Of course self-sufficiency experiments are illegal in Britan
When Marco de Kat starts planning his meals, he doesn’t need to travel far for fresh food. Right outside his house is an 800 square metre plot with all sorts of produce – apples, pears, peppers, basil, beets and cauliflower, to name a few. During the winter months, he and his wife can pretty much survive off the vegetables stored in their freezer. Even after living in Oosterwold for a number of years, it’s something that still excites him.
And why not? Those who wish to play with nature - to taste, return to medieval peasantry, become self-sufficient - why not? A liberal and free polity allows all to find their own way through this vale of tears.
It’s also true that any commitment at all to the joys of free markets requires that experiments be allowed to happen. Only then can we find out what works and then do more of it. Plus, obviously, less of what doesn’t.
As a liberal and free polity obviously Britain should do this too. Not everywhere, not yet at least, but at least try it out.
Ahahahaha.
Oosterwold, where de Kat has lived since 2017, is a 4,300 hectare….The area, which has about 5,000 residents….Residents can build houses however they like
Ooooh, no Missus. We cannot have people building houses as they wish. They require the not just guiding hand of but the firm thwack of the State. After all, people left to their own devices might build a house in the style they actually wish to live in. Then where would the planning classes be?
Perhaps more importantly such spaciousness is right out. Under current English planning insistences that 4,300 hectares would have to support no fewer than 129,000 dwellings. No, we have not added an extra zero there - 30 per hectare is that insistence*. Which does not leave space for 800 metre plots for anyone at all. Nor, in fact, space for anything more than a herbal border each let alone a veg plot.
The reason we cannot have nice things is the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. As ever, nationalisation of the use of land has meant little land to use at exorbitant prices. The answer therefore is to blow up the TCPA - proper blow up, kablooie. Then we can have nice things again - you know, experiments in living, gardens, room to swing a cat…..
Tim Worstall
*Yes, obviously, space for roads etc but still….