Apologies for coming over all Believe It Or Not but this is the correct solution to Britain’s planning problems. Rather than the Prime Minister’s suggestions of minor changes, we need to destroy the system as a whole:

Marks & Spencer has won a years-long battle to bulldoze and rebuild its Oxford Street department store after Angela Rayner approved the scheme on appeal.

The Housing Secretary on Thursday greenlit the renovation of M&S’s Marble Arch shop after “taking into account all of the evidence” in the case. It comes after the proposal was initially blocked by Michael Gove, the former housing secretary, provoking anger from the retailer.

Super and all that. The building belongs to Marks & Spencer and if they want a new one then that’s up to them. We think this a fairly simple suggestion.

But we also need to consider that wider world and environment, of course we do:

The decision comes almost five years after M&S first submitted plans to demolish the art deco building near Marble Arch and replace it with a new 10-storey complex.

The economy - or gross domestic product if you prefer - is the value added by activity. Economic growth is an increase in that value add. We can also describe economic growth as being the speed at which people do new things, old things in new ways or even - and least important - more of the same old things. That speed - and therefore economic growth - is constipated by the planning system, as we can see here.

A major reason that we Britons are poorer than we need to be is the planning system resulting from the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. So, blow it up, proper blow up - kablooie.

This isn’t just about houses on the Green Belt - and damn good idea if we’ve ever heard one. It’s about the economy as a whole. The TCPA makes us poorer and let’s not be that poor any longer, eh?

Tim Worstall