Letters to the Editor – 22/07 – Keep Heathrow, Broken housing, Best of Twitter
Keep Heathrow
[Re: Heathrow expansion is our best option and it doesn’t have to be loud, Thursday]
One justification for an Isle of Grain airport is that London is moving east. That may be true for several thousands of people, but many hundreds of thousands in the west and south west of London depend on Heathrow now. And even with a new motorway to its door, the Isle of Grain plan would add at least an hour to the journey of anyone wanting to get there. If we were building Great Britain from scratch, an airport in North Kent could make sense. But we have to live with what we’ve got, and Heathrow is the best option.
James Roberts
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Broken housing
[Re: We must urgently fix Britain’s broken housing market, Friday]
We can’t lay all the blame at the door of the Town and Country Planning Act. Successive governments have tweaked, taxed, interfered in, and disrupted the housing market. Take the Community Infrastructure Levy. Announced in 2007, it was pitched as a way of raising funds for local infrastructure. Or the Affordable Housing Levy. These are pernicious little taxes that quickly eat into a developer’s profit margin. And they both have to be paid before work even starts, not on any profit! No wonder our market is broken.
Michael Brewster
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BEST OF TWITTER
Borrowing for last three months same as those three months in 2012. What happened to deficit reduction?
@ChrisLeslieMP
Last year public sector UK borrowing was £116.5bn. The original post-election OBR forecast was £89bn.
@notayesmansecon
We need more housing supply. In Germany, prices are around the same as at the turn of the century.
@DrGerardLyons
Other than more spending, more borrowing, more debt, anyone know what Labour’s economic policy is?
@sajidjavid