Achieving economic growth takes more than booing Nimbys

New housing at Wellington Place, Market Harborough

There's an article on Liberal Democrat Voice today by Steve Wootton announcing the formation of Lib Dems for Growth. The group will have a stall at the York spring conference this weekend.

Economic growth does sound like the answer to our prayers, though the environmental constraints on it are becoming more apparent. But that's not what worries me about the statement from the group that Steve quotes.

Like a lot of people who call for economic growth, it rather assumes that British industry would leap into action and deliver growth at a startling rate if it weren't for the stage army of planning officers and Nimbys that they bring on to be denounced.

As far as there are problems with the planning system, I suspect they run deeper than people getting up petitions against new housing development. For one view of what's wrong, have a look at the paper Dan Davis wrote for Labour Together: Build the rail! Save the snails! How to really fix UK infrastructure planning.

In it he argues:

UK infrastructure projects cost significantly more than European equivalents, and the time and money spent on the pre-construction phase is greater here than in any other country. This is because our system treats projects as "guilty until proven innocent" and provides feedback too late to correct course efficiently. 

Developers, consultants and planning authorities all respond to uncertainty by over-mitigating potential objections. The cause is not environmental regulation itself, but an adversarial planning system that incentivises pre-emptive risk aversion.

But what if the problem lies deeper still? What if our industry isn't well placed to make that great leap forward?

Chris Dillow often writes about the poor quality of British management. He talked about this subject on Nick Cohen's podcast Writing from London a couple of years ago.

And he wrote about it on his own blog not long before that. As with planning, a large part of the problem is systemic rather than down to individual delinquency. When it comes to British management, the problem is that there are perverse incentives that lead to mangers not striving to perform better.

Yet, as Chris points out:

Whether it be efforts to weaken trades unions or to "strengthen work incentives", both Labour and Tory governments have for decades seen their task as ensuring an adequate supply of quiescent labour. Ensuring an adequate supply of good management, by contrast, has barely figured as an objective.

It seems that calling for a higher level of growth in the British economy may be a more radical policy than its enthusiasts realise.