Cambridge Local Plan Consultation: Building a Bigger, Better Cambridge

Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire Councils have been consulting on the next local plan that will determine how the Cambridge sub-region is developed over the next few years. This is my responses to their initial consultation that closed recently.

This is a personal response and doesn't represent the views of any other organisation.

Question 2. Please submit any sites for employment and housing you wish to suggest for allocation in the Local Plan. Provide as much information and supporting evidence as possible.

As indicated in answering Q39, the Green Belt around Cambridge should be reviewed, and where sites currently within the Greenbelt can be developed at high density and with excellent sustainable transport (ie close to major employment sites), those sites should be removed from the Green Belt and the sites developed. This would suggest a number of new sites that could be delivered with many new homes, for example:

• The West Fields between Grange Road and the M11 – Given the local housing shortage and feasibility of developing this area with excellent walking, cycling and public transport links to key employment sites like the City Centre and West Cambridge site, coupled with its lack of special or notable features beyond ordinary agricultural land, its hard to imagine a better or more appropriate site for new housing, and it should be removed from the Green Belt and allocated for housing.
• Much of the land between Cambridge and Shelford could be allocated to housing, with a new public transport corridor and cycle network linking to the Addenbrookes bio-medical campus.
• The field bounded by Long Road, Hobson Brook, the Guided Busway and Clare/Peterhouse sports ground is perfectly placed for housing with sustainable transport.
• Land between Milton village and the railway could be developed around the proposed rowing lake, within easy sustainable commuting distance of the Science Parks area.

Question 4. Do you agree that planning to 2040 is an appropriate date in the future to plan for? If not, what would be a more appropriate date and why?

This date is too far into the future – reflecting our poor ability to deliver in a timely fashion – in particular infrastructure. Plans should be accelerated for public transport improvements (e.g. Cam Metro or alternative area wide rapid transit, Cambridge South Station etc), so housing can be delivered sooner.

Question 5. Do you think we have identified the right cross-boundary issues and initiatives that affect ourselves and neighbouring areas?

A Unitary Authority is urgently required to cover the Cambridge sub-region (Cambridge, South Cambs and possibly slightly larger). The current system is a threat to democracy, as with so many different authorities and bodies involved without consistent political leadership (Cambridge City Council, South Cambs District, Cambs County, The Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, MPs, GCP etc) there is no real accountability – so developing planning policies becomes a technocratic exercise in evidencing how proposals meet dictated overall objectives e.g. on number of new homes required. The next local plan should not be decided on the basis of a questionnaire or consultation like this - there needs to be recognition that many of these questions are political issues (like how fast should Cambridge grow), and they should be decided by politicians making a case, and people voting for those that outline the plans they most agree with. With better democratic accountability, we could have real choice to be bolder and more radical, and with less scope for objections blocking good plans, and less likelihood poor developments will be permitted. All local authority leaders should be urgently calling on the government to create a single unitary authority to allow greater Cambridge to reach its potential.

Question 6. Do you agree with the potential big themes for the Local Plan?

Broadly yes, although there is not enough emphasis on growth - taking advantage of the unique position and opportunity available for the Cambridge sub region to develop further the knowledge based economy and build more globally significant technology companies.

Question 8. How should the Local Plan help us achieve net zero carbon by 2050?

The key element in achieving net zero is developing sustainable transport networks within current and in particular new developments. This involves prioritising walking, cycling and sustainable public transport, and de-prioritising private motor vehicles.

It will be important that new housing is built with easy walking and cycling access to employment sites and other facilities (hence the importance of developing sites such as the west fields) The city should accelerate plans to require all motor vehicles using the city to become zero emission e.g. electric cars and buses. No new buildings should use fossil fuels for space heating or other domestic purposes. Buildings should be designed to not require significant heating in winter or cooling in summer.

Question 13. How do you think we should improve the green space network?

The local plan should maintain protection of all the special parts of Cambridge (e.g. Gog Magogs,
Grantchester Meadows, the River corridor generally). New developments should include significant green areas. The plan should prohibit allowing minimum open space requirements on new developments to be bought out with cash contributions – there needs to be a mechanism to create more substantial open spaces even if land is only developed in small parcels none of which on their own would result in the creation of significant new open space.

Question 15. Do you agree that we should aim to increase tree cover across the area?

Yes.

Question 16. How should the Local Plan help us achieve 'good growth' that promotes wellbeing and social inclusion?

Key to social inclusion is building better public transport networks and improving cycling and walking routes at the expense of roads busy with motor vehicles. Cycling in particular needs a comprehensive interconnected network of cycle routes segregated from other traffic and pedestrians, with priority over motor vehicles.

Ensure local facilities are built at the same time as housing – with private facilities – shops, pubs, sports facilities etc as important as public sector facilities like schools and community centres.

Public Houses should be provided in all new developments. The Councils have belatedly come round to the idea of protecting existing pubs, recognising their value as community assets, but fail to recognise the value of pubs as community facilities in new developments, with pubs usually a poorly executed afterthought. The Fox in Bar Hill and Monkfield Arms in Cambourne are just bland, generic ‘estate’ type pubs. Eddington and Great Knighton don’t appear to have any new pubs at all. A lack of facilities like pubs helps turn these neighbourhoods into dormitory suburbs, with less social cohesion and with increased travel required for leisure.

Ensure all new communities have a good mix of tenures and types of housing.

Question 17. How do you think our plan could help enable communities to shape new development proposals?

Too much new house building is entirely delivered by large, volume, national housebuilders, with no input from the residents that will live there, or the Cambridge context. Planning policies should encourage more self-built housing, and smaller more distinctive developments. Where consultations are held, they should be listened to, instead of holding them and then just doing whatever the developer wanted to do anyway.

Question 18. How do you think we can make sure that we achieve safe and inclusive communities when planning new development?

Local police stations or outposts and higher levels of community policing.

Question 19. How do you think new developments should support healthy lifestyles?

Building high quality cycling infrastructure and encouraging higher cycling rates and lower car usage is the most significant contribution that can be made to support healthy lifestyles. Research indicates a number of significant health benefits from active commuting.

Sports facilities. Ensure there are sufficient green spaces which are suitable and available for events like parkrun. Fund significant sports facilities like a Rowing lake and Triathlon Centre from s106 agreements. Include more sports fields in new developments – too many of the sports fields currently in the city are only available to University members.

Question 20. How do you think we should achieve improvements in air quality?

Build all new developments as zero carbon, with no fossil fuels at all burnt in the new development areas for transport or heating buildings.

Question 21. How should the Local Plan protect our heritage and ensure new development is well designed? Question 23. How do you think we could ensure that new development is as well-designed as possible?

Far too few quality public buildings are built. Outside of the University, with very few exceptions (new mosque, Marmalade Lane), few new developments in Cambridge achieve notable quality, let alone outstanding. Too many are very poor – the Marque, Cambridge Leisure Park and Travelodge, the new hotel at Cambridge North Station, and much new housing is bland and uninspired. Planning policies should encourage the development of at least some landmark buildings within each site (high quality materials and design, intended to stand the tests of time), and all large new development sites should aim for consistent high-quality design and materials throughout the site.

Question 24. How important do you think continuing economic growth is for the next Local Plan?

Very Important. The Cambridge sub-region is uniquely placed to grow rapidly in knowledge-based
industries such as software and biotech. This relies on the network effects of the co-location of new
businesses with Cambridge University and existing businesses, talent and entrepreneurs. By supporting rapid growth, as well as an important role supporting the national economy, breakthroughs will be made that might not otherwise happen - there are cancers that will be cured quicker, and advances in technology essential to tackling climate change and many other problems that simply won’t happen anything like as quickly if we don’t maximise the growth of the Cambridge knowledge based economy, and this economic advantage will be lost to the UK permanently if we don’t encourage growth in the Cambridge sub-region. Saying that Cambridge has had enough growth, and new growth needs to be elsewhere would be a reckless neglect of the current opportunity, the next local plan should encourage that growth explicitly, and political leaders should be much bolder in supporting that.

Question 25. What kind of business and industrial space do you think is most needed in the area?

Too much of the office space needed by tech companies seems to be controlled by the Colleges and small numbers of surveyors and estate agents. As a result, there is not enough flexibility in options
available, particularly for high growth companies. Agents and landlords demanding minimum lease terms of 5-10 years is not uncommon – wholly inappropriate for companies that may be growing at 50-100% a year. New development should prioritise flexible configuration buildings to be let on flexible lease terms.

The other omission is allocating space within the subregion for large tech company headquarter buildings – areas that can allocated to accommodate the custom built headquarters and R+D divisions of the next Arm or CSR. Whilst it is unlikely to be possible to allocate such space immediately adjacent to the City, sites should be identified for this purpose along public transport corridors, and where there are or is potential for excellent cycle access.

Question 26. Do you think we should be protecting existing business and industrial space?

Generally yes, but the retail sheds south of Newmarket Road between Coldhams Lane and Coldhams
Common, along with the Beehive centre are relics from a past age of car based shopping trips – the retail sheds should all go and be replaced by housing, which would be within easy reach by cycling and walking from the City Centre and the new Chisholm Trail.

Question 27. How should we balance supporting our knowledge-intensive sectors, with creating a wide range of different jobs? What kind of jobs would you like to see created in the area?

Growth should focus on high value knowledge-based employment sectors and businesses to support
these sectors, as Cambridge has special strengths in these areas and the benefits to the City and Country should be maximised.

Question 30. What approach should the next plan take to supporting or managing tourism in Cambridge and the rural area?

Most of the main tourist sites are already very busy. We shouldn’t encourage much more of it, and should ensure current tourism doesn’t have an impact on local environment, e.g. pollution/congestion from tourist coaches.

Question 32. Do you think we should plan for a higher number of homes than the minimum required by government, to provide flexibility to support the growing economy?

Yes – strongly agree – we should aim for as rapid growth of housing as can be done at high quality and with great transport infrastructure, as long as this is supported by the continued growth of knowledge based industry.

Question 33. What kind of housing do you think we should provide?

Focus on making the market price of housing affordable to as many people as possible, rather than
sucking all the value out of new development by insisting on very high % levels of below market priced housing to be rationed and allocated by the Councils. This should enable more of the planning gain to be taxed and used to provide high quality sustainable transport that everyone will benefit from and that is required to meet carbon neutral goals. Some traditional affordable housing is clearly needed, but more affordable housing is best delivered by just building a lot more housing in the area.

Question 35. How should we ensure a high standard of housing is built in our area?

Local housing design standards should adopt design principals advocated by groups such as
Createstreets (www.createstreets.com).

Question 36. How should the Local Plan ensure the right infrastructure is provided in line with
development?

The local plan should provide for a rapid transit system, including underground sections to cover the
centre of Cambridge. This can be paid for by taxing the uplift in values from new housing developments.

Space needs to be made available for segregated cycle routes.

All new properties should be built with fibre to the premises internet connections.

Question 37. How should we encourage a shift away from car use and towards more sustainable modes of transport such as public transport, cycling and walking?

Stop building car-centric development like we do now – make proper provision for cycling.

Question 39. Should we look to remove land from the Green Belt if evidence shows it provides a more sustainable development option by reducing travel distances, helping us reduce our climate impacts?

Yes – the current Green Belt should be reviewed, with all ‘non-special’ areas adjacent to Cambridge
removed from the Greenbelt, to be replaced with protection for important wildlife or green sites, and a green belt further out from Cambridge. All other sites within the newly expanded Green Belt should be considered for housing if they can be delivered with sustainable transport to all required facilities.

Question 41. Do you think the Local Plan should be more flexible about the size of developments allowed within village boundaries (frameworks), allowing more homes on sites that become available?

Yes – villages should be allowed to expand, particularly if it helps them become self-sufficient in local services such as healthcare, shops and community facilities.

Question 42. Where should we site new development? Rank the options below 1-6
1 Edge of Cambridge – Greenbelt – and move the green belt out.
2 Densification of existing urban sites
3 Public transport corridors
4 Disperal – growth of existing villages

Question 43. What do you think about densification?

Hard to achieve in areas already developed, but fine in principal as long as sufficient green open spaces retained.

Question 44. What do you think about developing around the edge of Cambridge on land outside the
Green Belt?

Shouldn't do this and encourage commuting through the Green Belt if there were sites in the current
Greenbelt that were easier to deliver with sustainable transport to the key employment sites.

Question 45. What do you think about developing around the edge of Cambridge in the Green Belt?

The most appropriate area for new development.

Question 46. What do you think about creating planned new settlements?

Councils should focus on delivering the ones already planned – eg why has Northstowe taken so long
when the housing need has been so urgent for so long? – its not as if the delay has resulted in really great design or even adequate cycling infrastructure – unless there is a fundamental change in transport thinking, the new settlements will continue to be car based dormitory towns for Cambridge commuters.

Question 48. What do you think about siting development along transport corridors?

The most sensible way to expand Cambridge beyond the City.

How not to build a cycle park

A brand new, recently opened office building in Cambridge has been built with the worst cycle parking access I have ever seen. The block attracts some of the highest rents in the city, and there are very limited car parking spaces available to people working in the block, so almost everyone is expected to arrive by bike, foot or public transport. You're going to need a big cycle park, and here it is, in the basement of the building:

So far so good. But I am full of admiration for the cyclists that have managed to get their bikes down there. This is the challenge required to use it...

Having got through the double door entrance, its down two steep flights of stairs, either carrying your bike, or using the slippery side ramps:

Then that special late addition to the original planning application, a sharp right angled turn:

And then its on to the third flight of stairs, and finally on through the two sets of fire doors:

A fit, able-bodied cyclist with a light bike and no panniers would struggle with these stairs - anyone else - I suspect the cycle park is utterly useless. For the lucky few with car parking spaces, there is of course a ramp that would be much better for cyclists:

But any cyclist daring to try using this faces the wrath of the building managers. Remember this is a brand new, high profile office building in the cycling capital of the UK - how has something so rubbish been built? Do we blame the developers who built it, or the Council that gave it planning permission? Perhaps we should ask Alexa?

If you are fed up with this kind of nonsense, please considering joining the Charity Camcycle (https://www.camcycle.org.uk/membership/join/) - Camcycle volunteers spend a lot of time reviewing and commenting on planning applications to try stopping stuff like this getting through - sometimes complaints are ignored by the planners, sometimes late amendments slip through the net, but many, many times applications are improved for cyclists with benefits for all road users.

Letting off Steam

Its difficult to express how angry I am with Teresa May and the Conservative Party right now. 

I spent many years actively involved in the party - I was elected twice to Cambridge City Council, where despite the efforts of an entire constituency association since we currently have no Councillors. I gave up investing my time in vast quantities because of frustration at how useless the party was, and how hard the resistance to changing that was. There was no point destroying my life to help the party make progress, when surrounded by so many people in the party trying to undermine me.

The party on the ground has become a shell, the number of activists is tiny compared to our opponents (and I don't think this is just because I live in Cambridge). The Lib Dems here must have delivered the entire constituency around a dozen times this election, Labour not much less - both clearly had many hundreds of people on the ground during the campaign. I'm told Bedford has 1,000 momentum members. 

But the party's behaviour, and Teresa May's in particular during this election has been beneath contempt. There was no leadership, no vision, no intellectual answer to Corbyn, despite ever more abuse and dishonesty from the left, there was no effective response, no attempt to fight on the party's record over the last 7 years, and they never once saw the result coming. May hid from debate most of the campaign. The electorate were treated with complete contempt, as if just mentioning the word Corbyn would deliver victory. There is no point trying to create 'Strong and Stable' as a brand if your behaviour is completely contradictory to the brand values. 

But why would party members want to get involved in this organisation when they too were treated with such contempt. Candidate selections conducted by an opaque clique. People who had done nothing for the party fast-tracked to finals for successive majority seats, whilst others were blocked. Candidates imposed on minority seats with no member involvement. The manifesto was a disaster (actually still is) - again doubtless the work of a small clique, without proper scrutiny, and seemingly devoid of any clear principles or positive vision. Price controls, industrial strategy, etc, etc why would any conservative want to support this stuff. It did however contain several policies each individually toxic enough to turn off large parts of the electorate, for no particularly good reason - fox hunting, dementia tax etc. The tragedy is, that done well, and with decent planning, we could have been on the way to a Conservative government, with a good majority, boldly reforming society for the better. A proper adult conversation with people about the future of the NHS and social care. Real reform on tax simplification. A plan to build the houses we desperately need. Instead we have fudge.

I'd still like to be involved in politics, but I want something I can get behind - competently run, open accountable and transparent in how it works, democratic. Socially liberal, tolerant and international in outlook, whilst fighting tooth and nail against the Socialist vision of state control that causes chaos and misery whenever and wherever it is applied. I spent years trying to change the party from within. Maybe it needs a party within a party to drive reform, because if they go on like this, one day people will stop voting for them just because they are the established centre right party, candidate selection will cease to be the remaining source of power in the party, and the whole thing will collapse.

The party is still toxic up and down the Country - you get desensitised to the attacks from the left, but many Corbyn supporters just constantly stream vile abuse across social media. The party never challenges this, they just soak it up, not at all worried that huge numbers of normal, professional people are getting behind a party led by marxist terrorist sympathisers. The professional party are hopeless and the leadership appears to be utterly clueless, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Meanwhile, we have a government in hock to the DUP and a now infinitely harder brexit negotiation to ponder. Happy days.

Response to Cambridge City Deal Consultation

Below is my personal response to the current city deal consultation closing on 10th October.

I haven’t completed the questions, as they miss the point - the whole package of proposals is misguided. I also don’t think it is helpful focussing consultation on how the changes would affect the individual consultee in their current circumstances - when many people are concerned on how the proposals will impact the future development of Greater Cambridge for everyone. For the record, I usually cycle to work, and most of these proposals will have little or no impact on my personal commute at the moment - but then I am currently lucky enough to be living in housing a short cycle ride from my place of work.

Its difficult to express how hopelessly inadequate I feel the current proposals are to the challenge in hand - which to my mind is to deliver the growth of Cambridge with lots more housing and sustainable transport of a type and quality that will cause existing residents of Cambridge and the surrounding areas to welcome and embrace growth. We need to be able to look back in decades time and be proud of new housing and transport, rather than fear every new housing planning application and its impact on journeys as happens now.

The current proposals do not appear to be directed by the future development needs of Cambridge but by the obsession that someone, somewhere has with using Cambridge as a guinea pig for novel demand management techniques as the only or main tool to tackle future Cambridge congestion. Chopping down trees on Milton Road to build bus lanes, congestion charging, shutting roads, workplace charging - the local Councils have been trying to impose these on Cambridge for decades, and they completely miss the point which is that we need much more new capacity for sustainable transport.

Specifically, my problems with the current proposals:

• There is not enough linkage between transport improvements and new housing developments. We need to identify more sites for housing nearer Cambridge that can be served by good quality off road public transport, and develop housing there with high levels of quality and quantity.
• The budget is limited by what the government says it will provide - we should budget what is needed to provide sensible levels of additional capacity, and make the case to government for more funding, or divert more of the uplift in value from new housing developments to building the transport.
• There is far too much reliance on demand management. These measures will mostly impact those who work in low paid jobs in the City, who cannot afford to live in the City and need to commute in. As such, these measures are grossly socially inequitable. Any demand management should start with real and significant new sustainable transport options. If new sustainable transport isn’t good enough to get significant numbers of people out of their cars, you won’t solve the problem with ever more oppressive demand management. 
• The value for money of some of the options looks awful (in terms of the incredible costs being discussed for what should be relatively trivial changes such as new bus lanes).
• The plans are underwhelming in terms of new capacity for cycling and walking, and non-existent in terms of new off road capacity for other public transport. We need to look at where corridors can be identified to build new capacity (be it guided bus, light or heavy rail, trams or other more futuristic solutions) to connect housing to jobs and leisure opportunities. If corridors can’t be created above ground, we need to look at tunnelling.

I can’t recall a previous set of proposals in Cambridge that have attracted such near universal derision as the current City Deal plans - or the scale of significant alternative proposals from third-parties aghast at what is being suggested.

We are living in one of the most economically dynamic growth areas on the planet. Please tell me we can do better than what is being proposed here. You need to go back to the drawing board (ideally not using expensive consultants who appear to have a limited understanding of the Cambridge context).

BBC White Paper

Can any of my friends in politics explain why for the love of god we need to create a new completely-unenforceable offence of watching iPlayer without a TV licence, when there are technical solutions already in use by many many media organisations who have found ways to ensure only those that have paid for their content can watch or read it?

The TV licence is past its sell by date and needs to go now. It is the most regressive form of taxation on the statute book - a single parent on benefits pays the same as Richard Branson (and rather more than the Queen). Hundreds of thousands of people are prosecuted and fined annually for licence evasion - disproportionally women and the less well off. Every single one of these prosecutions occurs because a vulnerable person caves in to a TV licensing campaign of harassment and threats directed at everyone who legitimately or not doesn't have a license - and they self-incriminate. There is no effective way to gather evidence of the offence being committed without snooping into people's private homes and bullying or conning them.

Working on the basis that the government isn't intending to give TV licensing access to everyone's internet history (although scarily with Teresa May in the Home Office its hard to be sure this is the case) - watching iPlayer without a license will be a new offence with no plausible method of enforcing the law. 'Have you watched iPlayer without a licence?' 'Go away its none of your business' would appear to be completely effective. It doesn't need to be against the law - just put it behind a paywall (this doesn't require a new law, or statutory instrument as the government is thinking of doing to avoid debate and scrutiny).

Of course we know why they don't want to do that. For the same reason the white paper came out against decriminalising the licence fee - the number of people willing to pay for it would just collapse - and then how would they find the money to pay the 91 BBC executives currently earning more than the Prime Minister.

Renting Privately? Rent rises heading your way...

You would think the last thing the UK tax system needs is yet more complexity. But George Osbourne can't resist playing politics - with yet another budget announcement designed entirely around the headline it generates and to hell with the consequences.

And so in today's budget we have the hit on interest relief for buy-to-let landlords. As the budget report (para 1.191) says:

'The government will restrict the relief on finance costs that landlords of residential property can get to the basic rate of income tax. The restriction will be phased in over 4 years, starting from April 2017. This will reduce the distorting effect the tax treatment of property has on investment and mean individual landlords are not treated differently based on the rate of income tax that they pay. It will also shift the balance between landlords and homeowners.'

At this point I'm struggling to understand what this even means. The stuff about different treatment of landlords based on their tax rates is complete doublespeak - this _introduces_ differential treatment.

My understanding is that interest is currently a 100% allowable deduction against the rental income landlords derive from their letting business - it isn't a relief against tax paid, so who knows what the actual impact of this tax change is going to be. But I think we can safely assume that at soon as your income goes above the threshold for paying 40% tax, as well having to pay 40% tax on the additional income, if you have a buy to let property, something bad is going to happen to your ability to offset your interest costs against your rental income, and your effective marginal tax rate on each extra £1 of income will rocket - to 60% maybe - hard to tell - but yet another daft discontinuity in marginal tax rates depending on your circumstances, to add to the child benefit tax changes and other tweaking that now goes on at arbitrary points in the income scale.

The baying mob at this point is probably screaming, yeah, go George - stuff those evil buy-to-let landlords and their profiteering high rents. Personally, I think the baying mob is wrong. Rents are set by the balance between supply and demand (that's basic economics), not some grand collusion between millions of small landlords. Buy to let landlords frequently accept rents that represent a terrible return on a risky asset - 3-4% rental yield before costs in many cases - and interest is a very real cash cost to the landlord - it gets tax relief for a good reason.

But lets go with it, and assume you think this is a great idea in principle - let's predict what will now happen.

If you are an affected landlord, your marginal tax rate is now so high that buy to let property investment is not going to make much sense. If you are close to the higher rate threshold, you might decide to put more cash into your pension to go under the threshold, effectively getting relief on the pension contributions at your new much higher marginal tax rate and avoiding the new charge.

The more enterprising taxpayers who aren't in a position to do this, will look for other forms of tax avoidance. Maybe buy properties in a limited company wrapper, where interest will presumably still be a fully allowable expense. Cue dozens more pages in the UK's already overbloated tax code describing new emergency anti-avoidance measures the Chancellor will dream up to stop this wicked reluctance to submit to his will, and try to frame the circumstances in which a property sold to a limited company will be taxed as if it is owned by the person who owns some or all of the shares. This may work, but if so, it may also impact on companies like Property Partner, setup to provide easy access to the buy to let market for those that don't want to buy a whole property themselves (or will this just be an easy way round the new rules?).

But the most likely outcome is that many buy-to-let landlords on higher rate tax will choose to sell up. This will inevitably increase private sector rents. It may not be much consolation to those trying to buy properties either, as the lower funding from buy-to-let investors will probably also restrict the supply of new housing. Some new developments relying on the capital provided by buy-to-let landlords may not happen, or be seriously delayed, making things worse for everyone looking to buy or rent. There is also the regional aspect - in London I suspect almost all buy-to-let landlords are higher rate taxpayers, so the situation there for people looking to rent might deteriorate very rapidly.

There could be further knock on effects on the supply of private rental property, as even landlords not affected are aghast at the arbitrary nature of the changes made to the UK tax system, and decide their low returns on property don't reflect the risks, newly expanded to include political risks.

I am a buy to let landlord, but I think I am going to do OK out of this - my rent and my property value should go up in the medium term - I just pity people looking for private rental accommodation. I passionately believe that government should legislate in a way that really would seriously harm existing buy to let landlords investors like me - by making it easier for the market to build lots more houses, so that the market value of housing falls, reducing the cost to both buy and rent property - but I am still a landlord as sadly I don't believe they will do this any time soon. Indeed the change announced today will have the opposite effect - it will hit those currently providing a key source of funding for new housebuilding so reduce new housing supply, it will increase rents whilst creating a yet more complex tax code - this is another truly dreadful tax change.

Who'd be an MP?

The new MP for my neighbouring constituency, Lucy Frazer, made her maiden speech in parliament on 4th June. You can read the whole thing here - you might think it competent and pretty uncontroversial, whilst referring to the history of the area (that's what maiden speeches are supposed to be...). Indeed, shortly after it was made, Chris Stevens, the new SNP MP for Glasgow South West was moved to 'praise the maiden speeches we have heard so far today from the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) and the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), despite our political and, as has been outlined, historical differences.'

The speech contained the following passage:

And it was the home of Oliver Cromwell, who defeated the Scots at Dunbar, incorporated Scotland into his protectorate and transported the Scots as slaves to the colonies. Now, there is an answer to the West Lothian question—but not one, of course, that I would recommend.

What to make of that? Reasonable attempt at humour - the absurdity of something as obnoxious as transportation being suggested as a solution to a modern political problem? Slightly ill-advised foray into a controversial (albeit nearly 400 year old) historical incident?

Fast forward a couple of days, and thanks to the power of the internet, how about these assessments:

Resign...your speech was disgusting

You are a disgrace to society

Bigoted disgrace. Shame on you.

Or maybe this one:

The only people you have to mock are your wanker parents who conceived you, and always keep in mind: You are a bloody parasite paid by our taxes, do not forget that hooker !!!

Then of course no assessment of a Conservative party politician is complete without:

Racist.

Really quite racist in fact:

Your speech in the HoC has to be one of the most racist things I have seen in Parliament, you should apologise immediately

Or to go further:

Don't the Tories vet their candidates for nazi views before they select them ? Are you the MP for Auswich ? (sic)

You can read the full horror of some of the comments on a thread on Lucy's facebook page about a harmless meeting with a local housing association that has now had nearly 500 comments.

The joy of Facebook is you can find out much about the people making these comments. You can find what types of thing they link to and find amusing. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader - but its no surprise that a great number of those commenting live in Scotland and probably have never met Ms Frazer or visited SE Cambridgeshire. I'm not shocked or outraged by the behaviour of the 'Cybernats' - I'm actually pretty sad.

Because at the end of it, you think 'who on earth would want to be an MP and have to put up with this level of appalling and undeserved abuse.'? And the answer is obvious - it will tend to be those that really couldn't care less about what people think of them or their behaviour. Our lovely friends from north of the border, once they calm down from their ultra-nationalistic fervour, might want to consider if that was really the outcome they were looking for as they typed away furiously on their keyboards.

Elsewhere in her maiden speech, Lucy mentions

My great-grandparents fled to this country with nothing, with no possessions and no money, not even speaking the language, and Britain gave them a home. It gave them hope and it gave them a future.

I just hope that there hasn't been too much of that optimism destroyed over the last couple of days.