The "Bombsite Britain Tax"

In recent weeks The Financial Times (FT) has carried articles on :

• The vulnerability of regeneration areas to the economic downturn/recession
• Skepticism about whether the English Regional Development Agencies are "working"
• The financial levy on empty shops, offices and warehouses introduced last April

The article on the empty property levy (or "Bombsite Britain Tax") which appeared in The Weekend FT 23-24 August, opened as follows :

" British Cities are "beginning to look like like broken teeth" , with hundreds of buildings being razed as the result of a damaging tax on empty property, a government regeneration chief said yesterday..."

All this does of course beg the question : where is the joined up government, given that regeneration of brownfield sites is supposedly a priority for this one ?

I will be tackling the subject of "Bombsite Britain" again at a later date. However, just now I would refer readers to my E-Pantomime on the theme of regeneration "Carry On Communities", which opens with these words from The Giant ( an ogre !) known as "The Big Clunking Fist" (aka Gordon Brown) :

" Fee Fi Fo Fum

I smell the Funds of an Englishman.

Be He Alive or be He Dead,

I'll have His Money for My Bread !"

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