'Ouses, Greenbelt and stuff

It is, but the price reflects the challenges of redeveloping a big listed building. There's little value in a site like that that can't be redeveloped and it would be a pretty massive undertaking. We have a couple of former institutions nearby that have been redeveloped - Netherne on the Hill and Csne Hill. Much easier than a fortified barracks but not without their challenges.

Essentially a good idea, but has morphed into yet another reason to do nothing and a mindset that everything old is de facto by virtue of its age, and everything new is therefore bad (harmful to the significance of the heritage asset). It largely suffers from being policed by too few under-skilled conservation officers who default to treating buildings like museum artefacts. Buildings that can't be made to fit people's needs are abandoned, and nobody looks after abandoned buildings apart from a few overstretched charities. A bit of flexibility in allowing adaptation will increase the chances of long term survival for the assets they seek to protect.

For the less common Grade II* and I, English Heritage gets involved and they seem to have a much more balanced view on the benefit of keeping buildings usable by allowing some sensible alterations.

It's not subjective that the areas under discussion are a tiny proportion of the vast areas of Green Belt. It's also not subjective that there's already plenty of development that has found itself inside the Green Belt. It's a zoning designation marked onto a map, not a qualitative assessment of how lovely and green a bit of land is. As for why developers haven't built out every consent I doubt there's one single answer, but you'd have to survey individual developers to find the common factors. Profit is likely to feature - it's remarkably easy to lose your shirt developing and construction inflation and interest rates have wiped out the profitability of a lot of projects.

A big part of the risk for developers is the unknown timescale - will you get consent in 6 months? A year? 2 years? 3 years? That leads to the larger developers stockpiling so that they can manage the supply of land for their building side. It also makes it really hard for smaller developers as that kind of delay is the difference between making a profit to roll into the next project and going bust.

Reinstating targets helps because it forces authorities to allocate sufficient sites, but it's only a small part of the solution. The idea that 350 more planning officers - barely one per council - is going to make a measurable difference to decision times seems fanciful.

Building homes puts pressure on existing infrastructure wherever it is built. All development has an impact on its surroundings. That question is already dealt with through the planning system and S106 agreements whereby developers have to contribute often very significant amounts towards improving local infrastructure. This applies regardless of Green Belt status. There are plenty of well connected settlements already within the Green Belt, so it's not as though it's an infrastructure desert.

Yes, some settlements are going to get a little bit bigger. Others will shrink. That's a normal pattern that has existed for hundreds of years.

Just to emphasise the point, here are two Streetview locations near me. Can you guess which one is designated Green Belt?

Immigration is an issue for the Home Office but while it's likely to reduce somewhat from the last peak, it's not going away, just like any other developed country with a birth rate well below 2.

No doubt they're challenging targets - as they should be - but I can't find any corroborating quotes from trade press and the Telegraph is firmly in the Nimby camp. Can safely ignore.

Nobody has a crystal ball, so we won't know until at least a couple of years in whether things are moving in the right direction. First step is at least having a target (remember your lot didn't want targets at all) and revising the NPPF. That's in progress. Then Local Authorities will need to update their Local Plans. That addresses the shortage of existing approvals.

Developers are obviously going to have to mobilise and there's probably a need to look strategically at trades training, but I don't think we can doubt that there is demand for housing. There's probably also some work to be done in making finance more available for smaller developers, who are more suited to the thousands of small sites dotted around our towns and cities.

But sure, if we approach with a loser's can't-be-done attitude then it probably won't happen.