CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Andy Wightman on land reform: Who owns the Palace of Holyroodhouse?"
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Posted 6 years ago #
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Who cares? I'd much rather Wightman put his talents of persuasion towards improving public realm in our towns and cities.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Who cares?
I do for one. All wealth results ultimately from human beings applying their hands and brains to what they find on and under the finite stock of land, so its ownership is crucial in determining who is wealthy. Extreme cases like Holyrood shine a light into the wider issue of who owns Scotland's land.
On top of that there's the powerful symbolism of this palace overlooking the Scottish parliament and that parliament not being quite sure who owns it, who controls it and in whose interest it operates.
I can think of many better uses for Holyrood House than a royal palace;
i) Location for the Scottish parliament
ii) Palace of Culture for the punters
iii) Student flatsEtc etc etc.
Posted 6 years ago # -
None of which is going to get us more bike lanes. The Greens could influence Scottish Government transport policy in all kinds of progressive ways IMMEDIATELY, but Wightman wrote some books about land ownership, so I guess that's more important...
Posted 6 years ago # -
"The Greens could influence Scottish Government transport policy in all kinds of progressive ways IMMEDIATELY"
If only.
Posted 6 years ago # -
They could have got some concessions for supporting the referendum vote, but got absolutely nothing - great politics...
Posted 6 years ago # -
Quite rude of him to stipulate at the end of the article that any public money saved by properly organising the ownership and funding structure must not be spent on extra cycle infrastructure.
Posted 6 years ago # -
They could have got some concessions for supporting the referendum vote, but got absolutely nothing - great politics...
What should they have done if the SNP said "No"? Withdraw support for independence?
Who cares? I'd much rather Wightman put his talents of persuasion towards improving public realm in our towns and cities.
I understand he does a lot of this as well. For some reason, a story about Mrs Windsor's wee hoose gains more attention in the news.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@jonty
Er..is this a joke? I can't see any 'stipulation' like that in the article.
Posted 6 years ago # -
What should they have done if the SNP said "No"? Withdraw support for independence?
No, just not support them at that time unless given appropriate concessions, thus undermining pressure SNP were trying to build. It's called politics.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The Greens could influence Scottish Government transport policy in all kinds of progressive ways IMMEDIATELY
I know a few Greens and I'd be surprised if they hadn't tried their best to do just this over the past decade.
I bump into Andy from time to time (my dad taught him at university) - tell you what, I'll ask him what his party has done and thinks it can do.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Posted 6 years ago #
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@chdot
That Guardian article is from June 2012. Just for clarity, the Union Terrace Gardens plan was rejected in August of that year. Which was good. A new plan which supposedly received 94% approval in the public consultation was approved in March this year.
What he wrote then about Essential Edinburgh is still relevant - although, again for clarity, the current CEC representative on the board of Essential Edinburgh is a councillor ie an elected member (it's Gavin Barrie, SNP, Inverleith ward). I note that there is no longer any police representation on the board. There is a representative of Marketing Edinburgh, an outfit I had not previously been particularly aware of, and which seems rather less transparent in its membership and governance than Essential Edinburgh itself, which has to operate within statute ie the "Planning etc. (Scotland) Act 2006" which laid down the rules about Business Investment Districts in Scotland.
Posted 6 years ago # -
In fairness, he's been tweeting quite aggressively about the
road building dealcity deal.Posted 6 years ago # -
"@chdot
That Guardian article is from June 2012"
Yes, long standing interest/'expert'/campaigner.
'Who owns Holyrood' is useful for grabbing headlines/attention, but the whole land ownership/control/use issue is much wider - not least what is done with "Common Good" assets.
"
Wealthy landowners must EARN farming subsidies after Brexit instead of just handing huge estates the most, Michael Gove warns
"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4717302/Wealthy-landowners-EARN-farming-subsidies.html
Posted 6 years ago # -
@chdot
"Yes, long standing interest/'expert'/campaigner."
I'm well aware of that. I was just pointing out that the reference in that article to the near-disaster at Union Terrace Gardens is well out of date.
"'Who owns Holyrood' is useful for grabbing headlines/attention, but the whole land ownership/control/use issue is much wider - not least what is done with "Common Good" assets."
Don't disagree with that.
"Wealthy landowners must EARN farming subsidies after Brexit instead of just handing huge estates the most, Michael Gove warns"
Gove is quoted as saying: "beautiful landscape has not happened by accident but has been actively managed." Rather depends on what you think is beautiful, doesn't it.
(BTW: every time someone links to the Daily Mail, God kills a kitten.)
Posted 6 years ago # -
"every time someone links to the Daily Mail, God kills a kitten"
Is that fake DM news?
I'm aware of 'don't click on the DM it only encourages them' feelings, but also amused when it publishes such stories which may or may not adversely affect its owners.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Who cares? I'd much rather Wightman put his talents of persuasion towards improving public realm in our towns and cities.
I also care. Andy Wightman has perhaps done as much as any of us (and probably a considerable amount more) towards "improving public realm in our towns and cities" in the past 10 or 15 years through his tireless (and largely unpaid) work as a land reform and ownership expert. He's helped countless community organisations in their bids to take over / get ownership of bits of otherwise unwanted or unloved land and turn it into something useful for communities. It's just the sort of stuff that doesn't gain headlines like this.
The books followed later and have helped him fund some of his work.
There is more to "Green" politics than just bike lanes, but it doesn't mean that one is done at the exclusion of the others.
Whenever we get a bit of land of unclear ownership or owned by a private developer who has no intention of allowing easy public access (especially by bike), we should be glad of an "on-side" land expert.
Posted 6 years ago # -
There is more to "Green" politics than just bike lanes, but it doesn't mean that one is done at the exclusion of the others.
Of course, but there is soooooo much that can be done with the land/roads that is already in public ownership that isn't. That's what's so frustrating.
Posted 6 years ago # -
He's quite a keen cyclist, and i think his critique of the city deal has been excellent.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Indeed. His tweeting on City Deal has been good.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Yes, what SRD said.
The paradigm for almost all of our politicians is still a society in which everything is a commodity and all commodities must be traded freely (with the exceptions of human beings themselves, some drugs, some weapons, some sex acts and so on), the whole powered by unlimited and consequence-free fossil fuel burning.
A lot of people think you're mad if you suggest that any other way of organising society is even possible, despite the widespread availability of history books and even of people who have lived under other governing principles.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"whole powered by unlimited and consequence-free fossil fuel burning.
A lot of people think you're mad if you suggest that any other way of organising society is even possible"
June
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Michael Gove has systematically voted against environmental policies for pretty much the whole time he’s been in Government – even if he’s not technically a full-on climate change denier, he must be a sceptic to have consistently voted against pretty much all legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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July
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Michael Gove to pledge 'Green Brexit' in first keynote environment speech
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Baffling.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"
Michael Gove’s speech ‘The unfozen moment – delivering a Green Brexit‘ is very, very good. It’s, by far, the best speech made by a government environment minister since at least 2010.
"
Posted 6 years ago # -
Interesting that Gove is putting "conserve" back into Conservative instead of everything judged by money.
Also Gove did put some humanity into prison reform.
He's an odd character.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Gove is very clubbable. Well actually he is a total lone wolf making it up as he goes along, but I want to club him. Sorry.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Andy Wightman's investigation into the Vassalage of Langholm was a great read at the time. I hope his expertise is put to good use.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Thread drift warning.
As with a fair few topics on CCE, I'd never head of Andy Wightman until a couple of days ago. After some reading I went to eBay and brought one of his books.
Delivery options included the usual, although for only 129.99 I could have Royal Mail 1st class delivery. 129.99! I did take a screenshot then got sidetracked and copied over it b4 I could save it.
Not sure it's really relevant to the thread..
Posted 6 years ago # -
Nit wanting to boast, but I have a signed copy of Andy's book, which was hand delivered to my door by the author himself in person.
Posted 6 years ago #
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