7 Articles by:
Gareth Fearn is a writer and Leverhulme research fellow with a focus on planning, politics and the UK energy system.
Labour’s plans to deregulate planning processes will further open up Britain to the property developers who have already caused so much damage to the country — and do little to help those at the sharp end of the housing crisis.
Last week’s fracking vote made clear there are gaping rifts in the Tory Party’s coalition – and it’s fantasy to think Rishi Sunak can easily knit things back together.
The content of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill proves that the only levelling up the ruling party is interested in is levelling up the bank accounts of the already rich.
The fracking lobby is using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to push its agenda once again, but there’s no future in fossil fuels – the only way out of the crisis is investment in renewal energy.
Liberals try to shrug off corruption as a bug in our system, but it’s really a feature – one that’s been core to capitalism from the very beginning.
Michael Gove has paused the government’s neoliberal planning reforms after a backlash from rural Tory heartlands – but neither camp will give us the democratic planning system we need.
One of the Tories’ biggest wins in the elections came in Tees Valley, where their mayor brought the local airport back into public ownership – a stark reminder of Labour’s own failure to foreground renationalisation.