A Plan for York

Submissions I made to the York Local Plan Inquiry in 2018 included three themes:

• The plan unfairly increases the cost of housing.
• It plans for lifestyles with high greenhouse emissions.
• It does not properly cater for the needs of those without cars.

In the longer term, the greenhouse emissions causing climate change are the more serious of these although, as a rich country, the UK may weather changes in climate better than the rest of the world. Of course, there are eventualities that could hit the UK hard. For example, if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC) weakens quicker than expected, we could experience very cold winters, which would be very disruptive but the danger of that disruption and other climate dangers hopefully won’t seriously hit for a few decades.

Additionally, the longest standing climate scientist, James Hansen, is predicting a super El Nino climate event this year. Climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe says “El Niño patterns are correlated with food shortages, water impacts and even civil conflict in tropical countries. These natural patterns of variability, as short-lived as they are, still have a profound impact on human society and human well-being.”

The dangers of world food shortages are more imminent for another reason. As I write this, there is a significant danger that the availability of fertilisers in the world may be significantly restricted in coming months by events in the Persian Gulf, which will limit world food production this year.

We must hope that both these temporary effects pass but climate is worsening and the world order may be changing, disrupting global production and supply chains.

The UK is generally self-sufficient in only a few specific food classes, primarily producing enough to meet domestic demand in liquid milk, barley, and sheep meat. The UK produces around 60% of its total food consumption, but it relies on imports for a large portion of its fruit, vegetables, and, increasingly, poultry. The UK is not even fully self sufficient in potatoes and wheat.

Restrictions on fertilliser supply, threats to global food chains and the ongoing effects of climate change mean that we must take food security more seriously than previously. A precautionary approach is to set market gardens into local planning. For many foods these can produce much more food for a given land area than traditional farming and, with the application of extra labour, can use much less chemical fertilliser. The use of extra labour will be an added bonus given the threat that AI pose to many jobs.

Inequality

I emphasised the unfairness in the planning system in my attempted evidence to the planning Inquiry in 2018. Now, the macroeconomic effects of inequality are beginning to be recognised thanks to the efforts of the economists like Gary Stevenson and Henry Fudge