Well, yes, we suppose it is the Home Counties

In our more dyspeptic moments we end up insisting that the Town and Country Planning Act, the entire idea of the Green Belt, is simply to make sure that none of these awful working class people, those proles, get to do anything in those rolling and admittedly lovely green acres of England. Nothing as in not live and nothing as in not making a living. Rather than actually having to buy those acres - and thereby spend their own money - in order to preserve them as they wish them to be preserved the haute bourgoisie has hijacked the law to make it so.

We agree, that is a rather dyspeptic view. Cynical even. And yet:

Angela Rayner has been accused of “annihilating” the green belt to build Europe’s largest data centre just outside of London.

A Government-backed plan to build the new £3.75bn complex – which is twice the size of Heathrow Terminal 4 – near Potters Bar in Hertfordshire, was approved by the local council in January.

However, residents are now calling for the decision to be revoked, arguing that developers misrepresented their plans and that locals were not properly consulted.

So why is it that wealth cannot be created on these lands?

Residents warned of a particular impact on children given the close proximity to the prestigious Dame Alice Owen’s School, as well as the impact on local equestrian facilities.

The Pony Club might have a view of an industrial building. Ban it.

It’s possible that dyspepsia is just a prelude to realism.

Tim Worstall