I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.…

One moment…, above all, had characterized my ascent. As I closed the gate behind me… I glanced backward…. All I could think was how magnificent this view is; how wonderful it is to live here; and how miraculous it was that previous generations had allowed the place to evolve – that glorious medley of stone and brick; of slate and tile – without damaging the heavenly spirit of our miraculous haven.

     But then doubt seized me as hard as any physical pain: and I wondered if this majesty could last; if our children will be the last to see, to enjoy, Tysoe at its best…. I see the prevalence of money (and its cousin greed) beginning to prevail again: dividing, destroying, dominating. I see equality dissolving; monopolies of wealth domineering and discriminating – …and with the power not just to rend the social paradise asunder, but the village’s physical existence, too. Not only that: but those who would fight such change are being quashed methodically and cruelly. What I saw was entropy made manifest… – and made by man.

     Of course, I could thrill in the current material resplendence, and ignore the political shenanigans; roam these splendid pastures, blinkered to their travails, for as long as I am able. But I am not the sort of person who – intellectually – can stand idly by….

A study of 120 neighbourhood forums and plans completed in 2014 by Locality and the University of Reading was not reassuring. Amongst its key findings were that many participants feel oversold on the plenipotentiary powers of neighbourhood planning and that participants do not see neighbourhood plans as radically changing the culture of [the] planning system.

– Nicholas Boys Smith: Is Neighbourhood Planning flourishing or withering? And how can communities do it better?

There are many reasons why I no longer get excited (well, not in a positive way) about the prospect of Tysoe possibly/finally – after years of squabbling; misdirection; bullying; sniping; lack of democratic involvement; character assassination; lack of understanding… – developing/finalizing its own (chimerical) Neighbourhood Plan; and, sadly, many of those “reasons” have been readily rehearsed on this blog. But, in the end (if this is such), there are three main questions to be answered. [My worry being that we will be given the ‘wrong’ responses (again): because, of course, in today’s political climate, we are not meant to (know enough to) actively challenge; just passively and dumbly do what we are told.]

1. Who is it (really) for?

After all this time – probably because no real effort was made to educate (ha!) residents on the back of the stunning enthusiasm that was corralled (mainly by one man) for the original Gladman rejection in Kineton (an easy advantage that was left to rot: principally, from my perspective, as part of a huge stinking pile of arrogance) – I don’t believe many in the three villages know or care what the heck such a beast is; what it should look like; what it can (and, more importantly, cannot) do. Consultations have been tokenistic (even though “meaningful” public engagement is a legal requirement); and no effort has been made – seemingly deliberately (if you can do nothing “deliberately”: which, of course, you can… it is indeed at the core of the majority of such political decisions) – to discover why the Village Hall hasn’t regularly had a queue outside it stretching all the way back to Oxhill Road. Villagers therefore feel utterly excluded; that it (whatever “it” is) is the preserve of a strangely invisible cabal; and do not – like myself – know (as they should do) if it is ‘owned’ (as it should be) by their elected representatives: either at Parish, District or County level. (The obvious response, here, is that it should belong to each and every resident: but, considering many of the previous sentences, this soon ‘resolves’ itself into a circular and pointless argument… – which of course, has become the plan’s unremitting methodology.)

Under the [Government’s] localism agenda, the wheels for private-sector encroachment into public planning have been further oiled, with the introduction of neighbourhood plans. Presented as a means of empowering communities, they have in fact left the door wide open for canny developers to move in, host a few community coffee mornings with felt-tips and post-it notes, and engineer a plan to their own advantage. There is no requirement for those who draw up the plan to even reside in the neighbourhood and, although they need a 50% “yes” vote at referendum, there is no requisite minimum turnout.

– Oliver Wainwright: The truth about property developers: how they are exploiting planning authorities and ruining our cities

2. What is it (good) for?

Fundamentally, Tysoe’s Neighbourhood Plan is unnecessary. It is also irrelevant in its constrained, required form; and useless in the form it last appeared in. Two large proposals – for that field again [if we keep on fighting over this tiny patch of land – and once really should have been enough… – it will soon be as blood-soaked as that at Edgehill (if not the room where Parish Councillors are taken to be unceremoniously knifed in the back)]; and for land above Middleton Close (incidentally, initiated by a local resident, for goodness’ sake) have been, respectively, withdrawn, and (I am told) rejected, on rather simple grounds: that there is enough housing stock in the pipeline. [Whether or not this has anything to do with the Lack-of-Foresight Saga that is the adoption of the Core Strategy, I really do not know… – and, to be blunt, really don’t give a tinker’s wotsit about: apart from the fact that we seem to be replicating its power-skewed process within this very parish. (What I do care about is the spirit of many selfless locals – which manifests itself in a repetitive slog of objections… – and the spirit of the place I live in: which, thankfully, being relatively intangible, cannot easily be bought, sold, or conquered (although I am beginning to have my doubts…).)]

Powers to allow communities to draw up Neighbourhood Plans (NPs) are one of the new “community rights” promoted in the Localism Act. At one level this looks like a welcome development – but it comes from a Conservative-led [Government] bent on austerity and privatisation. We need to ask what exactly is going on, and who will benefit?

     By emphasising communities and neighbourhood organisation, Neighbourhood Plans are part of the ‘big society’ agenda. Following disputes over planning policy, they are a government response to rebellious rural parishes and shire counties opposing urban sprawl and top-down government housing targets….

     However, Neighbourhood Plans… are not an open-ended community right; the right depends upon conditions set down by government and local authorities. For example, the government has bowed to pressure from the house building industry and has said that NPs cannot be used to oppose new development – much to the disappointment of many (mainly rural) communities who want to use the power to block new housing schemes they don’t want in their back yard.

     NPs must also conform to the National Planning Policy Framework [NPPF] recently announced by government, and also to local authority approved plans; they cannot buck approved planning policy…. This means that administering the NP process will be highly political….

– Bob Colenutt, Northampton Institute for Urban Affairs: A conditional right: the Localism Act and Neighbourhood Plans

3. Why is it (even) necessary?

If there truly is “enough housing stock in the pipeline” – and, although, once upon a time, I would have been the go‑to guy for the answer, I do not know… – then why are we being asked to nominate parcels of land for developers to cherry-pick? Or, as I wrote sixteen months ago:

We do not need a shopping list of fields for developers to target. What we need is a Tysoe which develops – as much as it can: as much as any “precious stone set in the silver sea” – in a way that we all recognize and wish for; and which does not lead our children and grandchildren continually to curse us for bequeathing them a village that is sterile through repetitious housing developments; even more isolated than now, because we did not grasp the chance to become subsistent in non-fossil-fuel-based power and motivation; or that has crumbled into a hollow, unrecognizable ghost and an uncomfortable locale to inhabit… because all we cared about was now, was instant gratification, was ourselves.

During the last Parish Council meeting I went to – which, for many reasons (health and accessibility being concrete ones; a lack of faith being, well, not theoretical as such, just in line with my fellow villagers’ disregard, disbelief, and dissatisfaction), was quite a long time ago – one of the councillors actually said, confidently, that “having a Neighbourhood Plan will protect the village”. (Perhaps they had imagined building a high Trumptonesque wall out of the rejected drafts…?) Whether this was ignorance, or evidence of subscription to a mis-sold view, or simply political disingenuousness (or even a weirdly-coloured cocktail of all three), I actually could not work out. (The only result, really, was that this was the moment when I had confirmed to me the tenet that if codswallop is repeated often enough, it soon gains, in some people’s wrong-heads, a palpable veneer of authenticity.) At least I knew, in my ultra-puzzled state, that it was blatantly wrong.

Firstly, because, at the time, the Core Strategy was just a fluffy cloud floating above Chris Saint’s head (rather than in his back pocket) – and therefore, even if we had accepted the mess then on the table, it would just have been an inconsequential piece of paper, as waved by Neville Chamberlain. And, secondly… because that is not what it does, or can do, at all. All it is, is another “piece of paper” to be added to the administrative burden of the rapidly shrinking Stratford-on-Avon District Council Planning department, when someone tries it on again with yet another time-wasting, ridiculous proposal. [Have we really got the resources – time, people, expertise, huge wads of cash… – to endlessly take developers to court to enforce a rethink each time they propose something that whoever is ‘in charge’ of Tysoe dislikes? (Oh, and don’t be surprised if they do the same to us – permanently and repeatedly challenging whatever it is we end up with – when they don’t like the look of what we have idealized…!)]

And, yes, I know we can “say” (to quote the latest glossy missive) what we would like such “ridiculous proposals” to look like, once built somewhere inappropriate. But that can also/similarly be ignored and challenged, of course… – and, as I have asked before (two blummin’ years ago), do we really want to stamp our unimaginative Country Life-reading mark all over centuries of beautiful, charming, sporadic and spontaneous architectural evolution with identical clusters of identical ironstone ‘cottages’? (Our parish truly does not need designing: it just needs to evolve – as it has done for millennia.)

If the answer to the previous (admittedly rhetorical) question, though, is “yes” – from those that have (or think, ahem, they have) power (and possibly taste: whichever end it sits on that particular spectrum) – then, the “backward glance” (and its associated deep love for the place I live), as I hauled myself past Old Lodge Farm, that simultaneously lifted my heart and prompted this rant, has absolutely no value. (And this, of course, needs to be multiplied by the number of all those who similarly “love” this place….)

All we want is something simple, that we all can understand:

Nothing complex or beyond us; notions rooted in the land;

A village with a future; where each to each is known;

A place which folk find welcoming; that is everybody’s own;

Where, gradually, in union, with corresponding power,

We spread this presence evenly, and remember well that our

Stay upon this well-tilled soil means little to time’s sprawl;

Though man is one of many visitors whose impact may be small

Next to heaven’s mighty globes and the voyages they’ve turned;

But that yet we must be wary of the furrows that we’ve churned.

And, what is worse (and so much worse): this means that my worry that Tysoe has just become a ‘condensation’, an enclave, a miniature representation of prevalent national right-wing attitudes, government, power – where the proletariat are ignored; ‘otherness’ is actively reviled; and everything is decided by the privileged few for that few… – has in fact become reality: whilst we were cleverly being distracted by the beauty that currently surrounds us; instead of watching out for Boojums with attitudes that you (once?) thought only existed in public school quadrangles. Farewell, democracy.

Tomorrow will be dying…

Here I am, sitting at the garden table, wringing out the occasional, disconnected phrase – with the encouragement of a variegation of beautiful, purring, tiny hoverflies feasting on the pansies, whilst revelling in the scent of proximate herbs, honeysuckle and ivy; sheep bleating stochastically from the Edge Hills; the call of St Mary’s tower punctuating my stop-motion creativity; interrupted by the passing murmurations of neighbours, occasional squabble of sparrows, and annoyance of dogs… – trying to express the joys (and consequential griefs) of being wilfully, ill-fully alive in Tysoe, during an Indian Summer that could dent even my well-armoured atheism.

Yesterday, however, I was a coincident Superhuman. Although – demonstrating the unequivocal effect of medication on the body’s ability to transcend its own physical and mental limits – I must admit that a form of ‘cheating’ was at the root of this accomplishment. Inadvertently, it has to be said. But, yes, I would do it again – despite feeling, this morning, through hyper-overexertion, as if I had gone ten rounds (geddit) with a steamroller… – although it is unlikely such an opportunity will present itself for quite some time….

[The medicine in question has been prescribed to try and reduce the stratospheric levels of my neuropathic pain; and the impact – that is, the frequency and intensity – of my almost-constant cervicogenic headaches. (They’re not really ‘migraines’, in the usual sense: because they are provoked by the huge tangle of nerve damage in and around my cervical spine.) A temporary side-effect of this – which is why some people take huge, ever-increasing, risky overdoses recreationally – is a ‘buzz’, once you reach a certain, individual level. I, though, am at only half the (mammoth) maximum dose – which is where I will stay for the next few months – and have only noticed its energizing effects (initially just a gentle, almost inaudible hum) in the last fortnight: after nearly three months of titrating the quantity I take (because of its potential for ‘evil’). Last week – as I was about nine‑tenths of the way to my currently-prescribed limit – this then-new bombilation lasted a couple of days. But it seems that yesterday – and I’m therefore glad I gathered rosebuds while I could… – was it: my last chance at glory. (Well, until my GP and I decide – if we ever do; and depending on the drug’s efficacy – to head a little further towards its sensibly-imposed ceiling.) So I grasped that chance as if my life depended on it.]

Usually, as the regular reader of this blog will know – however ‘easy’ the average onlooker may think it appears – I struggle intensely to put one foot in front of another: because such an activity exacerbates the already high levels of pain I continually experience – and from the first step onwards. (And trust me, it gets exponentially worse with each succeeding one.) As that poor soul (either the reader or the onlooker) will also know: this doesn’t stop me – when other factors don’t intervene (such as those three-day ‘migraines’) – from battling onwards: always hoping that the reward of a good walk won’t be spoiled by the consequent agony and downtime. Sadly, of course, it always is. (If my abilities were magnified by a factor of ten, yesterday; then the consequences are of at least the same factor.)

Such innate (and well-exercised) stubbornness is probably, realistically, at the root of yesterday’s remarkable achievement – however much its effects were magnified. If I had not already possessed the willingness to push myself, then the drug would have had nothing to amplify. (I obviously cannot speak to the truth of this statement for athletes caught doping: but I think it is not difficult to extrapolate from my experience and draw your own conclusions.) However, it was nice to be reminded of what – many years ago – I could do every day, week in, week out, without harm or effort. And, therefore, for me, my decrepit, torturous state, today, was simply an immensely worthwhile exchange.

I had decided to scale, again, the west face of Spring Hill, via Centenary Way; and then split off, around Sugarswell Farm, to head for Brunchfast at Upton House. This I achieved – despite fighting the slithering mud above Old Lodge Farm (where the thrum of building work melded with the passing cars above and below) – and with time to spare. I therefore spent a happy half-hour sat on a stile above Blackwell Wood, jotting down some initial aide-mémoires about my climb.

Apart from the promising weather and the dispersing school traffic, there was little to mark of my traipse through the village. A couple of brief chats – about the chilly breeze, the forecast, the scudding clouds… – and then no sign of another being until I reached Sugarswell Lane: where the hedge was carefully being flailed. There weren’t even that many birds around until I reached the expansive field of linseed on the other side of the road.

A small portion of this had been recently harvested (the combine now silently parked on the far edge): leaving the soil coated with a muesli-mix of flakes and stalks; but the remaining crop hid small feastings of goldfinches (especially amongst the thirty-three-strides-separated tyre tracks): which I regularly disturbed, despite my best efforts, until they formed a large tinkling charm bobbing and circling above me. They only settled when I did – but what divided them into their separate resting-places, I cannot say.

The only other interlopers here were infrequent, tall, proud stalks of barley – glowing head and shoulders above the main crop – escapees from the margins: where a ready mixture of generously-furnished plants (the agricultural equivalent of those suspended peanuts in our front gardens) would soon go to seed as winter food for non-migrating flocks.

One moment, though, above all, had characterized my ascent. As I closed the gate behind me, before entering the treeline – which I think always looks like a well-organized gathering of broccoli, from the Stratford-upon-Avon road, especially when well-lit – I glanced backward. Or at least this was my intention. I must have stood there for at least fifteen minutes: focusing on various parts of our parish – the sunlit church tower the most obvious… – from the gold-green patchworked plain beyond, up to our idiosyncratic trinket of a windmill. All I could think was how magnificent this view is; how wonderful it is to live here; and how miraculous it was that previous generations had allowed the place to evolve – that glorious medley of stone and brick; of slate and tile – without damaging the heavenly spirit of our miraculous haven.

But then doubt seized me as hard as any physical pain: and I wondered if this majesty could last; if our children will be the last to see, to enjoy, Tysoe at its best. And, yes, reader – despite the temporary drug-induced ‘high’ – I shed a tear or two: because – although I accept that each generation may think their time the ‘best’ – I see the prevalence of money (and its cousin greed) beginning to prevail again: dividing, destroying, dominating. I see equality dissolving; monopolies of wealth domineering and discriminating – …and with the power not just to rend the social paradise asunder, but the village’s physical existence, too. Not only that: but those who would fight such change are being quashed methodically and cruelly. What I saw was entropy made manifest… – and made by man.

Of course, I could thrill in the current material resplendence, and ignore the political shenanigans; roam these splendid pastures, blinkered to their travails, for as long as I am able. But I am not the sort of person who – intellectually – can stand idly by (even if my corporeal existence couldn’t remain upright for a minute or two without agony or vertigo instantly dragging it to bed; or to the floor). I am a natural-born resistance movement of one… – even if all I can do is pen the words that might, one way or another, motivate others to follow….

After a brief, breezy wander around Upton’s mirable orchard, gardens, and woodland, I set off to retrace my steps. Again, the linseed field was dotted with rising goldfinch; but, this time, the challenges of “the slithering mud” were accompanied by the mew of a buzzard, the calls and whistling flaps of pigeons, and the burbling annoyance of a discomposed robin. Emerging from the trees into a balmy atmosphere so unlike Upton’s crisp clarity… again, that view gave me pause; but I was – finally – beginning to wane, and decided just to enjoy the remainder of the walk ahead of me.

This time, as the path levelled out – parallel with the road between Lower and Middle Tysoe, where I had espied a lark earlier in the year – I was suddenly greeted by fifty or so house martins bobbing and weaving along, around and over the tall, untrimmed hedgerow – a rill running alongside it, the obvious attraction – gliding just above the freshly-ploughed field’s surface (as fine as any mole’s tilth), scooping the uplifted insects which had caused me to don my cap. Intermingled with a handful of red-bibbed and deep-fork-tailed, dark-blue-glistening swallows, they seemed unworried by my presence – parting to let me through, and then re-forming behind me – and delighted in their exercise. Sadly, though, of course, as the warmth of September fades, and summer dies away – nothing is permanent… – these birds will leave us; their nests already deserted until next year…. Farewell, summer.

And still the light grew and grew…

At the long day’s (and my short dawdle’s) inception – as I gingerly secured the front door: hat on head; walking stick in hand… – the extended witching hour that is Nautical Dawn was not much more than a dab ahead of me (having emerged languidly from its wearisome bedclothes – unlike The Bard Who Had Not Slept… – just before three o’clock: a little under two hours before sunrise). But, by the time my insomnia-induced stroll had propelled me, wraithlike, past St Mary’s Church – precisely as its tenebrose profile proclaimed the half-hour – there was sufficient emerging coolness tempering the blackness above (even in the dying embers of “this contentious storm”) for me to effortlessly mark my steps. And, although Aurora’s shy reflection effectively forewarned me of still-standing plashets (most of which I am on first-name terms with, anyway); her crepuscular modesty, regrettably, failed to safeguard a glut of hoarding gastropods (more suited, perhaps, than any aphoristic duck – or even my Pennine-straddling chromosomes – to such dankness) from instant, crackling, crunching ruin beneath my sturdy boots.

I have – perhaps partly incited by those Northern genes – always delighted in such intemperate weather. Additionally, I find the night – as I have often written on these pages – a cordial and comforting companion (as well as a tabula rasa, inspiring ideas and emotions). Not only does such a conjunction (which, for many, I accept, can be an unnerving, forbidding one) – notably when “I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top” – stimulate me to “gain some perspective” (and provoke an almost animal desire for immersion (or even submersion)); but I further find their combined inscrutable vigour intensely refreshening (intellectually and physiologically): as a partial consequence, no doubt, of their essential unsociableness. (The resulting inconspicuousness and solitariness beseem, shall we say, my intrinsic ‘Mole‑ness’.)

And yet – had any supernatural manifestation (as it does, so memorably, for the Mole and the Rat (and “the slumbering Portly”)) broken on me “like a wave” and caught me up… – I would have willingly made myself visible: greedily possessed by “the liquid run of that glad piping… then the clear imperious summons that marched hand-in-hand with the intoxicating melody…”. However, the Gates of Dawn unfolded with a compelling almost-silence. No creature was roused (nor foolish enough to be). Only the susurration of the drizzle accompanied my meanderings: interwoven with the response of the vivid new-blown trees – whose comforting fullness shrouded and shielded me all along Sandpits Road… – to their ill-deserved pummelling by both the raindrops and the breeze which ushered them.

¶

As I crossed Oxhill Road, approaching Windmill Way – and not for the first time… – I keenly craved Dumbledore’s marvellous Put‑Outer (or perhaps an impulsive infection of ‘street light interference’): such is the thoroughfare’s incommensurately intense irradiation of its environment (completely, immediately, eradicating thirty-minutes-worth of hard-earned, dilating night-vision, as well as any hints of the sunrise I was attempting to chase…).

Then, turning into the shadows of Shipston Road, the northerly squalls misting the side of my face instantly evoked the spectre of an equivalent gloomy trudge – at nightfall, rather than daybreak – two-and-a-half years ago, as the Gladman débâcle erupted:

And, just as the fight “Against the envy of less happier lands” gathered pace: as the deadline loomed for objections to be submitted against the planning proposal for those eighty houses, I realized (nay, was devoured by) the enormity of the task; and, Lear-like, headed out into the dark, the pelting rain, and howling winds, to try and gain some perspective.

     But, in that “night’s storm I such a fellow saw”, hunched up, like me, against the “foul weather”; but, despite the air of foreboding, he uttered a friendly and welcoming “hello”.

¶

That “fellow” – at the time, deliberately left nameless – was the late Adrian Tuffin: one of the most courageous, most considerate souls I have ever met (although he would, I am certain, characterize such bravery and humanity as simply dealing with circumstance and necessity). He was one of the very first people to welcome me to Tysoe (which I shall never forget); and we would habitually cross paths – Adrian always accompanied by “his faithful dog, Jasmine” – as we beat our respective bodily bounds around the village: using such opportunities to discuss our various tribulations (conversations, however, which were always gilded with a great deal of laughter at ourselves and each other); and consistently signing off (when we both realized how much time had so easily passed) with a running joke about heading home for a well-deserved cup of tea.

Indeed, it felt almost aberrant when a walk around the village did not lead to me bumping into him (and I can clearly recall the last time, in Lower Tysoe, on a bitterly cold afternoon). I therefore still, involuntarily, watch out for him on my parochial peregrinations. But it is well over a year since Adrian died; and – on a par with the extinction of our great elms – custom (and poetry) would dictate that we should all be diminished by such a sad departure.

But I believe that he has left behind (nevertheless, far, far too soon…) a much stronger, worthier village than would have otherwise been possible… – a small, blessed corner of Warwickshire that, communally, must be grateful for his valuable legacy. For me – and, I am confident, many others – this is because he embodied and readily exemplified Tysoe’s oft-hidden generous spirit of place. He was the strongest personification we could ever have of Grahame’s great, inspirational “Friend and Helper”. “This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing, simple – passionate – perfect – ”

“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,” whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. “Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!”

– Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows

Distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless…

Going rambling means freedom to go out and explore the countryside and enjoy the scenery and landscapes that I used to enjoy when able-bodied…. It lifts the spirits and gives a huge sense of contentment, especially after a ramble that becomes really special.

– Val, Disabled Ramblers

Walking, for me, is as easy as pi (or, to be more exact, calculating its cube-root to forty‑two decimal places, in my head, in hexadecimal; whilst simultaneously chewing on a Carolina Reaper chilli; listening to Metallica – or, perhaps, Disaster Area – at full volume, with my hearing aids turned up to eleven; and marking time by jabbing myself in the eye with a blunt chopstick). It is also precisely as pain-free. Patting the top of your head (gently with a medieval mace) at the same time as rubbing your tummy (soothingly with fresh nettle leaves and brambles), by comparison, is a cube of frozen excreted nitrogenous waste. Funnily enough, though, it – i.e. walking – is one of the most rewarding, relaxing pastimes I know of and experience.

Although a mere amateur – or, more accurately, tiro (my technique is terrible: but my “artistic impression” almost certainly ranks alongside the Chuckle Brothers’ mighty pinnacle) – I’ve written frequently on here (even including the occasional ‘pome’) about my deep and lasting love of the pursuit: especially clumping through the countryside. I’ve also mentioned (more than once, no doubt) how such apparent masochism (which it most certainly isn’t (I think)) makes a major positive contribution to a life where every waking minute is spent dealing with being disabled: especially carrying on with constant (and inconstant) what-the-DWP-laughingly-refers-to-as “discomfort”.

Ironic then, isn’t it – the predicament of medicament, I suppose… – that the ‘remedy’ for the hurt I live through is more of the same… – well: more of the similar.

This is because, I believe – as I’ve (also) explained before (nevertheless, it bears repeating (like Yogi, but especially Boo-Boo)) – there are “two levels of pain”. Not that these cancel each other out, as with matter and anti-matter; or one acting as the less-toxic antidote to the venom of the second. Just that you can, with a little ongoing practice, manipulate the first to distract from, or sometimes temporarily supersede, the second, marginally lessening its impact; whilst also (and more critically: and therefore more profitably) “commanding your body”, and managing its exposure to suffering, its experience of it… – “Always [dealing] with what pain is and never with what it means.” From this “commanding” – allied with my drug of choice: the production, through such exercise, of my “own private narcotic”, the super, supernatural endorphin – comes the willingness to push my frame beyond its restrictive infinitesimal aptitudes. From this commanding – some of the time – comes control. From this commanding – when it does work – comes satisfaction, delight, and almost-addictive enjoyment.

Which is why – simply put: because the gains, for me, far outweigh the drawbacks – I walk. When I can. (How I walk is a completely different matter. Basically, badly: “doing my habitual impersonation of a slightly inebriated penguin”. Although this does mean – yippee – that I consume more calories than those with a ‘normal’ gait.) Additionally, the associated continual shift of scenery is intensely preferable to the unmoving view of our bedroom ceiling (only varied by the writhing attempts to find the holy grail of a restful, comfortable state); or the stultifying, stabbing solidification of my joints when glued repeatedly to the goggle-box. And, as another beneficial side-effect – despite the increased (always hopefully temporary) physical distress – the odd bits of me that can be strengthened gradually increase in fitness (including, importantly, my mental welfare – which is at the heart of all this, of course): leading to a more robust ability to cope, the next time around. (Which there will be. (I hope.))

There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss…. Clearly, it is the second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.

– Douglas Adams: Life, the Universe and Everything

This is not to say that after any exercise I won’t be in a worse physical state than I was before – at least as measured in quanta of pain. Undoubtedly, I will. And for some time. But, being stubborn – and not solely because all the components of a good walk toiled come together serendipitously to produce transitory, momentary intoxication – it is an activity I refuse to relinquish: whatever barriers may be placed in my way (such as disobedient or immobile limbs; or a lack of proprioception and sensation). Therefore, as I wrote a few posts ago, after each successive, periodic downturn in health, I have had to force my unwilling body to repeatedly relearn and regain what should be an innate ability (similar to how Arthur Dent acquires skill in flying, and then teaches his “human soul-mate”, Fenchurch – although, sadly, I don’t have the equivalent of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to instruct me).

When you’re permanently in possession of “this terrible pain in all the diodes down [your] left side”, keeping fit can obviously be a bit of a challenge (in the same way that “lleng” is…). But, to me, it’s one definitely worth accepting (even for the umpteenth time); along with overcoming (if not demolishing) those barriers – however obstinately permanent they may at first appear. (Screw your eyes up tight; or retrieve that mace, and aim for somewhere tender: and they’ll soon start to drift out of focus. Possibly accompanied by the sound of a harpist’s gentle, receding glissandi.)

Even if your health is relatively sound (especially compared to mine (ha‑ha)), a recent newspaper report detailed – again – how walking is good for you, anyway; and for your longevity. Sadly, I’m not convinced that what I do can in any way be described as “brisk walking or slow jogging”: but…

Exercise buys you three to seven additional years of life. It is an anti-depressant, it improves cognitive function and there is now evidence that it may retard the onset of dementia.

– Sanjay Sharma

And if you’re a more social (less anti-social) creature than I; but think that any sort of distance is beyond you – it’s not; and I am proof (more of the jelly variety than the pudding… ) – or need a kick up the (waterproof) pants to get moving; then there is always Walking for Health:

Getting active can be difficult. But we’re here to help.

     Walking is great for your health and puts a spring in your step. With Walking for Health, you can take part in a free short walk nearby to help you get active and stay active at a pace that works for you. It’s a great way to stretch your legs, explore what’s on your doorstep, and make new friends.

     For over 12 years, we’ve helped thousands of people like you discover the many benefits of regular group walks. From reducing stress, to losing weight, to sharing laughs, Walking for Health has something for everyone.

With regards to my capability (or lack of it), however: even when I’m game, and my condition is at the top of its sine-curve, there are some days – and possibly a greater number of nights – that are better than others. Equally, no two are ever the same: in terms of capacity, (dis)comfort, and enjoyment. And, sometimes, my ‘programming’ can suddenly go awry (those blasted diodes!) – whether it be a loss of directional control (more inebriated in appearance; more penguin-like); fading coordination; or simply my fingers spasming, as they do, resulting in yet another dent on my poor old walking stick. In all cases, I have found it best simply to stop; gather my breath and my wits (such as they are); and concentrate extremely actively on the impending first step that my body would enforce as the threshold of my abilities, given half a chance. Then the second step. And repeat as necessary, until normal service is resumed. If I do not halt, the chances are I will simply topple (or at least wobble like a Weeble – which must be a very disturbing sight for those around me…).

This is one of the sundry reasons I prefer to walk at night; or very early in the morning. Additionally, in, say, Stratford, in the half-light, it is actually easier to ‘see’: as there are far fewer moving objects to contend with; as well as it being less embarrassing (for all concerned; and with less risk of a collision), should I (and I will) oscillate or dodder.

I consider ‘Stratford-upon-Heaven’ my home town: but, when it is busy, and filled with people soaking up the sun (I will not blame the tourists: all are equally liable, it seems…), it is more akin to Stratford-upon-Hell; and a part of me starts to meretriciously envy those in mobility scooters who appear to see no harm (revenge, perhaps?) in scything their way up Bridge Street, with metaphorical blades attached, Boudica-style, to the hubs of their wheels.

But, one day, perhaps – the Dawn of the Dread – when I can no longer put one front in foot of another more than once, or twice, even in shaky slow motion – perhaps I will be limited(?) to such a device. Of course, then I can join the Disabled Ramblers to get my third-age kicks (right through the night)!

There is a moment in every dawn when light floats, there is the possibility of magic. Creation holds its breath.

– Douglas Adams: Life, the Universe and Everything

But there are other reasons for my tenebrose meanderings: insomnia, of course (often caused by the selfsame pain…); the startlingly distinct perspectives you gain on familiar places (swans spread out on the Avon: no longer compelled to crowd by unwholesome crusts); the rare, precious, crystalline silences; the melding of souls with the genius loci that gifts you temporary monarchy of all you survey, that helps you revel in the momentous aloneness. (Hush.)

And, strangely, I am not the only one with such hankerings. A new book – At Night: A Journey Round Britain from Dusk Till Dawn by Dixe ‘No second i’ Wills – is, according to one reviewer…

A charismatic evocation of what it is to be awake while the world sleeps…. The book’s most delightful passages convey [Wills’] wonder at the natural world that comes to life under cover of darkness….

– Matthew Jones: Walk

So – as I have implored of you before – get out there, and strut your stuff! The nights are drawing in (which, to me, is a good thing…)!

Otherwise (and I’ll be round to check on you), I shall just have to keep pushing the Ramblers’ Big Pathwatch – which seems to be progressing well – down the boots of those, like me, who can only manage the occasional amble, until you do. Although there is, of course, absolutely nothing to stop you making yourself useful – even at the peak of fitness – whilst enjoying the beautiful Warwickshire countryside, and relishing whatever the weather decides to throw (or gently lob) at you. Is there?

Just be grateful that these paths still exist. And be grateful that walking is as simple, for you, as two-plus-two. One day, it may not be so easy….

When the Ramblers Association recently launched its Big Pathwatch, urging walkers to upload pictures of overgrown footpaths, I considered it a bit silly. Poor hard-pressed councils tasked with footpath maintenance – can’t walkers stamp down a few stray nettles? After a stinging wade along the bridleways of Buckinghamshire, however, I’m all for app tale-telling.

     It wasn’t just fast-growing nettles and brambles but teasels, thistles, young oaks and hogweed as high as a horse. And this 35 miles from London, in the Tory shires, where keen trampers take to the lanes in battalions and steel swing gates have been installed in memory of members of the local U3A group.

     Apart from council cuts, the problem appears to be that many landowners regard footpaths as an unfortunate relic from pre-enclosure days, when peasants swarmed unimpeded across the countryside. Virtually every fence has a warning sign attached. “Private” (it’s really obvious where the footpath goes), “Beware of the bull” (there never is one) or “Vermin control in progress”.

– Patrick Barkham: The Guardian

It’s just a restless feeling…

Call me Ishmael. Or, more appositely, Ahab, if you will: hunting the legendary – perhaps mythical – White Whale of a good night’s good sleep. Down this Main Street a man must go…

…in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.

As “a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man”, at four o’clock on the first Sunday in June, as the day and the light break, what I remember most is the ubiquity of blackbirds – their insistent clucking and proud, tuneful whistling: attempting to dominate the dawn chorus with their conversations – gingerly skipping a couple of further feet away from me, as I prowl by. But I am more of a nuisance than a threat; and am mostly ignored. Not to be outdone, within reach, a robin – and, somewhere distant, a wren: remarkably powerful for its diminutiveness – puts up a very good sally of intense melodiousness as counterpoint. A great tit, in the tree by the church gate, repeats its two-tone call – a squeaky pivot seesawing in the breeze – as it hops from branch to branch, perch to perch: perhaps to hide, or gain a better vantage? Rooks chatter and natter constantly – occasionally one peeling off from the cohort; and flapping lazily and lonely towards the Edge Hills. Collared doves and wood-pigeons coo insistently; accompanied by the paranoiac clapping and flapping of wings as I near their roosts. Goldfinches twinkle both audibly and visibly in the freshening light; and their cousin chaffinches rapidly rehearse their sweet run-ups. The swifts are too busy breakfasting, and too high – too spaced out – to yet begin their compulsive screaming arguments: reserved for the evening gatherings where a pecking order of sorts is debated; but seemingly never resolved. And, finally, a running obbligato of chirps and cheeps emerges, as Tysoe’s multitudinous dunnocks and sparrows accompany me: scurrying in and out of hedges, on foot and on wing, to escape my possibly predatory gaze.

The only non-avine note – the only unreliable inflection, to my ears – is the steadfast squeak, the irregular measure, of my heavy leather boots; that is, until I stop and sit in the churchyard, and realize that there is an insistent mother-and-child bleating, too: echoing from the sheep below Old Lodge Hill. Before I can assimilate it – incorporate it into my sunrise soundscape – the clock notes the half-hour above my head. For one seductive second, there is silence: seemingly suppressing the birds’ refrain. A moment crystallized.

The sun won’t get out of bed for another eighteen minutes – officially: our hills delay its advent. However, it has been bright enough to walk easily for a while. And the Moon got to its feet four hours ago – it will set just after ten, this particular morning – a large waning gibbous, glowing, deflating, again-hoary balloon: currently almost due south, in Capricorn. How long – when it is 231,219 miles away – would it take to fly me to it, I wonder. (Being of a certain age, high amongst my heroes are Armstrong and Aldrin – but not forgetting the brave Collins, sitting alone in his tin can. So I stare: reliving them, unbelieving, setting boot into chalky, crunchy regolith; marking eternity. Were they aware of the miracle they were making? Is my globe still in my parents’ attic, marked with the Apollo 11 landing-site; alongside my grandad’s binoculars?)

¶

The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth?”

– Herman Melville: Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

The clock marks the three-quarter-hour above my head. My quarry is nowhere in sight; but, as I return home, I know my quest will conclude with contentment.

There is an intimation of frost tarnishing the parked cars, glistening in the gleaming air; clarifying my thoughts, clearing my head. My warm breath forms fleeting wafts of fog. It is summer, though; there are no other clouds; and, like me, the rime should not be here. Its Whiteness – like the down quilt I should be wrapped in, instead of my thick, padded, blue jacket – is as vivid as the Whale’s; and just as confounding. But nothing is amiss. All is fair and faultless. All is as it should be in Tysoe… at this time… of this special day.

Sunday morning

Praise the dawning

It’s just a restless feeling

By my side

Early dawning

Sunday morning

It’s just the wasted years

So close behind

Watch out the world’s behind you

There’s always someone around you

Who will call

It’s nothing at all

Sunday morning

And I’m falling

I’ve got a feeling

I don’t want to know

Early dawning

Sunday morning

It’s all the streets you’ve crossed

Not so long ago

Watch out the world’s behind you

There’s always someone around you

Who will call

It’s nothing at all

Sunday morning…

– The Velvet Underground: Sunday Morning

Mercury falling…

The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

– WH Auden: In Memory of W. B. Yeats

For all sorts of reasons – and in a rush of senses – the past week or so has become intensely dispiriting. So, as is my wont, I dragged my disobedient bulk out through the front door for an amble around ‘my’ village: just as the light was losing its fight against the increasing darkness of night.

Yet, there was no need for streetlamps; and, as I wandered, my torch remained, forgotten, deep in my warm fleece pocket: the deepening blue overhead, looking past Oxhill, towards Stratford, still bearing echoes – as the church clock struck ten – of the slow sunset song of clearing, cleansing skies punctuated by tender, murmuring clouds; and Jupiter, glowing majestically over Whatcote, forming an auspicious procession of gleaming gods, through Venus, to Mercury, gradually slipping behind the horizon, as I returned home; the lusty blusters of the day also waning as the barometer rose.

All sorts of thoughts flickered through my head as my boots pulled me onwards: Messenger, by hazard, crashing and burning – fittingly – by Shakespeare basin – a metaphor, perhaps, for my susceptibilities; or the similar trajectory of government (or at least a large portion of its subjects…)? Even vestiges of Arthur Miller scurrying and scrambling across the thickening canvas of my cares – diamonds, shining in the dark, indeed (but not “rough and hard to the touch”) – all such murmurations gradually withdrawing as the evolving atmosphere enfolded me; and not another soul to be seen – just hints composed of ephemeral shadows cast on comforting curtains: the blue flickers of small screens; or perchance hinting at hidden bookworms.

It is hard, centred in such a situation, not to feel a profound belonging in your bones; cherishing the experience, the scene, the place; thinking the world of it; and finally believing (perhaps) that God really is in His heaven… and all may be right with that world – eventually.

It’s dark there, but full of diamonds.

– Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman

Wall of separation – housing…

For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

– Deuteronomy 7:6

Having ‘reasoned’ in the previous post in this series that the Green Party were the Almighty’s “chosen” – or, at least, to my atheistic way of thinking, more in tune with God’s earthly, Anglican representatives than the other major political parties – I wanted to return to my original objective: of trying “to delve deeper into [the House of Bishops’] letter… examining… some of its statements and manifold themes; and the way these contribute… to my feelings about, perspectives on, and connections to, current politics” – but, this time, attempting to ascertain how some of the Green’s published policies specifically relate to the statements made by the Church of England: hopefully proving my supposition correct (or at least “reasonable”)!

So, having already discussed environmental issues, I thought it logical to move on to housing – with an emphasis on its social dimensions (which are also the bishops’ principal concerns) – especially as the sustainability aspects – having initiated this blog just over fifteen months ago; and informed many of its earlier posts (because of its centrality in the fight against Gladman Developments) – have already been dealt with in great depth (and at great length).

By the way, the main reason I will only be discussing, politically, the Green Party’s policies (apart from my blatant bias; and the views I believe they share with the House of Bishops) is that the Conservative Party doesn’t appear to be very good at sticking to its promises; nor understanding the true definition of ‘localism’; and the Labour Party seems overly keen on fabrication, fabrication, fabrication – just for the sake of it. (And I can’t remember who the LibDems are.)

The Tories have had five years in Government to come up with something less divisive and disastrous than encouraging unaffordable, unsightly, sun-blocking tumescences rising like bubos across London’s incurable, infected skyline: gleefully descending into planning hell via the rickety helter-skelter that they constructed on the foundations of the short-sighted sweetener of the 1980 Housing Act (when Margaret Thatcher – aided and abetted by Michael Heseltine – introduced what Owen Hatherley has described as “The sinister right-to-buy housing policy”). But, as Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP recently stated: instead, they “have overseen some of the most brutal cuts, to the most vulnerable people, meted out in modern history.” I shall therefore be giving them no shrift whatsoever.

¶

In Who is my neighbour? – a title which feels immediately germane, if not essential, to this post’s topic – the bishops, in their accompanying guide, first focus on paragraphs 50 and 51, from the section ‘A Community of Communities’ (the phrases and sentences they cite are again highlighted in bold, below). But I’m also including the preceding paragraph because of the importance I too (repeatedly) place on its companion theme: the significance of a genius loci, and our attachment to it:

[49] It would be easier for people to forge strong social bonds if we could recognise that a sense of “place” helps to form people’s identity in community. Information technology may mean that physical presence is no longer necessary for many purposes. This has often been positive, and has made many kinds of human interaction easier. But people cannot so easily be uncoupled from the geographical spaces they inhabit.

[50] People are not so much divorced from place as seeking a place where they can be most at home. Following the great rehousing boom of the 1950s and ’60s, numerous studies explored the effect of dislocation on people and communities. Strong social bonds, forged in the adversity of poor housing, frequently did not translate to the new estates, despite their better conditions. And today, attempts to address the shortage of suitable housing will create new problems if they neglect people’s attachment to particular places and the social networks they create there.

[51] The Church of England has always had a strong commitment to place through the parish system. We are present in every community of England. We therefore see day by day how important “place” is to all kinds of people. Social policies which assume that everyone is happily mobile and footloose miss the crucial point that “place” is not just about territory but about informal networks which people build to make life sociable, neighbourly and worth living. Policies which are careless of this attachment to place do not serve people well.

Additionally, in the section ‘Strengthening institutions’, they write:

[83] …Housing Associations work best when there is “buy in” from a broad social spectrum. They are institutions with a strong unifying potential.

[84] We are living through both a banking crisis and a housing crisis….

Perhaps because it is more of a concrete (hmm) subject, limited to certain undertakings – unlike disability, and the environment – the bishops do not stray beyond these two sections: and there is no specific mention, elsewhere in their letter, of “homelessness”, for instance.

¶

In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

– John 14:2

Sadly, God’s will isn’t yet “done in earth, As it is in heaven” – and there appear not to be enough “mansions” here to satisfy demand. This “housing crisis” – at least under the current rules of the richer rich versus the poorer poor that fuel its existence – therefore shows no signs of abating; and, unfortunately, in their letter – understandably – the House of Bishops proffer no solution. I have written before, however, about the primary school mathematics that would make this an ostensibly simple problem to crack (thereby removing that “understandably” from the prior sentence):

…there is actually more than enough housing to go round – at least for the moment. Not only in the UK (which has more than 700,000 empty homes); but in the rest of Europe, too (with more than 11 million empty, in total – “enough to house all of the continent’s [4.1 million] homeless twice over”).

     …the reported lack of available homes [is a terrible problem] that is – I am told – at the root of the carpet-bombing of proposals to cover our green fields with swathes of unsuitable, unsustainable, identikit boxes: with a legislated proportion being ‘affordable’ to almost no-one that would qualify for their residence, or actually needs them to live in….

But, of course, it isn’t really as straightforward as simply parachuting families or individuals in need of accommodation into those empty properties. Even if they are rendered habitable, they are unlikely to satisfy most “people’s attachment to particular places”; or complement readily-available employment opportunities. Then, of course, there is the contentious matter of affordability (either to purchase or to rent – the latter fragilely combined with security of tenancy) – which the Greens describe as “a basic human need” [policy HO101] – and the fact that 80% of an extortionate rent (often calculated behind closed doors) is still “an extortionate rent” – however generous such a legal definition may appear to its wealthy proponents. (The perspective from on high is always skewed.)

In rural locations such as Tysoe, this problem is aggravated by a “change to planning rules slipped through by communities and local government secretary Eric Pickles at the end of last year, [meaning] that affordable housing no longer has to be part of the mix on small-scale developments… at a time when [Hastoe, the biggest single provider of affordable rural homes in England] is receiving calls from parish councils every week asking for affordable homes to be built in their villages.”

¶

What is lacking here, I believe, is a set of meaningful connections between all of these requirements (needs and wants) – which I believe can be supplied by understanding and appreciating the original intentions behind the development of social housing (we do not all need to be homeowners): whether that be almshouses; council houses; or, perhaps most appositely, workers’ villages – such as the stunning Port Sunlight; or, more locally, beautiful Bournville. This latter example, of course, was informed by the Quaker beliefs of the Cadbury brothers: and therefore followed on, in essence, from the provision of almshouses – which were usually provided by religious orders (and usually Christian) with a real, pragmatic desire to support those less fortunate (in the same way that Sikhs now feed the homeless – of all faiths). It is also proof that caring for your workers (as governments should care for their constituents…) is beneficial to both employer and employee – as any fule kno. And yet this appears to be a fact that we are incapable (through reason and/or greed) of grasping in our zero-hours world.

Returning to the Green Party – the ‘Background’ section of their Housing policy similarly states…

[HO104] Commonly owned and social housing includes: housing owned and/or managed by local authorities, housing provided by or managed by housing associations primarily funded by the Housing Corporations, and co-operative and CoHousing projects. The emphasis must be on local provision for local needs, more decentralised forms of housing management, and the empowerment of tenants.

…which, to me, begins to pull together those “meaningful connections”. However, they are not as non-judgmental as the bishops when it comes to their views of housing associations – even though their concerns and posited ‘solutions’ are, I think, extremely similar (the Greens are considerably more detailed, as you would expect; and, of course, look to future solutions – whereas the House of Bishops limit themselves, mostly, to outlining the zeitgeist):

[HO105] Housing associations are potentially effective providers of housing to rent. However, in their present forms they are deeply flawed. In particular in financial decisions which affect rent increases they are answerable to private investors. They must be democratised, with a fundamental shift of power in favour of tenants and increased accountability to the local community, aided by reduction in size.

[HO106] Housing Co-ops should be encouraged as effective providers of low cost housing with good participation by tenants. Some housing co-op principles would be well taken on board by local authorities and housing associations. However a true housing co-operative is co-operatively owned not just co-operatively managed and is in a position to use any assets to support the development of more co-operatives.

¶

You could argue (as do housebuilders, of course; and, almost unbelievably, the Labour Party, still Tory-lite in their approach…) – despite the availability of sufficient existing, empty properties – that we simply aren’t building enough (and failing to do so by a huge margin – probably calculated using the same greed-propelled “mathematics” that the Core Strategy housing supply is based on…). I would only go so far as to agree with that argument by tagging the emotive words “council houses” on at the end (and then only in the right locations – i.e. where there is employment; where there is family; where there is a deep connection to the land, to “place”). But, as we have seen, there can be problems with rented social housing when handed over to the private sector, or made available for sale.

Realistically, though, a mixture of publically- and privately-funded accommodation is probably the only way forward. And, despite the incontrovertible fact that a small, fluffy bunny dies every time a noddy-house is built; and my non-Nimby heart breaks at every single tiny despoilment of the English countryside; I accept – as the residents of Tysoe did in their briefing paper against Gladman, Sustainable Tysoe? – that we – as a village; as a district; as a county; as a country – “must evolve and grow”.

The Green Party’s desire to provide housing in large numbers therefore is described in terms much more nuanced than Ed Miliband’s eager “non-stop drive to build” – propelled, as it is, by the “real, pragmatic desire to support those less fortunate” and the “social dimensions” discussed above:

We want to build half a million more homes, available at social rent levels, funded both by a change in tax-relief for landlords and by fully lifting the artificial restrictions on councils borrowing against their assets.

     We estimate it will cost an extra £4.5bn a year. This would be a major investment in a national asset, which would create jobs and stabilise the economy. The policy is radical, it is different, but it is fully costed….

– Natalie Bennett: The Guardian

Although this discussion was at the centre of Natalie Bennett’s much-vaunted “brain fade”, it doesn’t make the Green Party’s approach – demonstrated most clearly by their policy section entitled ‘Local Authorities’ – any less valid:

[HO403] The Green Party believes in public ownership under the control of elected representatives as part of mixed provision for social housing. Council housing and the secure tenure it affords is an essential form of social housing provision. National Government must ensure adequate and good quality council housing stock is retained and provided by every local authority. It should also ensure that sufficient funding is available to councils for the provision of effective repairs and maintenance services.

However, I think that a large portion of this funding could also originate from “modifications to Council Tax” (Green Party policy HO607) – for example: “creation of new Council Tax bands above H to ensure that as property values get progressively higher so does the tax paid on them; [and] reform of the multiplier rates applied to the bands, to make the tax paid more proportionate to the value of the house” – which would result in increased local government funding; rather than Labour’s proposed Mansion Tax: the revenue from which would go straight into central government’s coffers. Now, that can’t be right….

¶

But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality…

– 2 Corinthians 8:14

Because it affects us all (either in its provision or lack), there is so much more that could be said – both politically and theologically – about housing, planning, architecture: but I am writing a blog, not a book (although I have made my view on these subjects quite clear many a time – just click on those links…). Personally, though, if you want to dig deeper – especially into the social and economic aspects – I would recommend Danny Dorling’s devastating All That Is Solid – which investigates that outwardly commonplace (certainly calm, to all appearances) statement from Who is my neighbour? that “We are living through both a banking crisis and a housing crisis”:

Housing was at the heart of the financial collapse, and our economy is now precariously reliant on the housing market [and] is the defining issue of our times. Tracing how we got to our current crisis and how housing has come to reflect class and wealth in Britain, All That Is Solid radically shows that the solution to our problems – rising homelessness, a generation priced out of home ownership – is not, as is widely assumed, building more homes. Inequality… is what we really need to overcome.

I would be very suprised if both the Green Party and the House of Bishops hadn’t studied this book intensely.