Update on Lanpro and Glavenhill

Lanpro’s proposal for the development of land west of North Street was circulated to local residents in early March. The document must have taken some time to prepare, perhaps a month or more, given the need to get the text approved by all the parties involved. Thus we may speculate that the landowner approached Lanpro, or was approached by them, no later than January, at which time the Bank of England base rate stood at 3.5%. Since then of course it has increased to 5.25%.

Despite optimistic noises being emitted by the UK press, there is no reason to believe that interest rates will go down in the near future. Indeed, we are as likely as not to find ourselves soon in a serious recession, if not an actual depression.

It is impossible to be sure of the size of the derivatives market, but it is far bigger now than it was just before the crash of 2008. If it implodes again – and the auguries suggest that it not only might, but eventually must – there is, this time, not enough capacity for governments to be able to bail out the culprits. There are simply too few productive taxpayers to mulct. The result will be widespread failure in the Western financial system, putting an end to speculative ventures such as building new housing estates.

Nor must we ignore geopolitical realities. The West is in long-term decline. The U.S. has not won a war since Desert Storm in 1991, and that was conducted using overwhelming firepower against a weak adversary. Its current proxy war in Ukraine, which, following decades of NATO expansion eastwards, it initiated in 2014 with the Maidan coup, is going so badly that our compliant media have all but ceased reporting it. The horrors unfolding in Gaza have caused an unprecedented unification of the Islamic world, to the extent that President Erdoğan – and Türkiye is a member of NATO – has been outspoken in his condemnation. Saudi Arabia is now accepting payment for oil in rubles: the petrodollar is on its last legs. Countries outside the West are de-dollarising. It is the USD as reserve currency that has been supporting the American empire and Western hegemony as a whole.

The sanctions against Russia have been an unmitigated disaster. The Russian economy is booming, while Europe is being so starved of cheap oil and gas that Germany is being forced to de-industrialise. Germany is, or was, the economic powerhouse of the EU. It does not take a genius to see what is going to happen to that institution now that Germany can no longer foot the bills. Despite Brexit, British and EU interests are still closely entwined, as indeed are British and American interests.

The illegal seizure of Russian sovereign and private assets by the U.S. and British governments has prompted other governments to start repatriating their own funds, since they no longer trust us. Indeed, the world, that is to say, 85% of its population, is realigning itself to the exclusion of the collective West. It is being led by the BRICS countries – particularly China and Russia, a process now being accelerated by events in the Middle East.

One could go on, for there is much more in this vein, but you can see that the future of the British economy does not look good. Then we have the almost certain probability of an incoming Labour government, which is unlikely to be sympathetic to property developers. Mr Sunak may delay the election till the autumn of next year, but as far as we are aware Glavenhill have not yet even submitted a pre-planning application. A full planning application for such a sensitive site will take many months of negotiation and to-and-fro before it can even be considered by the councillors on the NNDC Planning Committee.

As developers go, Glavenhill is a minnow. It has a total of three employees and a single director. To quote its own reporting to the government:

The company operates on a portfolio basis for land promotional activities and some of the projects complete whilst others do not. Costs incurred with the projects that do not obtain planning permission and do not complete are written off once planning has been rejected. The company’s shareholders, directors and other investors support the company until funds from successful completed transactions are repatriated to the company.

Its modus operandi, then, is to fly kites and see which of them find a favourable wind. The outlay so far has apparently been limited to the proposal document and the presentation in the Village Hall that followed it.

A 2019 pre-planning application for the same site was vehemently rejected by the NNDC, and that was for fewer dwellings than Lanpro propose. It is quite possible that this is one kite that Glavenhill will not even attempt to launch, given the economic forecast and the expense of a full planning application.

This blog was started, and the Langham Action Committee convened, in response to what looked at the time like an urgent need to counter Lanpro’s proposal. That need has become less urgent. The feature articles were introduced to keep the blog current in people’s mind, but it would seem that the time-consuming work of compiling them is no longer necessary, and from now on such posts as appear will mostly relate to planning matters.

Of course there is no guarantee that Lanpro and Glavenhill have given up, despite all indications to the contrary. If they do submit an application, we shall have only 21 days in which to respond, so if you have not already done so we urge you to subscribe by email, using the gadget in the sidebar. 

Thank you for your attention so far, and if anything transpires we will try to get the news to you as quickly as possible.