmingham by 143%, while enhancements to the existing railway would increase capacity by just 53%, a DfT spokeswoman says.

Counter-argument: A report by engineering firm Atkins suggested that an alternative proposal to HS2 - known as "51m" - would be a cheaper way of increasing long-distance capacity on the West Coast Main line.

It recommended longer trains, turning one first-class carriage into standard class, and specific local upgrades, such as a Stafford by-pass. It would allow more trains to leave Euston and marginally cut journey times between Birmingham and Manchester.

The HS2 Action Alliance says these improvements could be made within five years, rather than the 13 years it will take for phase 1 of HS2 to open. Network Rail says the alternative schemes do not provide sufficient capacity to meet forecast demand on the suburban commuter services at the south end of the WCML.

Against: High-speed is not necessary on a new line

HS2 will come in at £121m per mile, double that of Germany's Frankfurt to Cologne line, Ross Clark wrote in the Spectator.

"The extra cost is partly down to the higher population density of the English countryside, which requires more expense in compulsory purchase orders, but partly because it has been over-engineered." At 225mph, curves must be gentler adding to the cost of land and construction.

Counter-argument: The DfT says it might save £1.4bn by building the first phase of HS2 for conventional speed trains. "But the slower journey times - an extra 15 minutes between London and Birmingham - would reduce the benefits by £6.2 billion," a DfT spokeswoman says. "The benefit-cost ratio of building a high-speed railway rather than a conventional speed railway is therefore around 4 to 1."

For: Like the Olympics it will boost national pride and give the country a long-term national asset

The Olympics boosted national pride and gave the country a sense it could achieve something big. The government says HS2 will do the same.

Counter-argument: Others point out the Olympics legacy is not proven. And HS2 is four times the cost and could easily become an expensive white elephant. It was first proposed when the economy was booming. But the country is heavily indebted now. And many are suspicious of political grand projects.

"Politicians are always excited by 'visionary' schemes," says Alistair Darling. "One thing I have learnt is that transport, rather like banking, is at its best when it is boring. That is when it tends to work."

Against: The UK is embracing 20th Century technology just as the rest of the world turns its back on high-speed rail

Spain has the most miles of high-speed line in Europe. Its network is praised for its speed and comfort. But most experts believe that even the busiest line - from Barcelona to Madrid - loses money. Passenger numbers on its high speed network are rising again after a fall last year but only after aggressive price cutting.

France's busiest TGV lines might just break even. But even there high speed is now seen as too expensive. The French government recently cancelled new TGV projects in favour of overhauling its non-high speed Intercites services.

California's plan for a high-speed line is still on track - just.

But commentators argue that high speed rail is 20th Century technology. Video conferencing, apps like Hailo, and Google's driverless cars are a cheaper and more up-to-date model for doing business and getting around.

More from the Magazine

The HS rail link won't be finished until 2033 so why does it take two decades to finish a project like this?
20 reasons why it can take 20 years to build a railway
Then there's the Hyperloop scheme suggested by PayPal founder Elon Musk. He claims it could propel pressurised capsules between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 35 minutes.

Counter-argument: In Asia high-speed rail is still in vogue. China last year opened the longest high-speed line in the world and plans to double the size of its network by 2015.

"High speed rail is not some untested fantasy but a reality in many of the world's leading and fastest growing economies," says a DfT spokeswoman. "High speed rail is the right answer for Britain."

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Labour has cast doubt on the future of HS2 but just what are the arguments for and against a new high-speed rail link between London and the north of England? Shadow chancellor Ed Balls still supports the government's scheme but warned there should be no blank cheque. So what are the main arguments?

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Drilling companies suggest trillions of cubic feet of shale gas may be recoverable from underneath parts of the UK through a process known as "fracking".

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique designed to recover gas and oil from shale rock. But how does it work and why is it controversial?

What is fracking?

Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside.

Water, sand and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure which allows the gas to flow out to the head of the well.

The process can be carried out vertically or, more commonly, by drilling horizontally to the rock layer and can create new pathways to release gas or can be used to extend existing channels.

The term fracking refers to how the rock is fractured apart by the high pressure mixture.

Is fracking taking place in the UK?

No. Drilling for shale gas is only at an exploratory phase in the UK.

However, reserves of shale gas have been identified across large swathes of the UK, particularly in northern England.

More than 100 licences have been awarded by the government to firms in the UK, allowing them to pursue a range of oil and gas exploration activities in certain areas.

But before firms can begin fracking they must also receive planning permission from the relevant local council.

The government has said it would make a final decision on whether to allow drilling at two sites in Lancashire, after the application was rejected by Lancashire County Council in June. An appeal will be heard next year.

Applications have also been submitted in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.

Downing Street has said shale gas planning applications in England are to be fast-tracked to crack down on councils that delay decisions.

However, Labour has called for a moratorium on fracking "until we can be sure it is safe".

Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all said they will oppose fracking - until further research is completed into its environmental impact.

Has test drilling been completed?

In 2011, energy company Cuadrilla suspended test fracking operations near Blackpool, in Lancashire, after two earthquakes of 1.5 and 2.2 magnitude hit the area

A subsequent study found it was "highly probable" that shale gas test drilling triggered the tremors.

A government-appointed panel said there could be more tremors as a result of fracking, but they will be too small to do structural damage above ground.

It recommended greater monitoring and that operators should observe a "traffic light" regime, with tremors of magnitude 0.5 or above triggering a "red light" and an immediate halt.

What are the advantages of fracking?

Fracking allows drilling firms to access difficult-to-reach resources of oil and gas.

In the US it has significantly boosted domestic oil production and driven down gas prices. It is estimated to have offered gas security to the US and Canada for about 100 years, and has presented an opportunity to generate electricity at half the CO2 emissions of coal.

The industry suggests fracking of shale gas could contribute significantly to the UK's future energy needs.

The Task Force on Shale Gas, an industry-funded body, has said the UK needs to start fracking to establish the possible economic impact of shale gas - saying it could create thousands of jobs.

Why is it controversial?

The extensive use of fracking in the US, where it has revolutionised the energy industry, has prompted environmental concerns.

Fracking uses huge amounts of water, which must be transported to the fracking site, at significant environmental cost.

Environmentalists say potentially carcinogenic chemicals used may escape and contaminate groundwater around the fracking site. The industry suggests pollution incidents are the results of bad practice, rather than an inherently risky technique.

There are also worries that the fracking process can cause small earth tremors.

Campaigners say that fracking is simply distracting energy firms and governments from investing in renewable sources of energy, and encouraging continued reliance on fossil fuels.

"Shale gas is not the solution to the UK's energy challenges," said Friends of the Earth energy campaigner Tony Bosworth. "We need a 21st century energy revolution based on efficiency and renewables, not more fossil fuels that will add to climate change."

Following the Paris climate change deal, Friends of the Earth chief executive Craig Bennett said Mr Cameron must "end Britain's scandalous support for fossil fuels, including fracking".

What does the government say?

The government believes shale gas has the potential to provide the UK with greater energy security, growth and jobs.

Prime Minister David Cameron has repeatedly spoken of his support for fracking, saying it could support tens of thousand of UK jobs and reduce bills.

"I want us to get on board this change that is doing so much good and bringing so much benefit to North America. I want us to benefit from it here as well," he has previously said.

What about National Parks?

In January, MPs overwhelmingly rejected an outright ban on fracking but ministers did pledge an "outright ban" on fracking in national parks.

However, in December MPs voted to allow fracking at 1,200m below national parks, Areas of Outstanding National Beauty, the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads and World Heritage Sites.

Critics, including Labour and Greenpeace, accused the government of a U-turn.

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Drilling companies suggest trillions of cubic feet of shale gas may be recoverable from underneath parts of the UK through a process known as "fracking". Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique designed to recover gas and oil from shale rock. But how does it work and why is it controversial?

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Extreme Energy Action Network - Find out about fracking in the UK and take action in your area!!! Full details of companies, sites, planning applications, licence areas and community groups resisting the threat!!!

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Tue 28 Feb 2017 06.57 EST Last modified on Fri 15 Sep 2017 07.21 EDT

he title of the recent housing white paper suggested a new urgency to government policy. It's not hard to see why that's needed. Homelessness is rising fast and a whole generation finds itself priced out, yet unable to get one of a dwindling number of social homes. The sudden return to a world where working families must rent privately at eye-watering rents is crippling finances, productivity and economic growth alike. Levels of home ownership have been falling sharply since 2003, to only 51% of households today. The dream of a property-owning democracy, that cornerstone of conservative ideology, is almost dead. No wonder the government is anxious.

But the white paper is only the latest in a long line of policies, strategies and initiatives that promise to solve the housing shortage. All before have failed, for the same fundamental reason. For decades now we have been unable to address, or even understand, the role of land in the economy.

Land is obviously important for housebuilding, but the land problem goes much deeper than our housing shortage. It lies right at the heart of many of the economic problems we face today. Financial instability, mounting inequality, debt overhangs and the puzzle of stagnant productivity are all direct results of our failure to properly account for and manage land in the modern economy.

Land first began to be treated as tradable, private property in the 16th century - triggering the birth of modern finance and parliamentary democracy. Yet the economic transformation created by the privatisation of church and common land impoverished millions, as vast numbers were driven off it.

There was something manifestly unfair about a minority turning what had previously been a common source of food, shelter and security into a source of private wealth: those who had to rent land found that any additional value they could generate was quickly absorbed by higher rents, leaving them no better off even as the economy grew.

Since the start of the liberal political and economic project, thinkers have wrestled with these contradictory consequences. John Locke strove desperately to justify private property in land, precisely because it was so essential to the classical liberalism he espoused. Adam Smith was more clear-eyed about landowners' ability to extract undue levels of rent from workers and capitalists alike - and worried it would limit productivity and undermine the political legitimacy of property itself.

Smith believed that the state's job was to protect the institution of private property from democracy by minimising its worst effects, while Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought property should be sacrificed to save democracy. The anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon summed up the paradox in two pithy statements: property is theft; and property is liberty.

The 20th century saw the same story played out all over again. This time, the focus was not on farmland but on housing. Today Savills estimates that the UK's housing stock is worth £6.8 trillion - compared with £190bn for all agricultural land.

For a while, council housing provision, state provision of land for housing development, tight mortgage regulation and taxes on home ownership had kept supply up and house prices under control.

By the late 1960s so many homes had been built that political attention could shift away from supply and on to boosting the slackening growth in home ownership. Taxes on home owners were replaced with subsidies for buyers. The new towns programme was stopped, ending the implicit guarantee of state land supply. Councils were forced to sell their housing stock and barred from building more. Mortgage lending was deregulated, unleashing credit into the housing market and creating a new model of "residential capitalism". The era of housing booms and busts was born.

Today, the dark side of the land ownership paradox has reasserted itself with a vengeance. Homes routinely "earn" more than people do, and the banking sector is hopelessly addicted to mortgages rather than lending to productive enterprises.

Even the relatively well-paid struggle to house themselves adequately within commuting distance of jobs, and businesses say employee housing costs are the biggest brake on their expansion. The problem of rent is alive and well - and yet we seem unable to let go of the dream of owning a home that will always go up in value, liberating us to spend our income on consumer goods and leisure. It seems Proudhon was right on both counts: property is both theft and liberty.

To solve these problems, we have to recognise that land has special characteristics that make the normal rules of supply and demand inoperable - and make market exchange a poor way of handling it. Land is inherently scarce, and its control is inherently political. Housing policy should therefore seek to level the playing field between tenures (in terms of taxation and subsidies) so that people are not incentivised to overinvest in home ownership. At the same time, we should grow the stock of non-market housing, like social housing and community-led schemes, to lessen dependence on the volatile market in land and homes.

The housing white paper, and the rhetoric around it, hints that government may be moving in this direction. There are moves to allow councils to create development corporations and to compulsorily purchase sites with planning permission that the owners seem reluctant to build on - which could lower the cost of land for new homes.

But to really fix the problem of land, we need to do more than increase housebuilding. We need to break the positive feedback cycle between the financial system, land values and the wider economy, and to capture more of the unearned windfalls private landowners currently pocket at the expense of society at large. And that will require bold financial regulation and tax reforms, and more direct intervention into the dysfunctional land market. Only this will allow us to better balance the benefits and harms caused by what Churchill called "the mother of all monopolies" the ownership of land.

* Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing (Zed Books) by Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd and Laurie Macfarlane, is out today
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Why have all attempts to fix Britain's housing crisis failed? Look to the land | Toby Lloyd

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Tue 28 Feb 2017 06.57 EST Last modified on Fri 15 Sep 2017 07.21 EDT he title of the recent housing white paper suggested a new urgency to government policy. It's not hard to see why that's needed. Homelessness is rising fast and a whole generation finds itself priced out, yet unable to get one of a dwindling number of social homes.

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Rising house prices have been willed by public policy over decades. The fallout for families, communities and business has been severe

"Every day I cry," says an activist on a stall in Stratford, east London, that is shared by housing campaign Focus E15 and the Revolutionary Communist Group. "How many thousands of people are suffering?"

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, has said that problems with housing are the "biggest risk" to the UK economy. The CBI agreed, saying: "A perfect storm is brewing in the housing market. Now is the time for action."

If there is one thing that revolutionary communists and bankers can agree on, it is that there is a housing crisis in Britain. There are too few homes, usually costing too much, often in the wrong places, and often of poor quality. The crisis damages lives, breaks up families, blights employment prospects, reduces mobility and slows the economy.

This, you would have thought, would be a gift for any political party. Housing is a matter of vital importance to voters. At a time when all parties struggle to offer alternatives to each other, this would be an opportunity to be distinctive and take the lead. Yet all the main parties' offerings on the subject are piecemeal, gestural and unambitious.

Back in east London, the young mothers of Focus E15 became celebrities when they occupied vacant council properties on the edge of the Olympic Park in the London borough of Newham. They had been told by the Labour council that they were to be rehoused outside the capital - part of a city-wide tendency to send its homeless people to places as far-flung as Bristol, Hastings and Stoke-on-Trent.

Their protest won them a reprieve, but thousands of others are not so lucky: at the Focus E15 stall you hear of families evicted by council-hired bailiffs who break in at 6am, often acting on tenuous legal authority. You hear of schooling disrupted, jobs lost, support networks broken and relocation putting impossible distances between friends and relatives.

The price of housing is a problem that runs across most social classes. In London, the south-east, much of rural Britain and several of the more desirable cities, you can be young, employed and even well-paid and have little prospect of acquiring a decent home. Britain was once famous as a country of houses with gardens, accessible to manual workers and clerks, but in many areas this is now a distant fantasy to those without property-rich parents to help them.

If the most conspicuous issues are about homes costing too much, there are also places where they cost too little. In Accrington, Lancashire, a two-bedroom house might be worth £40,000, which is less than it would cost to refurbish and repair it. This means that it is not worth the owners - often absentee landlords - investing in their maintenance. Roofs leak, mould grows on walls, condensation forms and heating bills rise in poorly insulated buildings.

According to Daniel Klemm of the north of England housing association Together Housing, which is working with property company Better Places, "a spiral of decline sets in", where the physical environment deteriorates, which further deters investment. Those who can, leave, and those who stay have few prospects of employment. In a place like this you can have a home but no job; in high-value areas you can have a job, but no home.

The housing crisis is an accelerating human disaster. It is creating exploitative landlords, overcrowding and poor-quality homes. Private renters spend 40% of their income on housing. It is shocking that many people in their 20s now regard it as an accepted fact that they will never have much by way of a home.

It is wrong that having a home in many rural areas, or in London, should be regarded as a luxury. This applies even to traditionally poor London boroughs. "If you can't afford to live in Newham," the borough's mayor told the Focus E15 mothers, "you can't afford to live in Newham." But these people hadn't asked for their neighbourhood to become a high-performing investment asset, and they gain nothing from the change.

High house prices, which owe much to policies promoted by Margaret Thatcher's government, pervert the promises of Thatcherism. If you work hard and are thrifty, she said, you will be rewarded. Yet people who own property can make more money from sitting on it than by doing a job, while others will never get on the property ladder however hard they strive. If you get on your bike to look for work, as her minister Norman Tebbit urged, you might have to pedal a hundred miles or more back to where you live.

Property values are distorting human values. But if politicians are incapable of making an argument based on ideas of a fair or fulfilling society, there are also economic reasons for addressing the problems of housing. It's hard to run a business if your employees find it hard to get a home. If people on low and middle incomes are pushed out, big cities will in course lose those who make, maintain and repair things, who care for the ill and old, who clean, who cook and wait in restaurants, and who look after and teach children. The creative and inventive types, currently such a big part of London's sales pitch to the world, will go too.

The most obvious cause of Britain's housing is the simple operation of supply and demand. The country's population is increasing, and we like to live in smaller units than in the past. A figure of about 240,000 is consistently estimated as the amount of new homes Britain needs each year, and with equal consistency it is never achieved. In 2014, fewer than 120,000 were built. The most commonly given reason for this undersupply is that Britain is short of land and that it has a planning system which, for good reasons, wants to protect the beauties of the countryside.

These arguments are only part of the story. Another reason is that inflation in housing - so taboo when it comes to other commodities - has since the 1980s been celebrated by governments and encouraged by policies on taxation and borrowing. Prices are pushed up further by recent initiatives such as the changes to pension pot rules which allow people 55 and over to invest theirs in property. Meanwhile, the Thatcher government stopped local authorities from building more housing. Right To Buy took affordable homes out of the available stock and were not replaced. Some were resold as investments, and rented out for profit. A wasteful loop was created, whereby councils now find themselves paying high rents to private landlords, in order to house their homeless in properties that once belonged to the council.

The notion that there is no land left is nonsense: 9% of the UK is developed, and that includes roads, factories...

David Orr, chief executive, National Housing Federation

It is also too simple to say that Britain is short of land. "The notion that there is no land left really is nonsense," says David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation. "Nine per cent of the country is developed and that includes roads, factories and so on: only 2% is housing." The challenge is rather to find places that do not affect somebody's view, somebody's dog-walking route and somebody's property prices.

The combined effects of demand, government stimulants and restrictions on supply consistently push house prices above other forms of inflation, making residential property an attractive speculative investment. The investors might be British individuals who take the perfectly rational decision to buy and rent out homes as a way of providing for their old age. They might also be overseas investors who, also rational and encouraged by, among other things, non-dom tax breaks, see British property as a safe bet.

The crisis in house prices is therefore not an act of pure economic fate but constructed and willed by policy over decades. As such, it can also be defused by policy, if not easily or quickly. So far, the main government response has been to try to relax planning rules and to encourage the market with measures such as Help To Buy which, presented as much-needed assistance to first-time buyers, tend to push up prices further.

There is a confusion here between the problems of availability and affordability. If the only way to encourage building in larger numbers is to put up prices, this is no help for the people who cannot afford a home. The underlying belief is that the market will provide, if only it were properly stimulated and enticed, but it is one unsupported by evidence. At no time since the second world war has the private sector built at the rate now required, and usually it has fallen a long way short. The only time when the total housing numbers exceeded those now thought essential was in the 1950s and 1960s, when council housing accounted for half the figure.

By itself, the market does not provide. One reason for this is that never, not even in the wildest libertarian fantasy, will there be no planning. It is something that, despite criticisms, everyone wants: we complain about faceless bureaucrats, but when something we don't like comes down our street, we want them to defend us. Where there is planning, the market cannot operate as freely as it would in trading, say, ironmongery. The other factor is called absorption: if developers start building in sufficient numbers to make homes cheaper or slower to sell, they stop.

The public sector has to build more itself. It also needs to plan more constructively and actively, creating positive proposals for what new places could be, which also recognise and allay the reasonable fears of existing residents. The idea of greater public involvement will raise spectres of the famous failings of mass public housing in the past, but this is to ignore the successes of postwar public development (in many new towns, for example, and in several now sought-after council estates) and to assume that it is impossible to learn from and improve on mistakes.

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Council housing should be built to suit a range of incomes. Photograph: Jess Hurd/reportdigital.co.uk

The Homes for Britain campaign, which brings together housing associations, private house builders, landlords, planners and architects, is holding a rally in Westminster. It aims to solve the housing crisis "in a generation", which is a realistic time frame, given that it has taken a generation to create the current situation. It would be foolish of anyone to suggest that the solutions are easy and obvious, but a party serious about improving the housing of the country should consider these:

1 Make zero inflation a target

In the same way that targets are set for retail prices, it could be stated that it is desirable to stop house prices rising. In real terms they would slowly fall to affordable levels, and the heat would be taken out of speculation, but no one would be put into negative equity. Inflationary incentives like Help To Buy should be ended, and taxation should be used to deflate property bubbles.

2 End the obsession with owner-occupation

Good though it is for many people, owning your own home is neither desirable nor possible for many. It also encourages an approach to development that relies on continuing increases in value. Other options, such as renting from private or public landlords, should be equally attractive and viable.

3 Use every tool in the box

Politicians of all main parties have declared their wish to create garden cities. This is well and good, but requires a level of will and expertise not so far evident, and only goes so far. The scale of the need also requires every option to be considered. This includes building on ex-industrial land, in many small increments as well as through large plans, and increasing the density of existing cities and suburbs.

4 Build - carefully and well - in green belts

Restricting urban sprawl and protecting natural landscapes, the country's green belts are one of the triumphs of British planning. But some of their land is of little environmental or economic value. Last year planning consultancy Urbed showed that green belts can be built on responsibly, allowing more people to live close to nature. There is no good reason not to realise some of these ideas.

5 Make neighbourhoods

The University of Cambridge, faced with the impossibility of housing its staff in an expensive city, is working with local authorities to create well-planned, good-quality new neighbourhoods, with high environmental standards and well designed communal spaces. Examples like this, which show that new homes do not have to be a form of pollution, should be followed across the country.

6 End discounts on right to buy

At a time when some people are being ejected from their homes in the name of austerity, it is grotesque that others are being offered lavish discounts to buy their local authority homes - often so that they can resell them for a quick profit.

7 End vindictive benefit cuts

The benefit cap unfairly punishes people living in areas that have become expensive by making it impossible for them to pay their inflated rents. The bedroom tax is mean-spirited and destructive. Both should end.

8 Act regionally

The needs of Lancashire, Cambridge and Newham differ widely. There should be the ability to make different measures in different areas.

9 Put a secretary of state for housing in the cabinet

As the renters' campaign group Generation Rent has proposed, the issue is big enough to be represented at the highest level of government.

10 Let councils borrow to build

For the first time since the 1980s, councils are now allowed to build housing again. To do this more and better, they should be able to borrow money against their considerable assets, rather than form partnerships with private property companies who take 20% of the proceeds in profit. New council housing should not be a last resort only for those in the most desperate need, but suited to a range of incomes.

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Greener pastures ... Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

The obvious objection to some of these proposals will be that there is no money. But money is already being wasted - on paying housing benefit to private landlords for example, on right-to-buy discounts, and on the profits developers make on publicly owned land. It is partly a question of spending it better.

There is also what Ebenezer Howard, the inventor of garden cities, called the "unearned increment", which is the uplift in value when land becomes available for housing. It was the basis on which postwar new towns were built. Currently it is being squandered - when the government, for example, relaxes planning constraints on certain properties, or makes it easier to convert offices or shops into homes they drench the lucky owners of such places in cash, without asking for much in return.

House price inflation is an addiction. It is destructive and divisive. It is a tax by the haves on the have-nots, and by the old on the young.

It makes for more losers than real winners - if you own your home, its rising price is of little use to you unless you want to downsize, in which case you can never return to your previous position on the ladder. The only real beneficiaries are those who own more property than they need for their own living.

Thatcher's property-owning democracy has run its course. It is time for a new model.
Topics

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Britain's housing crisis is a human disaster. Here are 10 ways to solve it

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Rising house prices have been willed by public policy over decades. The fallout for families, communities and business has been severe "Every day I cry," says an activist on a stall in Stratford, east London, that is shared by housing campaign Focus E15 and the Revolutionary Communist Group.

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Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the undo repeal of governmental regulation of the economy.

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There are many arguments about the advantages and disadvantages of migration and how it has affected us locally.
Positive Impacts on host countries
* Job vacancies and skills gaps can be filled.

* Economic growth can be sustained.

* Services to an ageing population can be maintained when there are insufficient young people locally.

* The pension gap can be filled by the contributions of new young workers and they also pay taxes.

* Immigrants bring energy and innovation.

* Host countries are enriched by cultural diversity.

* Failing schools (and those with falling numbers) can be transformed.
Negative Impacts on host countries
* Depression of wages may occur, especially in lower paid jobs.

* Having workers willing to work for relatively low pay may allow employers to ignore productivity, training and innovation.

* Migrants may be exploited.

* Increases in population can put pressure on public services.

* Unemployment may rise if there are unrestricted numbers of incomers.

* There may be integration difficulties and friction with local people.

* Large movements of people lead to more security monitoring.

* Ease of movement may facilitate organised crime and people trafficking.
Positive Impacts on countries of origin
* Developing countries benefit from remittances (payments sent home by migrants). These now often outstrip foreign aid.

* Unemployment is reduced and young migrants enhance their life prospects

* Returning migrants bring savings, skills and international contacts.
Negative Impacts on countries of origin
* Economic disadvantage through the loss of young workers

* Loss of highly trained people, especially health workers

* Social problems for children left behind or growing up without a wider family circle
The Effects of Increased Migration in Northern Ireland
An Oxford Economics study published by the Department of Employment and Learning (DEL) in 2009 concluded that migrant workers had helped maintain a sufficient labour supply to fuel the 2004-2008 economic boom. The availability of migrant labour appeared to have made the difference between some businesses surviving, or not needing to relocate production abroad (especially in the case of food processing). The authors quote a survey of 600 businesses where 31% said that migrants were important in the survival of their organisation; this rose to 50% in health and social care and agriculture.

In addition the study indicated that migrants have:

* facilitated growth in the economy;

* brought benefits to the tourism industry through the development of new air routes;

* had a positive influence on the productivity or efficiency of local workers;

* contributed new ideas and a fresh approach to firms;

* increased cultural links with developing nations that will prove useful in growing our international trade.

In addition to these economic benefits, incomers have helped the health and care services to continue functioning; contributed to cultural diversity; and increased the vitality of schools, particularly in rural areas.

Summary

It is clear that immigration can be beneficial for migrants, but only if their rights are protected properly. It can also be economically beneficial for both countries of origin and host countries; however, with present economic and trading structures it is the rich and powerful countries that benefit most. Migration brings social and cultural pressures that need to be taken into account in planning for future services. Migration also has the potential for bringing peoples together culturally but friction occurs if efforts are not made to dispel negative myths held by local people. It is also essential to provide good information about the local way of life to newcomers and ensure opportunities for people to mix and integrate. Where the economic preconditions exist, migration is inevitable. When people try to prevent immigration it just goes underground.

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There are many arguments about the advantages and disadvantages of migration and how it has affected us locally. Positive Impacts on host countries * Job vacancies and skills gaps can be filled. * Economic growth can be sustained. * Services to an ageing population can be maintained when there are insufficient young people locally.

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Exclusive: Home Office paper sets out detailed proposals including measures to drive down number of low-skilled migrants from Europe

Britain will end the free movement of labour immediately after Brexit and introduce restrictions to deter all but highly-skilled EU workers under detailed proposals set out in a Home Office document leaked to the Guardian.

The 82-page paper, marked as extremely sensitive and dated August 2017, sets out for the first time how Britain intends to approach the politically charged issue of immigration, dramatically refocusing policy to put British workers first.

"Put plainly, this means that, to be considered valuable to the country as a whole, immigration should benefit not just the migrants themselves but also make existing residents better off," the paper says.

It proposes measures to drive down the number of lower-skilled EU migrants - offering them residency for a maximum of only two years, in a document likely to cheer hardliners in the Tory party. Those in "high-skilled occupations" will be granted permits to work for a longer period of three to five years.

The document also describes a phased introduction to a new immigration system that ends the right to settle in Britain for most European migrants - and places tough new restrictions on their rights to bring in family members. Potentially, this could lead to thousands of families being split up.

Showing a passport will be mandatory for all EU nationals wanting to enter Britain - and the paper proposes introducing a system of temporary biometric residence permits for all EU nationals coming into the UK after Brexit for more than a few months.

The determination to end free movement from day one and drive down lower-skilled EU migration, end the role of the European court of justice in family migration and extend elements of Theresa May's "hostile environment" measures to long-term EU migrants without residence permits is likely to please hard Brexiters.

The Home Office paper, entitled the Border, Immigration and Citizenship System After the UK Leaves the European Union, makes clear the proposals within it have yet to be endorsed by ministers, and are "subject to negotiations with EU". But with the help of examples and flowcharts, the document sets out the direction of Home Office thinking in one of the most vexed subjects of the Brexit debate.

It is understood the document, which has been circulated around senior officials and ministers, has already provoked rows between cabinet ministers, who are trying to balance the demands of British businesses wanting to retain free movement, and the views of hardline Brexiters.

It is also likely to enrage many in Europe who will feel the UK is intending to treat EU nationals as second-class citizens and could invite retaliatory action by the 27-country bloc.

The Home Office EU immigration proposals also include:

* Plans to restrict EU immigration by giving "preference in the job market to resident workers". The government could also restrict EU nationals from seeking work, reduce the opportunities for workers to settle in the UK long-term, and limit the number of EU citizens able to come to the UK to do low-skilled work.

* Proposals for a "stepping stone" temporary implementation period for "at least two years" after Brexit day. That would be followed by the introduction of the full immigration policy for EU nationals.

* Plans to scrap EU rules on the rights of extended family members to reside in the UK. The document says "there is virtually no limit on the distance of the relationship between the EU citizen and the family member" in the current system. "We propose to define family members as direct family members only, plus durable partners," it adds.

* If an EU national living in the UK wants to bring their spouse from outside the EU here, he or she will have to earn a minimum of £18,600 a year, bringing EU nationals in line with the restriction already imposed on Britons.

* No new border checks for EU nationals entering the country, although they will be required to travel on a passport not a national identity card. Instead all new EU arrivals will have "deemed leave" to enter Britain for an as yet unspecified period likely to between three and six months. After that, to stay longer, they will have to apply for a biometric residence permit, which may include a fingerprint.

* In contrast to the "free movement directive", residence permits will not be granted to jobseekers. A specific "income threshold" will be introduced for "self-sufficient" migrants.

* Plans to introduce "right to work" checks. These would have to be carried out by employers, with criminal sanctions possible against companies and individuals if illegal working is discovered.

The document has a strong "Britain first" theme throughout. It states: "We are clear that, wherever possible, UK employers should look to meet their labour needs from resident labour. It is now more important than ever that we have the right skills domestically to build a strong and competitive economy."

The paper says that although long-term net migration from the EU has fallen over the last year to 133,000, it cannot be controlled because free movement gives EU citizens "a right to reside in the UK regardless of the economic needs of the country".

Poles in UK graph

The proposed package is designed to help cut the current annual flow of 250,000 EU nationals coming to live in Britain to the government's target of "sustainable levels": net migration in the tens of thousands.

"It is not a question of stopping EU migration ... But there will be a fundamental shift in our policy in that the government will take a view on the economic and social needs of the country as regards migration, rather than leaving this decision entirely to EU citizens and their employers," says the Home Office document.

Its proposals to end European court of justice protection for the rights of EU nationals to bring non-EU family members to Britain, to end the use of EU national identity cards instead of passports at the UK border, and the extension of Home Office registration powers are all potential major trouble spots in the Brexit negotiations.

Recent Home Office errors, including mistaken deportation letters sent to 100 EU citizens, have undermined confidence in its competence.

The Home Office says that the new EU immigration system will not necessarily include the same rules as currently applied to non-EU migration. In particular it says it is considering whether the existing system of sponsorship and a £1,000-a-head immigration skills charge will be applied to EU migration.

A government spokesperson said: "We do not comment on leaked draft documents. We will be setting out our initial proposals for a new immigration system which takes back control of the UK's borders later in the autumn."
Topics

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Leaked document reveals UK Brexit plan to deter EU immigrants

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Exclusive: Home Office paper sets out detailed proposals including measures to drive down number of low-skilled migrants from Europe Britain will end the free movement of labour immediately after Brexit and introduce restrictions to deter all but highly-skilled EU workers under detailed proposals set out in a Home Office document leaked to the Guardian.

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ON A sunny day in July, visitors to the new British headquarters of Huawei, a big Chinese telecoms firm, might think they had arrived in California. Last year the company opened an office in a suburban office park near Reading, a large town west of London. Its building looks over manicured grass verges, disguised car parks and spacious access roads. Gardeners drive lawnmowers as employees potter around on bright orange bicycles. Nearby, the M4 motorway hums.

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Politicians and urban planners obsess about growth in big cities. Huawei's gleaming office is a reminder that a sizeable chunk of Britain's economy is propped up in places such as Reading. The region stretching along the M4 and M3 motorways, as far as Swindon and Winchester (see map), produces 8% of Britain's economic output-as much as the metropolitan areas of Manchester and Birmingham combined. The computing and telecoms firms clustered in out-of-town business parks pay well; unemployment is rare. Yet even here, London's economic magnetism can be felt. Rather than pushing out jobs, the capital increasingly sucks them in.

Between 2002 and 2012 output per head in the Thames Valley Berkshire local enterprise partnership area fell from 178% of the national average to 164%-still very good, but a considerable drop. House prices have inflated more slowly than in England as a whole. At the end of last year 14% of office space in the region was empty-more than in many northern cities. Many white-collar jobs appear to have been replaced with worse-paid ones.

Firms used to move to the Thames Valley from London. Increasingly, they arrive from other, less geographically favoured towns. Huawei used to be based in Basingstoke in Hampshire. A host of similar businesses are moving out of older office blocks in towns such as Bracknell and Woking to newer business parks, says Jon Neale of Jones Lang LaSalle, a real-estate firm. Better connections to London, shiny new facilities and a more urban feel are part of the draw. As well as offices, the Green Park complex where Huawei now resides has a regular shuttle bus from Reading station and a nursery school.

Where offices are older and journey times longer, though, jobs are disappearing. In Swindon, a town of 212,000 people some 80 miles from London, about 6,000 jobs were lost in the ten years to 2012, even as the town's population grew by 16%. Commuter trains heading east are packed in the morning, says Mike Conner, who runs AppsBroker, a tech company. But the ageing offices near the station are empty. The main appeal of Swindon for his firm, he says, is that "it's the cheapest spot on the M4", largely thanks to the absence of bigger competitors.

What has caused this change? One reason is that the IT support jobs once common in these places have been moved offshore, says Sandra Jones, of Ramidus, a property consultancy. At the same time high-skilled vacancies are increasingly advertised in central London. A growing cluster of telecoms firms is taking root near Paddington station. Vodafone put its headquarters there in 2009, moving 200 executives from its offices in Newbury, a town in West Berkshire. Nokia followed in 2011, shifting staff from Farnborough.

Executives based in London can more easily meet investors in Canary Wharf or the City, as well as advertising firms, consultants and the like. Adrian Griffiths, a businessman from Swindon, says the town where he is based has everything he needs for his plastic recycling start-up, except for finance: "There are no angel investors here, not one. So two to three days a week I have to go to London."

And the technology industry is changing. Huawei notwithstanding, much of the energy is in startups, which tend to employ small teams of young, city-dwelling developers rather than large numbers of middle-aged engineers. Creating smartphone apps requires less lab space than developing new silicon chips, and the firms that do it want to be close to their competitors so they can poach staff. That helps to explain why Google is opening its new offices in the capital rather than outside it.

The pull of London is not everywhere irresistible. Cities such as Cambridge and Brighton have thrived in recent years. Their universities-and the accompanying restaurants and nightlife-help them to attract the urbanophile young. In Reading, local officials hope to pull off the same trick. Crossrail, a new railway which opens in 2019, will help commuters get to London, but it will also urbanise the town's core. New offices and restaurants are already under construction near the station, which is being rebuilt. Some startups are based at the university. And nearby Heathrow airport may expand.

Things will not be so easy for smaller towns such as Bracknell, or for more distant ones such as Swindon. As London's magnetism grows, they are likely to see more jobs pulled away, just as small towns in the north are struggling to compete with cities such as Manchester and Leeds. Their best hope then will be to become commuter towns for more successful cities, which cannot expand much because they are constrained by green belts. Perhaps those empty offices might become homes.

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ON A sunny day in July, visitors to the new British headquarters of Huawei, a big Chinese telecoms firm, might think they had arrived in California. Last year the company opened an office in a suburban office park near Reading, a large town west of London.

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local government support for regeneration

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local government support for regeneration

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The government has today (25 November 2015) announced 18 new Enterprise Zones and extended 8 zones.

In total there will be 44 Enterprise Zones in England - 18 new, 24 existing (of which 8 have extensions), plus Blackpool Airport and Plymouth Enterprise Zones which were previously announced in the Budget that took place in March 2015.

The 24 Enterprise Zones established in the last Parliament have laid down the foundations for success for the new programme. The latest data release for the existing 24 Enterprise Zones has been published.

The new and extended Enterprise Zones are:

1. Aerohub Extension (Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP)

2. Aylesbury Vale (Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP)

3. Bristol Temple Quarter and Bath and Somer Valley (West of England LEP)

4. Birmingham Enterprise Zone Curzon Street (Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP )

5. Cambridge Compass (Greater Cambridge and Greater Peterborough LEP)

6. Carlisle Kingmoor Park (Cumbria LEP)

7. Ceramics Valley (Stoke and Staffordshire LEP)

8. Cheshire Science Corridor (Cheshire and Warrington LEP)

9. Didcot Growth Accelerator (Oxfordshire LEP)

10. Dorset Green (Dorset LEP)

11. Enterprise M3 (Enterprise M3 LEP)

12. Enviro-Tech (Hertfordshire LEP)

13. Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft Enterprise Zone Extension (New Anglia LEP)

14. Greater Manchester Life Science (Greater Manchester LEP)

15. Heart of the South West (Heart of the South West LEP)

16. Hillhouse Chemicals and Energy (Lancashire LEP)

17. Humber Enterprise Zone Extension (Humber LEP)

18. Infinity Park Derby Extension (D2N2 LEP)

19. Luton Airport (SEMLEP)

20. M62 Corridor (Leeds City Region LEP)

21. NE Round 2 (North East LEP)

22. New Anglia (New Anglia LEP)

23. Newhaven (Coast to Capital LEP)

24. North Kent Innovation Zone (South East LEP)

25. Tees Valley Enterprise Zone Growth Extension (Tees Valley Unlimited LEP)

26. York Central (York, North Yorkshire and East Riding LEP)

From which the following are extensions:

Aerohub Extension

Bristol Temple Quarter and Bath and Somer Valley

Birmingham Enterprise Zone Curzon Street

Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft Enterprise Zone Extension

Humber Enterprise Zone Extension

Infinity Park Derby Extension

North Kent Innovation Zone

Tees Valley Enterprise Zone Growth Extension

Thank you for your feedback

Report a problem with this page

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Enterprise Zones are designated areas across England that provide tax breaks and Government support. They are great places to do business especially for both new and expanding firms.

Established in 2012, Enterprise Zones are at the heart of the Government's long-term economic plan, supporting businesses to grow. Since starting in April 2012 they have laid down the foundations for success for 635 businesses, attracting over £2.4 billion pounds of private sector investment, building world class business facilities and transport links and attracting nearly 24,000 jobs (find more information about this data here). The success of the programme led to more Enterprise Zones being announced in the Autumn Statement in 2015 and in the March Budget. Up to 48 Enterprise Zones are currently planned to be in place by the beginning of April 2017.

What benefits do Enterprise Zones offer businesses?

Businesses that locate on an Enterprise Zone can access a number of benefits:

Up to 100% business rate discount worth up to £275,000 per business over a 5-year period

Simplified local authority planning, for example, through Local Development Orders that grant automatic planning permission for certain development (such as new industrial buildings or changing how existing buildings are used) within specified areas

Government support to ensure that superfast broadband is rolled out throughout the zone, and, if necessary, public funding

100% enhanced capital allowances (tax relief) to businesses making large investments in plant and machinery on 8 Zones in Assisted Areas

Businesses that locate on sites from the first round of Enterprise Zones must have done so before March 2018 to be able to access business rate reliefs. For new Zones starting in April 2016, they will need to have located onto the Zone before March 2021 to qualify.

On EZ sites where enhanced capital allowances are available (assisted areas), businesses now have up to eight years from the launch of the EZ to make their investment. Businesses thinking about locating to an Enterprise Zone can also find more information about investment opportunities at the Local Investment Showcase website.

What benefits do Enterprise Zones offer local communities?

Enterprise Zones are establishing themselves as the driving force of local economies as they unlock key development sites, consolidate infrastructure, attract business and create jobs.

All business rates growth generated by the Enterprise Zone is kept by the relevant local enterprise partnership and local authorities in the areas for 25 years to reinvest in local economic growth. For the Local Enterprise Partnerships with Enterprise Zones, this represents the government's most significant commitment to long-term economic growth.

In addition, the Government is committed to working actively with Enterprise Zones to help to unblock any barriers to delivery, such as Department for Transport support on transport infrastructure, Defra support on addressing environmental issues and UKTI advice on marketing Zones to international investors.

What benefits do Enterprise Zones offer for UK economy?

Enterprise Zones are helping to attract more foreign investment into the country, and are bringing jobs and businesses across England. They are about delivering long-term, sustainable growth based on cutting-edge technology and enterprise. Businesses are clustering around centres of excellence in key sectors such as financial services, bio-sciences, digital and creative industries, advanced engineering, automotive, and renewable energy.

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Established in 2012, Enterprise Zones are at the heart of the Government's long-term economic plan, supporting businesses to grow. Since starting in April 2012 they have laid down the foundations for success for 635 businesses, attracting over £2.4 billion pounds of private sector investment, building world class business facilities and transport links and attracting nearly 24,000 jobs (find more information about this data here).

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How is success judged in rural regeneration (5)

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East End

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he summer of 2012 was the culmination of a polarising seven years. Swaths of the media, the sporting fraternity and politicians of all stripes celebrated the coming regeneration of the forgotten East End due to the planned Olympic Games. Meanwhile, academics, urbanists and local activists bemoaned the speed at which a patch of east London was transformed, resulting in compulsory purchase orders and displaced businesses.

Running up to the Games, there was a conscious effort to avoid the fiasco of Athens 2004, which left a patch of the city dilapidated before anyone had time to get nostalgic for it. Since then, we've been obsessed with "legacy", as well as sceptical about who that legacy might be for.

Quick Guide
Pseudo-public spaces
Show

What is a pseudo-public space?
Pseudo-public spaces are large squares, parks and thoroughfares that appear to be public but are actually owned and controlled by developers and corporations. They are on the rise in London and many other British cities, as local authorities argue they cannot afford to create or maintain such spaces themselves.

What access do members of the public have?

Although they are seemingly accessible to members of the public and have the look and feel of public land, these sites - also known as privately owned public spaces or "Pops" - are not subject to ordinary local authority bylaws but rather governed by restrictions drawn up the landowner and usually enforced by private security companies.
What rules govern them?
Under existing laws, public access to pseudo-public spaces remains at the discretion of landowners who are allowed to draw up their own rules for "acceptable behaviour" on their sites and alter them at will. They are not obliged to make these rules public.

Thank you for your feedback.

Londoners living in the Stratford area vacated their homes to avoid the crowds - one Waltham Forest resident house-swapped with someone in the Outer Hebrides - but many people's cynicism popped like a balloon during Danny Boyle's opening ceremony, in which local Bow boy Dizzee Rascal performed Bonkers.

But the story didn't end once the Games were finished: the battle for the Olympic legacy is a hard-fought one. The architects and developers want you to know that the area has been revitalised. The housing campaigners want you to know it has largely been revitalised for a new, wealthier demographic. West Ham United plc want you to know the London stadium will make them a top club. West Ham fans want you to know they preferred pie and mash at Upton Park to £6 pints in Hackney Wick. Dizzee is now reading regeneration critiques and preaching about gentrification.

The organisers' rhetoric was it was an industrial wasteland where nobody really lived. ​But that's not true

Dr Jonathan Gardner

So which narrative is correct? The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is managed as a private site by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), a mayoral development corporation established in 2012, while the former athletes' village, now known as East Village, contains the pseudo-public spaces Victory Park and Mirabelle Gardens. But is the area a success or failure? And who wins the legacy medal?

As ever, it depends on who you are - and whether you see the Olympic Park as ...

... a city from scratch

Ken Livingstone, then the mayor of London, made it perfectly clear why the Olympics would be a boon. "I didn't bid for the Olympics because I wanted three weeks of sport," he said in 2008. "I bid for the Olympics because it's the only way to get the billions of pounds out of the government to develop the East End - to clean the soil, put in the infrastructure and build the housing."

Yet it's easy to forget that what many people talk of as the benefits of the 2012 Games - new rail links and roads, Westfield shopping centre and the rejuvenation of a brownfield site - was earmarked to happen anyway, as part of the Stratford City project.

The original Stratford City project was launched in the late 1990s as a 1.2 million sq metre development, the largest single planning application inside the M25 at the time. It came out of the high-speed rail development to St Pancras that has also led to a regenerated King's Cross. In 2003, Jason Prior, who led the implementation of the London 2012 Olympic Park, admitted development would have happened even if the Olympics hadn't come.

"Most people thought we wouldn't win the bid," says Jonathan Kendall of Fletcher Priest architects, the designers of the athletes' village, now known as East Village. "The benefit of bidding was to galvanise people to think about the area." This is the genius sleight of hand of the project: the legacy was being implemented already. Fletcher Priest was already designing what became the village and the parkland around. The Olympics just sped up the process: "a rocket booster," as Kendall puts it.

You might assume that booster made the planning easier. Not exactly. "There was a whole pile of money, which meant chunks of Stratford City would get done more quickly," says Vivienne Ramsey, the head planner. Now retired, she was originally head of development and building control at Newham council, before becoming head of planning at the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) when the bid was won, and finally head of the LLDC when the Games were over. "But there was then pressure to build what the ODA thought was needed. Although they said they were interested in legacy, their big raison d'etre was the Games."

The ODA, she notes, were legally required to build a school and a health centre - but then went lukewarm. "The general tenor of the conversation was, 'Will you let us off?'- they only did it because they couldn't get it out of it." One big success, she says, was the £10m for training to help locals get the jobs created by Westfield: one of her big "jump up and down moments" was the day the mall opened.

A year ago, Ramsey went for a wander around the East Village residential development. "People love living there. They have very tight management system that makes sure the communal areas are kept nice, and security guys who go around all the time to make sure there's no anti-social behaviour." She speaks approvingly of a "three strikes and you're out" system for policing antisocial behaviour. "There was only one family that they'd said had to go," she says, proudly.

Campaigners, however, say the affordable housing targets set for the residential developments in the Olympic Park have been revised down.

If there's not enough affordable housing in the area, Ramsey lays the blame at the doors of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. "Selling council houses doesn't hack it, because then you don't replace them. There's nowhere for people who don't have much money to buy or rent." But is it still possible for the Olympic legacy to be part of the solution? "The government says affordable rent is 80% of market rent, which is too high anyway, so it doesn't do anything for anybody." The only solution, she believes, is wholesale political change - which, after the Grenfell Tower fire, she says just might happen. "I'm watching to see what happens next - whether they will start letting councils borrow money and build housing again."

... a place to live

"Our son Jordan was still sharing our room at the age of four so we really needed a bigger place," says Laura Philbey, 32, who was renting a one-bedroom in Bow with her husband, David, 43, when they saw the East Village social housing properties come up in 2013.

Consent was given to build 2,818 homes before the Games, with 1,379 falling into the "affordable" category. Managed by Triathlon, a partnership between housing associations East Thames and Southern Housing Group and developer First Base, they are comprised of social rent properties that went to people from Newham and other east London boroughs, discount market rent and shared ownership properties. The remaining 1,439 are rented privately by Get Living London, owned by Qatari Diar, clients of Delancey and the Dutch pension fund asset manager, APG.

The Philbeys were one of the first residents to move into Ursa Mansions, just before Christmas. "At first it was quiet, but things have picked up," says Philbey. "It feels like its own community, everyone is very friendly. Although you are still living in London, it feels like you are not. There are green areas where I take the kids to run around. Westfield is on your doorstep, there's the health centre, and central London is only 15 or 20 minutes by train."

For socialising, they go to the bars the Neighbourhood or Tina We Salute You. They recently caught the men's hockey world league - residents get free tickets to sports events and a discount at the local Holiday Inn bar, restaurant and beauty salon, where Philbey gets her nails done. She loves the mix of social and private housing. "It's a real diverse group of people. A lot of families with children. Quite a lot of young people but there are some old people, too." She also likes the gated communal gardens as she feels her children are safe. "My oldest son goes up to his friend's house to play there with his friends."

The "village" still feels new, and oddly placeless - you could be in any new development in Melbourne or Lyon - with streets names like Olympic Park Avenue, Champions Way and Victory Square carrying an air of empty bombast. Because the area is privately owned, you can't sleep rough on any of the streets, or set up a camera on a tripod without permission. Security guards patrol the area. They reassure Philbey. "I don't think I would let an eight-year-old play out without there being gated gardens or security," she says. "You don't hear as much noise or police cars here as you did in Bow. You do feel safer. "

Siobhan Best and her partner Jed see things a bit differently. They moved to the East Village in July 2014: "I got pregnant and our flat in Dalston was infested with cockroaches, mice and was totally baby unfriendly," she says. Although the rent of their Mirabelle Gardens property - £1,733 for a two-bed from GLL - was not cheap, the flats were brand new, with nice furniture, gleaming appliances, free internet and Sky TV.

Best found the emptiness and the fact there were security guards patrolling "a bit spooky sometimes" but says the flats were lovely inside, spacious and with a balcony. Yet there were niggles. You had to use the utility company provided for heating, which meant that you couldn't look for a competitive price, and bills were expensive. With Jed working, Best got lonely. "It was fine living there while working and pregnant but soon after having my daughter I felt very isolated. The local baby groups in Leyton and Stratford that I was attending closed down due to [a lack of] funding. It was really weird how a new town had been plonked in such a run down area with such poverty, something seemed very odd about the whole place." The family moved to Essex in 2015.

... a place to be evicted from

Clays Lane was the largest residential co-operative of its kind in Europe, housing 450 tenants. Julian Cheyne lived there from 1991 until it was compulsorily purchased and demolished for the Games in 2007. He and his neighbours had become accustomed to threats. "The weekend after I moved into Clays Lane in 1991, a plan came through the letterbox which said it was going to be demolished. There were always people coming up with plans on a regular basis."

When the first diagrams for Stratford City were released in the late 90s, they initially didn't include plans to destroy Clays Lane. "They'd have had to knock down two estates and invest quite a lot of money. I think they would have decided there was very little point. The Olympics changed that." Peabody Homes acquired it in 2005, and it was demolished in 2007.

Kestrels used to look down from our two tower blocks. They like semi-maintained areas that don't have many people

Julian Cheyne of the Clays Lane estate

Cheyne already had passing interest in housing but the events at Clays Lane radicalised him in a sense. In 2006 he co-founded the blog Games Monitor to "debunk myths" surrounding not just London 2012 but the Olympic project in general. "The area for the Olympic Park was dismissed as an 'urban desert' by the ODA," says Cheyne. "On the LLDC website now it says the site was a hive of activity and innovation - a really important industrial area. They are just liars."

It was easy to ridicule Clays Lane. The area had a traveller site, and sat atop a hill made of reclaimed landfill. Photographs depicted unfashionable residents, chemical factories, recycling plants and a fridge mountain. But Cheyne sees it differently. "It could be a beautiful place. Kestrels used to look down from our two tower blocks - birds that like semi-maintained areas that don't have many people in them."

Cheyne says residents were misled over money they were entitled to, and charged too much upon leaving. "Some people had £2,000 taken off them. On what grounds? They said 'Oh, expenses, we did a service for them' - £2,000 worth of services?" He counted about 40 nationalities living at Clays Lane when he was there, including some people with questions around their immigration status. "Some of those guys left the estate thinking they were not entitled to be rehoused. We managed to persuade the tenancy advisers to put out a leaflet, which said these are your rights - but they never circulated it."

Cheyne and some of his former neighbours had to go into emergency accommodation while waiting to be rehoused. Some residents were moved outside east London: Peabody had properties in Westminster, so some were housed there, where rent was a lot more expensive. Cheyne was rehoused in east London but says his rent is more than double what it was in Clays Lane.

... an archaeological site

Of course, five years is a drop in the bucket of the history of this area - and Dr Jonathan Gardner of University College London was one of 100 archeologists drafted in to dig under the sites of what would become Zaha Hadid's aquatics centre and the "Pringle" velodrome. They dug 120 small trenches, and crouched in the mud through one of the coldest winters for years, in order to find excavations ranging from a Bronze Age skeleton to an 18th century boat. "[In the Bronze Age] it was a completely different landscape, very marshy, very low-lying," Gardner says. "A lot more rivers."

The ODA was legally required to get planning permission and to record the archaeology of the site. Only around 1% of the park was excavated, but near the Velodrome they found an entire Victorian cobbled street and the ruins of several cottages, buried under 1940s and 1950s landfill. The site was heavily contaminated with chemical waste, from its industrial heyday, so Gardner wore a protective suit.

Although the Olympics reshaped the landscape, the hills now enjoyed by residents and visitors are still sculpted landfill - shaped and moulded and sealed off, to protect a clean layer of topsoil for plants. Gardner wonders about how his role gives legitimacy to events such as the Olympics. "Quite often, they can have negative effects on the past: they wipe out historic districts, housing, jobs, rivers, roads," he says. "The organisers' rhetoric was it was an industrial wasteland where nobody really lived. But that's not true."

With a new UCL campus being built in the Olympic Park as part of a new "Cultural and Education District" that will also house a branch of the Victoria & Albert Museum and Sadler's Wells theatre, there may be more opportunities for excavations.

But the danger of archeology's burgeoning role, he says, is it becomes a sop for residents who'd rather have somewhere genuinely affordable to live than another university campus.

The university first planned to build south of the park, which controversially meant knocking down the Carpenters Estate. "UCL didn't really do itself any favours by alienating people in local communities who are desperate for housing in one of the poorest areas on the UK," he says. The estate is still standing, for now.

... or as a 'destination'

As a new piece of city, the Olympic Park isn't radical. But neither is it the forlorn and barren white elephant many suggested it might become. No one would describe the odd situation of tens of thousands West Ham fans being herded away from the shopping hordes at Westfield, or the park's stop-start cycle lanes, as functional. But the place does, in its way, function. People live there, but many, many more people visit - and enjoy it.

One Leyton resident says the park space was a godsend when he was on paternity leave. "It meant I could go on a two-hour walk, feed my son in the park, there was space to move and it was easy to push a buggy around or for him to walk." What of the criticism that the development feels alien to the surrounding area? "I disagree. The first year that it opened it felt unimpressive - the trees had just been planted, it was quite bare and scrappy and there was a lot of building work - but year on year, as the park beds in naturally, it is getting better. People go to the pool, the Copper Box gym, the velodrome and other facilities for recreation. It feels to me that it's used."

Walking round the place as a visitor can feel a little like traversing a theme park with people living in it. Playful ways of marking territory such as #MyE20 appear emblazoned on hills or in a pond; a deeply strange hunk of twisted steel from the World Trade Centre in the car park of the aquatics centre typifies the grandstanding absurdity of parts of this place, but there are more buildings still to come: residential, cultural, recreational. Again, it's a mixed bag.

"Much of what's been done is quite good," says Simon Munk, a cycling campaigner who lives in Walthamstow. "But you only need to ride there for five minutes and you can see bad surfaces, cycle tracks that stop and start, tracks that come to junctions that are not suitable for cycling. It's a 1980s approach, with no coherence."

There are plans to demolish some artist space in Hackney Wick for a new walking and cycling bridge, which Munk says cyclists don't actually need, and a new road and car bridge. The upshot will be new routes for drivers coming from the Blackwall Tunnel, creating huge rat runs through the park - not exactly a vision of a less car-reliant future. One of the park's ironies is that there used to be two cycle tracks between the velodrome and the Clays Lane site - a race track, the Eastway, and an off-road track, the Beastway - that were lost during the landscaping and repurposing (although a new facility was built at Hog Hill in Redbridge). Munk says the Eastway cycle track is a good example of undervaluing community assets that aren't on the radar of outsiders. "Politicians saw it as a lawless place, but it was a rich seam of London lore and life."

Some of the Olympic Park is already threatening to fray here and there; yet it still gives off an air of abnormal newness: impersonal but with free wifi. From the comfortable charity coffee shop to the private security guards ushering you this way or that when events are on, the managed nature of the place seems to be its defining legacy.
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This article was amended on 3 August 2017. An earlier version referred to affordable housing targets set for the East Village. That should have referred to the Olympic Park. More information on the London Legacy Development Corporation was added to clarify its status.

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Legacy, what legacy? Five years on the London Olympic park battle still rages

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Family-friendly utopia or part-privatised nightmare? Revitalised wasteland or monument to social cleansing? The story didn't end once the Games were over

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When Glasgow was forced to address the decline of its traditional industries, city fathers became aware it needed to reinvent itself. Decades on, Glasgow stands proud again as a world-class destination and one of the best examples of urban regeneration in existence.

From the late 1960s, Glasgow suffered a slump caused by competition in industries like ship building. The River Clyde, which once saw the construction of renowned Cunard shipping line vessels such as the QE2 and the Royal Yacht Britannia, was a shadow of its former self. If you walked these same quay sides today, the only thing you would recognise is the water.

New Look, New Pride

The regeneration of the River Clyde corridor, through both public and private investment, has changed Glasgow beyond recognition. Architecturally bold structures like the Glasgow Science Centre, IMAX Cinema, Glasgow Tower, the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) and the Clyde Arc and Tradeston Bridges have altered the waterfront skyline with striking effect.

New business districts with modern residential and office space have replaced empty yards and have been linked to the bustling centre by pedestrian paths and cycle ways. A new lifestyle has been introduced to the river, through quality hotels and retail esplanades such as the impressive Braehead Shopping Centre.

The coming of the Commonwealth Games in 2014 is set to stimulate further development of the Clyde waterway. This includes the building of a £125 million national arena at the SECC and a National Indoor Arena and Velodrome and Athletes' Village in the east of Glasgow.

Not only has the recent transformation made Glasgow a place to rediscover, modern industries on the Clyde waterfront are driving growth. The most noteworthy examples are the International Financial Services District (IFSD) at Broomielaw and the Digital Media Quarter on Pacific Quay.

Growth Returns to Glasgow

Since the beginning of the £1 billion, ten-year project to create a financial services hub in Glasgow, the derelict dockside of Broomielaw has become home to 15,000 new jobs and some of the biggest blue chip financial companies on the planet.

Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, National Australia Group, esure, BNP Paribas and Aon are now located in a 1 square km stretch between St Vincent Street and the River Clyde. One in thirteen employees in Glasgow now work in financial services. The success of the district has contributed significantly to a 32% growth rate in jobs city-wide since 2000.

"We want the waterfront to be a great place to work, to live and to enjoy leisure and lifestyle," says Mark Barton, Marketing Manager of Clyde Waterfront Strategic Partnership . "The IFSD has been hugely successful in bringing overseas investment and new jobs. In recent years, along the waterfront, there has been over 18,000 new jobs created, 8500 new homes built and 320,000 square metres of commercial space constructed. There is also å£1.5 billion of further investment committed."

Replacing Old Industry

Like the IFSD, the Pacific Quay developments have changed the look and the economy of Glasgow. The construction of the £20.3 million Clyde Arc Bridge or 'Squinty' bridge in 2006 linked Finnieston with Pacific Quay.

The improved road access led to the development of a digital media quarter, with the BBC relocating in 2007 to a new £188 million Headquarters on Prince's Dock, equipped with the latest digital technology and visitor facilities. Also based in the digital quarter are Scottish Media Group, Galaxy FM, Shed Media Scotland, Digital Design Studio and Film City Glasgow, makers of movies such as Red Road and Hallam Foe.

A site left vacant following the Glasgow Garden Festival, Pacific Quay is now a vibrant creative sector. "There were previously areas of derelict land because of the decline of ship building but if you were to take a trip along the river now, you would see an impressive landscape," adds Barton. "The regeneration of the Waterfront is something Glasgow's residents are extremely proud of."

Titan Changes Clydebank

It is not only redevelopment close to the city centre which is changing Glasgow. Regeneration company Clydebank Re-built has won awards for transforming the former John Brown shipyard.

A ten-year £235 million plan has seen the William Arrol-designed Titan crane established as a popular visitor attraction. A new Clydebank College building and business sector is improving skills and prospects in an area previously associated with low opportunity.

With the opening of the new Riverside Museum at Glasgow Harbour in 2011 set to reinforce Glasgow's reputation as a tourism hotspot, what was once 'the second city of the British Empire' is a story of success and one that is set to run and run.
Clyde Waterfront Regeneration Clyde Gateway Regeneration Internationl Financial Services District Creative Clyde Scotland's Commonwealth Games 2014 Legacy

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Scotland - Glasgow reinvented - the regeneration of Glasgow and the River Clyde |

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When Glasgow was forced to address the decline of its traditional industries, city fathers became aware it needed to reinvent itself. Decades on, Glasgow stands proud again as a world-class destination and one of the best examples of urban regeneration in existence. From the late 1960s, Glasgow suffered a slump caused by competition in industries like ship building.

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It has taken five years to shape, publish and consult on, but the Plymouth and South West Devon Joint Local Plan (JLP) has finally been submitted.

The Joint Local Plan looks at every aspect of how Plymouth City Council, South Hams District Council and West Devon Borough Council want its cities, towns and villages to look and feel for years to come.

To give a scale and variety of submissions, one development company submitted over 600 pages, a member of the public supplied a detailed comment on more than 50 separate sites, while others submitted petitions.

Addresses ranged from owners of country estates to a treehouse dweller. Each and every submission has been recorded.

That's why The Herald has picked apart the MASSIVE document for you to explain just what it means for Plymouth.

Railway Station

Land at and surrounding the railway station has been allocated for a mixed-use regeneration scheme to create a high quality gateway and arrival point to the city and increases the capacity of the station to accommodate increasing numbers of passengers.

But it won't just be a station. There will also be offices, education facilities, commercial, hotel, small-scale retail development, residential and student accommodation.

The Joint Local Plan says any development should provide for the following:

1. A more intensive form of development which makes better use of vacant and underused space, with retention and refurbishment of Intercity House or its replacement with a high quality landmark building.

2. Use of landmark buildings to provide a widely visible presence to the station.

3. A high quality and attractive station entrance, including the creation of a new public space, with a direct public route on foot and by bicycle from Armada Way.

4. Uses which create activity around the station.

5. Clear information regarding connecting bus services and good access for bus passengers.

6. Opportunities to support the introduction of sustainable transport choices such as cycle hire, car clubs and electric vehicle charge points.

7. Replacement of the existing multi-storey car park, with high quality parking provided as an integral part of the scheme.

8. Pedestrian and cycle links to Central Park

8. Enhanced connections between the campuses, the City Centre, the History Centre, Railway Station and neighbouring areas of the city.

9. Tree planting and greening of the campuses to enhance the environment and absorb air pollution.

10. Sustainable energy strategies, including the delivery of district heating opportunities.

Metro

Plymouth could get its own tram-style Metro system - complete with new stations in and around the city.

A new railway station could be built in Plympton under the ambitious plans, as well as re-opening the local rail link to Tavistock.

And as part of the proposed scheme, branded 'Plymouth trams' could be created to get commuters off the road.

Two areas in Plympton, Marsh Mills and Colebrook, have already been earmarked for a station and the first step will be to reopen the local rail link to Tavistock, reinstating the Plymouth to Exeter routes via Tavistock and Okehampton. Work is already underway to make that a reality.

A benefit would be the new Tavistock to Newton Abbot, via Plymouth, service, which not only mirrors the improvements seen on the similar Devon Metro Paignton to Exmouth, via Exeter, service but also connects the two networks at Newton Abbot.

Airport

A key part of the JLP is safeguarding the airport site for a five-year period, while at the same time strengthening transport links to Exeter and Bristol airports

The plan says aviation remains an important element of strategic connectivity looking into the future.

Plymouth Airport closed in 2011, but the policy safeguards the opportunity for the re-opening of Plymouth airport for general aviation until the next plan review when the site will receive a specific land use allocation. This time limit is identified to provide sufficient time for a private-sector led business plan to be finalised and put into action to deliver aviation use at the site.

The plan adds current evidence provides sufficient confidence that a deliverable proposition can be achieved, but the time limit will guard against any long term risk that the site is left unused for the entirety of the plan period.

Proposals that remove key airport infrastructure will not be permitted. This includes:

1. Main Terminal Building.

2. Runway 13/31 (asphalt), within Code 2 grassed runway strip and RESAs.

3. Airport Apron (situated between the main terminal building and taxiway Charlie).

4. Maintenance Hangar.

5. Engine Testing Bay.

6. Fire Station.

7. Fire Training Facility.

8. Control Tower.

9. Fuel Storage Facility.

10. Navigation and Visual Aids.

11. Approach Lighting (both within and outside of the airport boundary).

12. The runway and areas for aircraft to taxi.

Rail links, bridges and ferries

We have all faced problems on the rail network, especially in stormy conditions.

But the JLP says it will be supporting investment that enhances the resilience of the rail network to extreme weather events and delivers improvements to capacity, frequency and journey times from London and the rest of the country.

Measures will include:

1. Improving connectivity and supporting the development of future rail freight opportunities between Cornwall, Plymouth, Exeter and the rest of the country.

2. Supporting an additional route between Exeter and Newton Abbot that improves resilience and journey times and the re-opening of the Northern Route between Plymouth and Exeter via Tavistock and Okehampton.

3. Improving local rail connectivity and links between Tavistock and Plymouth and Okehampton and Exeter.

The JLP notes particular challenges exist in relation to links from Cornwall. Movements across the Tamar are constrained by the capacity of the bridges and the ferries.

Capacity on the Tamar road bridge is managed through the use of a traffic flow system, but this means that capacity out of the city in the mornings and into the city in the evenings is sacrificed to accommodate commuter flows into Plymouth in the mornings and out of Plymouth in the evenings.

The bridge is currently coping, as is the ferry link, but it and the wider strategic road network is vulnerable to incidents and increases in demand, which have implications for the role South East Cornwall is able to play in supporting sub regional growth and particularly in regards to accommodating new homes and jobs to meet the needs of the HMA.

Additionally, provision will need to be made for further transport investment on Plymouth's western approaches, including potentially new park and ride and park and rail sites and a co-ordinated sustainable transport programme in Cornwall and Plymouth which provide genuine sustainable alternatives to single occupancy car travel.

History Centre

Last month the name for the History Centre was officially revealed to Plymouth - The Box.

With just three years left until construction work comes to an end, the pace has quickened with many aspects of the ambitious scheme.

The JLP says the History Centre and land at Tavistock Place / Chapel Street Land at North Hill and Tavistock Place is allocated for a state-of-the-art hub, together with a higher education-led mixed use development on Tavistock Place / Chapel Street with student housing development in cluster flat format.

The History Centre will be a major new visitor attraction and unique historic archive and learning space for the city which will support the regeneration of the North Hill / Tavistock Plan cultural quarter.

It will bring together the existing City Museum collections with new exhibition space, including the conversion of the former St Luke's Church, together with a landmark modern archive space for the city's historic archives.

Tavistock Place will be closed to through traffic to form a public piazza, with new pedestrian and cycling links through to North Hill and Chapel Street.

Road network

It may cause upheaval, but major improvements to the city's road infrastructure have to be made.

The JLP marks at numerous roads and areas for improvement, some of which have already got underway.

There will be improvements to:

1. Charles Cross Roundabout

2. St Andrews Cross roundabout

3. A374 Octagon to Derry's Cross

4.A374 Western Approach

5. A374 / A386 North Cross roundabout

6. Royal Parade

7. A379 Exeter Street

8. City Centre parking improvements

9. Marjon Link Road

10. Northern Corridor junction improvements

11. A386 Derriford Transport Scheme

12. Derriford Hospital interchange

13. Strategic Cycle Network

14. Forder Valley Link Road

15. Forder Valley A38 interchange

16. Woolwell to The George, A386 dualling scheme

17. A38 Manadon Junction to Crownhill

18. A38 Manadon Junction

19. Derriford Car Park (public)

20. Improved Northern Corridor Park and Ride sites and services

21. B3250 Mannamead Road

22. A386 Outland Road

23. Morlaix Drive / Brest Road

24. Deep Lane junction improvements

25. A38 Deep Lane junction improvements (South)

26. Eastern Corridor junction improvements

27. Marsh Mills MOVA improvements

28. Strategic Cycle Network - improvements / expansion

29. Pomphlett roundabout to The Ride - capacity / bus priority

30. Cattedown roundabout - capacity / bus priority

31. Deep Lane Park and Ride

32. Langage southern access road

33. A374 / B3416 Plymouth Road and key junctions in

34. Plympton (to include B3416 MOVA improvements)

35. St Mary's Bridge - capacity / bus priority

36. Tavistock Junction - improved rail / freight facilities

37. Stanborough Cross / Haye Road - capacity / bus priority

Central Park Master Plan

We all love Central Park - and soon it will become even better.

Central Park will become a premier park for the people of Plymouth. It will become an outstanding venue of regional and national significance for active recreation and formal sport, culture, art and the natural environment.

As part of the growth of the city significant improvements will be delivered to enhance the recreational and sporting facilities as well as increasing the wildlife and community value of the park.

This will ensure the park provides significant health and well-being benefits for communities, a vibrant and diverse hub for formal sport and recreational activities, and a space where people can access nature.

This will be achieved by:

1. Creating a park with high quality, vibrant spaces that encourage a diversity of uses and is accessible to communities across Plymouth and beyond.

2. Enhancing existing and creating new sporting facilities that develop the park's role as a key sporting facility for the city and region whilst being sensitive to the park's natural and historic features.

3. Strengthening the links between the Life Centre and the sporting facilities within the park to deliver the highest quality sporting and recreational offer, catering for people of all abilities.

4. Protecting and enhancing the park's importance for wildlife and as a key green corridor. Ensuring that trees continue to have a key role in the park landscape by delivering a strategic tree management and replacement programme.

5. Encouraging and expanding food growing opportunities within the park to complement the existing allotment provision.

6. Development of new high quality park facilities including cafés, performance space, children's play spaces, landscape features, public toilets and new entrance features to complement and add value to the attractiveness and use of the park.

7. Developing and implementing a strategic water management solution for the park that resolves historic flooding issues through innovative Sustainable Urban Drainage solutions including new water features that will be designed to add value to the park's landscape and deliver benefits for wildlife.

8. Protecting and enhancing the park's historic features integrating them sensitively into the enhancement plans and where applicable identifying uses for features that are complementary to the park's outcomes and ensure their long term sustainability.

9. Creating a well-connected park for pedestrians and cyclists that links to surrounding neighbourhoods and the City Centre encouraging active travel to and through the park.

10. Ensuring any developments around the periphery of the park are sensitive to the purpose of the park and the natural and built assets it contains.

Millbay Boulevard

Plans for a swanky boulevard in Millbay have been on the table for several years, but buildings along Bath Street have already started being demolished to make way for the ambitious project.

The JLP says land at Bath Street West is allocated for a comprehensive residential led mixed-use redevelopment. Uses which will be supported include residential, offices, small scale retail, cultural and community uses. Provision is also made for 300 new homes.

Development should provide for the following:

1. Delivery of high quality public realm in order to create the Millbay Boulevard in a comprehensive and integrated manner.

2. Uses which create activity at ground floor level, particularly along the boulevard and other key routes.

3. A development which respects the site's heritage assets and context, as informed by a detailed heritage character assessment to be undertaken for the proposal.

4. High quality design which preserves and enhances the setting of the adjacent listed buildings and Union Street Conservation Area.

5. A scale of development appropriate to create an urban character. Taller landmark buildings on key corners will be sought to mark the entryway to the Millbay Boulevard.

South Yard (Oceansgate)

Work on the £7.8m first phase of Plymouth's vast Oceansgate marine hub has already reached the halfway stage - and it is on target for completion by the end of 2017.

The initial phase of Oceansgate will deliver 1,270sq m of office space, over the three floors, which will be leased to one firm, or several, by Plymouth City Council. Up to 14 firms could move in - or one company could take the entire space.

And when completed, Oceansgate will be one of the biggest regeneration projects in Britain.

The JLP says development will need to be sensitive to the re-use of historic buildings and respect the character of the site, whilst recognising there is a need to modernise and adapt the site for twenty-first century use.

The whole of South Yard has been designated an Enterprise Zone, branded 'Oceansgate', which is a 25-year designation offering marine businesses financial incentives to invest in growth.

The Oceansgate Enterprise Zone comprises three separate land ownerships: the MoD, Princess Yachts International and Plymouth City Council.

Cornwall Street West, city centre

This area of town has been looking tired and in need of a face lift for some time.

But the JLP says land at Cornwall Street West is allocated for mixed use, including commercial and housing, retention of coach station and new multi-storey car parks accessed from Mayflower Street.

Provision is made for in the order of 79 homes and development should provide for the following:

1. High quality design to replace poorer quality developments and deliver a greater level of activity, floorspace and diversity of land uses.

2. Buildings of between 5-6 storeys in height.

3. An enhanced arrival point to the City Centre providing for high quality public car parking in a multi-storey format with vehicular access direct from Mayflower Street and seamless pedestrian connections into Cornwall Street.

4. A north / south connection through the block which provides smaller scale spaces in the City Centre to support a greater range of land uses.

5. Enhanced setting of the coach station with new build frontage and improved direct pedestrian and cycle access to the car park and to all surrounding streets.

6. Further enhancements as required to support a high quality of environment and facilities at the coach station.

Colin Campbell Court

Land at Colin Campbell Court is allocated for high-quality residential led mixed use development which will transform the western approach to the City Centre and establish a new residential community. Provision is made for in the order of 300 new homes as part of this mix

Three decrepit empty buildings at the bottom end of Plymouth's New George Street will soon be torn down to make way for the major revamp of the area.

Demolition work was scheduled to begin before the end of June 2017 to rip out a section of terrace at the corner with Market Avenue.

Registry office

The register office in Plymouth looks set to be knocked down and replaced with a posh hotel offering spectacular views across the Hoe.

But proposals outlined by council chiefs to give the site a new lease of life provide no indication where the office, used to register marriages, births and deaths for Plymouth residents, would be relocated.

The brown brick, two-storey building occupies a prime site at the southern gateway from Plymouth's major waterfront park to Armada Way - the grand Abercrombie-designed boulevard that links the Hoe to the city centre and continues north to Plymouth's Central Railway Station.

The JLP says povision is made for in the order of 52 homes, as well as a hotel, but that development should provide for the following:

1. High quality architecture that maximises the site's redevelopment potential whilst responding positively to the Hoe Conservation Area's historic character and the site's role as a strategic gateway to Armada Way. The design should be informed by a detailed heritage character assessment to be undertaken for the proposal.

2. Active ground floor frontages to be encouraged to enliven all public streets and spaces - Armada Way and Citadel Road in particular.

3. Improved east / west public access along the site's north boundary, linking Armada Way to Lockyer Street.

4. High quality public realm including enhancement of Armada Way.

5. Innovative car parking solutions to reduce the visual impact of vehicles on the public realm.

6. Relocation of the register office function.

Derriford Community park

The park will become a highly valued environmental, social and educational asset, a resource for the people of Plymouth and a regional destination for environmental learning.

This will be achieved through:

1. Delivery of a high quality, accessible, natural green space, which retains and enhances the areas unique character, safeguards landscape features and the farmsteads that are historically significant and capitalises on key views.

2. Delivery of the Environmental Learning Hub at the heart of the park, next to the new school building north of the new Seaton Neighhbourhood.

The learning hub will include:

i. Classrooms, meeting rooms and offices that will support a diverse range of environmentally focused learning and social enterprise opportunities and the management of the wider park.

ii. An animal park that will support learning outcomes and enable communities to have hands on experiences with large and small animals. This will include indoor facilities and grazing paddocks.

iii. Will provide a focal and arrival point for the Park and include outdoor facilities such as growing areas, orchards and play spaces.

iv. The building itself will be designed to the highest environmental standards and be an exemplar of sustainable design.

v. The hub will provide a focus for outdoor learning, with an emphasis on wildlife, food production and farming.

3. The Establishment of a network of pedestrian and cycle routes throughout the park connected to new and existing communities through the creation of entrance ways and access points. The routes through the Park will enhance connectivity between adjoining communities and facilities in Derriford and form part of the city's strategic networks for walking and cycling.

4. Enable the continuation of farming within the city. Grazing by livestock will play a crucial role in managing the park and increasing the wildlife value of the grasslands. The park will need to retain facilities for operational farm activities and access. The park will also provide focus for community food growing and processing facilities that support wider community led social enterprise opportunities.

5. Enable landscape scale restoration of wildlife habitats which will include the incorporation of mitigation measures and surface water attenuation for adjoining developments. The wildlife restoration will include the enhancement of flower rich grasslands, the planting of new and enhancement of existing woodland, new/enhanced hedgerows, enhancement of stream habitat and new wetland areas and the creation of new features for bats, birds, reptiles and insects.

6. Enable a good relationship with the adjacent Seaton Neighbourhood ensure sensitive boundaries and connections are achieve

Sherford

The first brick was laid at one of Plymouth's biggest housing developments in July 2016.

Now building work is well underway and in total, 5,500 new homes are planned for the site, near Plymstock. But it will be another 20 years before the development is fully complete.

The JLP says 4,508 of these homes are anticipated to be delivered within the plan period, as well as 67,000 sq.m. of employment floorspace.

The following key principles should be continued in the delivery of the new community and in any later revisions to the approved schemes:

1. The development should meet the following key outcomes:

i. A sustainable development delivering an excellent quality of life, within a well-designed high quality environment.

ii. A strong and healthy community.

iii. A high quality, good locally distinctive design.

iv. A mix of uses prioritising affordable homes, local job opportunities, and a full range of community facilities.

v. Safe and convenient movement, incorporating a high quality public transport system alongside high quality facilities for pedestrians and cyclists.

vi. High quality public spaces throughout the development, including a large scale community park forming the eastern boundary.

vii. A response to the challenges of 'climate change' and the need for maximising the opportunities for sustainable lifestyles.

2. Delivery of an appropriate scale and range of retail facilities including:

i. A new district centre in the heart of the community including a full range of facilities and services to meet the needs of this major new residential community.

ii. Three local centres to meet the local neighbourhoods day to day needs.

3. Delivery of 200 hectares of Community Park (including 70 hectares of tree planting).

4. Delivery of a new Park and Ride facility near Deep Lane junction with convenient access to A38.

5. Delivery of a central route through Sherford that can function as part of the strategic public transport corridor along the Eastern Corridor.

6. Designed to allow the long term growth at Sherford to be in a westerly direction.

7. Delivery of the following community infrastructure:

i. Educational facilities including a secondary school and three primary schools.

ii. Health and community facilities, including a town hall, library, youth centre and multi-faith building.

iii. Sports recreation facilities, including an indoor sports facility and swimming pool and approximately 31ha of outdoor playing pitches and courts.

iv. A network of green spaces including public open space, outdoor areas of play and allotments, appropriately connected by pedestrian and cycling routes.

The 75 places earmarked for housing

Swathes of land all over Plymouth have been added to a list of potential new housing development sites - including sites in every part of the city.

Barne Barton
Bull Point Barracks Savage Road area Tamar Valley School
City Centre
The Civic Centre, Council House and car park Cornwall Street East Cornwall Street West The Crescent New George Street West Plymouth University and College of Art Railway Station Royal Assurance Building Tavistock Place
Compton
Land at Windsor Road
Crownhill
Plumer Road Seaton Neighbourhood
Derriford
Derriford Commercial Centre Dunraven Drive Glacis Park Island Farmhouse
Efford
Douglass House
Ernesettle
Fields north of the A38 St Budeaux junction Lakeside residential home
Greenbank
Plymouth Dental Access Centre
The Hoe
Cliff Road Plymouth Register Office
Honicknowle
Little Dock Lane Stirling House and Honicknowle Clinic
Keyham
Former Gas Works Site
Kings Tamerton
Coombe Way & Kings Tamerton Road Chaucer Primary School
Milehouse
Citybus Depot
Millbay
Bath Street East Bath Street West Millbay Marina and more
Mount Gould
Mount Gould Hospital
Mount Wise
'Area A' 'Area D'
North Prospect
Redevelopment Phase 4 Redevelopment Phase 5
Pennycomequick
Royal Mail building
Pennycross
Ham Drive
Plymstock
Downham School Former Nursery Pomphlett Industrial Estate Saltram Meadow Vinery Lane
Plympton
Chaddlewood Fields Coypool Erril Retail Park Newnham Road Plympton Hospital Plympton House West Park Hill
Royal William Yard
Melville Building
Sherford

Southway
Clittaford Road Former Paper Factory Land north of Clittaford Road Langley Crescent Southway Primary School and playing fields Southway Secondary School
Stoke
Land at Stuart Road/Victoria Park
Stonehouse
Broadreach Ocean Quay Stonehouse Barracks Union Street
Sutton Harbour
Sugar House Plymouth Fruit Sales Sutton Road and Exeter Street
Turnchapel
Undercliff Road
Whitleigh
Former BT Depot Land at Tamerton Foliot Road Whitleigh Community Centre Woodlands School site Woodvale Nurseries
Woolwell
Woolwell urban extension
Outside Plymouth
Ivybridge Tavistock Totnes Kingsbridge

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What the HUGE plan for the future of Plymouth actually means

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It has taken five years to shape, publish and consult on, but the Plymouth and South West Devon Joint Local Plan (JLP) has finally been submitted. The Joint Local Plan looks at every aspect of how Plymouth City Council, South Hams District Council and West Devon Borough Council want its cities, towns and villages to look and feel for years to come.