Perhaps we should get really basic here. Economic growth is the new things we do. Can be doing old things in a newer and more efficient manner which frees up resources to then do other things as well. Can be doing something entirely new. But growth simply is those new and additional things.
The rate of growth is therefore the speed at which we do those new things.
The boss of National Grid has complained that it takes a decade to build a new power line in an attack on planning red tape.
John Pettigrew, the company’s chief executive, said that Britain’s planning rules add seven years of delays to the construction time for cables.
A planning system which triples the time necessary to do something new therefore slows economic growth.
We are observant enough to note that there are many complaining about the speed of economic growth in the Britain of today. If we’ve a planning system that is a soul-sucking leech on the potential speed of economic growth then this could, we submit, be part of the problem.
Our suggestion would therefore be to kill the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. Proper blow up, kablooie. We’d also insist that anyone who does not adopt this approach is not being serious about the slowdown in economic growth.
Well?