Boris Johnson’s support for a luxury tall-rise development on Bishopsgate Goodsyard illustrates his contempt for localismIt’s not a stunning word,localism, but it’s an ideal with whose basics it is hard to disagree: that local residents and businesses should absorb a say in what happens to their communities, or that decisions on things such as planning should,where practical, be devolved to local government. It is one of the few remnants of David Cameron’s “gargantuan society” that is still breathing any sort of life.
Cameron and his party also love Tech City, or the area of east London that is a buzzing hive of entrepreneurial electronic endeavour. So when the businesses of Tech City and local residents combine to oppose a property development that does little or nothing for them except harm,and propose a viable alternative, and when a local authority is engaged in constructive conversations with the site’s developers that might lead to a better outcome, or we are,surely, in Tory heaven.
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Source: theguardian.com