This @TheEconomist article is very strange, odd & not really based on much evidence
It also repeats various myths without evidence, misses the big issues, and therefore comes to the wrong conclusions
A 🧵on its inaccuracies
a. no mention of leasehold or commonhold at all !
1/

https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1647620881336745986

b. it correctly says these buildings are expensive which is true but then talks about land value in England as one main reason why tall towers in big cities are expensive
Economist article in black, my comments in red
The main reason why tall towers are expensive is
2/

The issues are more extensive than @PlanningMag article states
Councillors who made the decision to reject the resident's Yes vote in favour of the business No vote
Incorrectly, used the wrong business turnout % to suggest a higher proportion of businesses voted than residents
1/

https://twitter.com/PlanningMag/status/1649031410261393410

Proportionally more residents voted than businesses
Councillors were also not officially told that:
Some of the business votes were illegal (three people voted more than twice)
49.5% of all the business vote came from a single office building
Cllrs also not told that there was
2/

Problems with Homes of Multiple Occupation (HMO) & why a man died due to Council inaction
A man died earlier this month in a flat fire, had the Council been more proactive and responsive he might still be alive but an attempt to get them to do so in January 2021 was rejected
1/

https://twitter.com/Andrewwood17/status/1635032757104705540

18 people, primarily students and delivery couriers from Bangladesh, lived in a 2-bedroom former Council flat at the time of the fire, 22 beds were seen in the property including in the kitchen (mainly bunk beds)
2/

New independent private primary school in Canary Wharf planning application
CW Group has applied to build a new 9-storey (thin but tall) nursery and primary school in the middle of Wood Wharf
402 pupils (150 nursery pupils and 252 primary school pupils) and 80 FTE staff
1/ Summary here
constructing-london.com/wood-wharf-sch…
This would be a fee-paying school separate from the Mulberry Primary state school already built opposite this proposed new school so there would be 2 schools on site
2/

Local Plan consultation response - why the Local Plan needs to change
1st round of consultations on the new Local Plan ended on Wednesday - 2nd round of consultation should be later this year after they publish the draft policies
I wrote a 13 page response to it raising some
1/

https://twitter.com/Andrewwood17/status/1631722254261264404

of some of my issues with it & planning here in general
Fundamentally the objective of recent London and Local Plans has been to push most development in Tower Hamlets to Aldgate, Aberfeldy, Isle of Dogs including Blackwall & other parts of Poplar
2/

I went to the @ConHome Defence & Security Conference today
Several questions from audience about what will happen in Ukraine
All those who answered said, they don't know the outcome
That assumes Britain has a passive role
Britain could determine the outcome by helping Ukraine
1/ More western weapons would put Ukraine in a stronger position to win
(in the same way western support helped USSR defeat Nazi Germany)
@BWallaceMP mentioned 250 vehicles sent by Britain
But Ukrainians crowdfunded to buy 101 ex-British Army armoured

https://twitter.com/serhiyprytula/status/1631675475754885124?s=20

2/

How many bikes are in your bike store?
Do you live in a newer building with dedicated cycle parking? Can you tell me how full it is as a %? and/or send me a picture
The current Local Plan says that almost 100% of residents in new buildings need to have a cycle parking space
1/ Developers must provide 1 cycle space per 1 bedroom apartment and 2 spaces for all other dwellings
This creates some large physical spaces in areas which could have many alternate uses e.g. retail, study (see Pan Pen), play, refuse storage, bigger entrances etc
2/

Where should tall buildings go? should we have really tall buildings in a few places or have more but shorter towers spread out across Tower Hamlets as we did in the 1960's?
Map shows the proposed height of tall buildings in new Local Plan
Focusing tall towers in small parts
1/ of Tower Hamlets
Tall building = 20 storeys or 60 meters high
This map shows that in the 1960's & 1970's planning policy was very different
20 & 25 storey towers built across Tower Hamlets but new Local Plan restricts height to half that height 30 meters = 10 storeys
2/

Tower Hamlets Council budget meeting paperwork is here
democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/ieListDocument…
Includes Labour, Conservative & Green amendments
+ Will Tuckley CEO pay off - he leaves Council tomorrow but the numbers are secret
Stephen Halsey is the interim CEO (again)

https://twitter.com/Andrewwood17/status/1627722439068090368?s=20

1/ Mr Halsey was the interim CEO before Will Tuckley arrived in 2015
The Labour amendment is here
democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/documents/s213…
2/

A 🧵on Mayor Lutfur Rahman's new 3-year budget
It is an extraordinary budget & a high-risk strategy
But he has also been fortunate - he inherited substantial £££ from John Biggs + the demography & economy of Tower Hamlets allow him to be generous :)
Will his luck last?
1/ I had to build a spreadsheet to do this analysis, combining data from different years because TH has historically not published similar analysis
I wonder if this analysis is done in-house?
First is a history of reserves
Under Labour reserves went up
Aspire want to spend them
2/

A key issue in TH politics is that we have the lowest average age in England & Wales
BUT this is mainly because so few old people + lots in their 20's & 30's here
Not because we have lots of children relative to others
0-5 age group we have more then average number
1/

https://twitter.com/LutfurRahmanTH/status/1613224662863065089

of children
But in the 6 to 18 age group we have either average or below average numbers of children
Green is TH Black line is average for E&W
ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
Unfortunately lots of parents leave TH before primary school
With the exception of good schools little to keep
2

Aberfeldy Estate regeneration - planning committee Thursday 23rd February 6.30pm
One of the biggest re-developments in E14 reaches the planning committee stage this Thursday night for a decision by Councillors
If you want to speak to Cllrs at the meeting you must register
1/ in the next few days
Report here
democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/ieListDocument…
2/

Tower Hamlet's share of Council tax is going up by 2% not zero
It is true that this is less than the 5% permitted by the government & lower than inflation & lower than Labour % increases (except in election years)
The split between adult social care & other Council tax is not
1/

https://twitter.com/LutfurRahmanTH/status/1625493037769179139

real (done for presentational reasons)
The money goes into one bank account & the extra 2% will fund all Council activities (though adult social care costs are also going up by similar £ amount)
Tower Hamlets continues to have one of the lowest council taxes in London
2/

Chinese Embassy - update
Tower Hamlets passed the final decision onto the Mayor of London (this is an automatic process)
Mayor of London won't intervene (see pic)
This means that almost certainly it will go to appeal
Council will lose the appeal
The embassy will go ahead
1/

https://twitter.com/Andrewwood17/status/1597541874684022789

This also the view of this Telegraph article
telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/…
Unless @michaelgove & @luhc intervene and call it in
2/

New Local Plan - or why planning won't deliver enough new homes & why Mayor Lutfur Rahman will probably fail to deliver 1,000 new social homes for rent a year
Hurrah, the Council has started a new Tower Hamlets Local Plan consultation
Details here:
talk.towerhamlets.gov.uk/local-plan
1/ I wrote about it in some detail here on Facebook
facebook.com/groups/1458438…
2/

Partial quote here about emergency services views on road closures
"The three emergency services were consulted on the measures. The ambulance service and London Fire Brigade support the removal of physical closures"
This was suppressed by the Council in earlier reports
1/

https://twitter.com/BethnalCleen/status/1623827855191801856

"Since the implementation of the Liveable Streets scheme, there have been multiple incidents across the area where closures have hindered ambulance service and fire brigade access"
Source page 13
…ion-europe.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/88a11996cd26bf…
2/

Britain is only sending 14 or 6% of its Challenger 2 tanks even though we are about to rebuild only 148 of the 302 hulls we have (incl 75 in storage)
And so far none of the 534 Warrier armoured infantry fighting vehicles we are about to retire
Given that numbers matter in war
1/

https://twitter.com/ConHome/status/1618158472037830659

I wrote an article for ConservativeHome, a kind of in-house journal for conservatives & likely to be read by Conservatives (I had written for them before) suggesting we transfer all of the Warriors we have + all spares as we will be retiring them in a few years time
2/

Census 2021 data for Tower Hamlets - Education
Tower Hamlet's population is among the best educated in England & Wales
Darker the colour = the higher the education level on average
1/ Tower Hamlets is below average for all educational qualifications levels except Level 4 and above, see pic for guide, where we are above average (the black vertical line)

2/

Census 2021 data for Tower Hamlets - Sexual Orientation
3.96% of people in Tower Hamlets describe themselves as gay or lesbian - average for England & Wales is 1.54% - London 2.23%
2.52% bisexual - average for E&W 1.28% - London 1.52%
Darker the colour on map the higher the %

1/ 0.46% identified as pansexual
0.13% queer
0.06% asexual
0.04% another sexual orientation

Data here:
ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
2/

An update on the Police & CPS! investigation into the Spitalfields Neighbourhood Plan referendum
They have asked a Judge for more time which suggests the investigation is more complex than just looking at the multiple votes (easy to spot)
standard.co.uk/news/london/po…
1/ "Following the referendum, police were called in to probe the business “no” vote, amid suspicions of a “ possible conspiracy to subvert the referendum”, allegations of multiple voting, and claims that some business owners had exerted “undue influence” to sway the vote against"
2/

If you heard laughter this morning in E14, it was me reading the Councils latest financial report
LIF = Local Infrastructure Fund is £ money meant to be spent on local projects
Budget £8.5 million, fcst spend ONLY £0.3 m
Basically almost no projects in pipeline to spend £ on
1/ LIF is the 25% of Community Infrastructure Levy CIL money that developers give to the Council to fund infrastructure, at least 25% to spent locally
If we had a local Council that £ would go to local Council
But instead Council is just not spending it, first £ arrived in 2015
2/