On 31/08/2012 22:05, News wrote:

"Bruce" wrote in message
...

It's a lot easier to build on a green field site and usually
considerably cheaper. Add the lower construction costs to the much
lower cost of buying agricultural land on the outskirts of towns and
cities compared with land values in and near town centres and there is
a clear incentive to develop green field sites which the housebuilders
already own compared with brown field sites which they don't.

Experience shows that by far the best way to facilitate development of
brown field sites is for the public sector to pay for site clearance
and remediation

The best way is to slap land valuation taxation on all land. The
landowners soon get it profitable. And no public expense to do so.

But will the tax on my garden be higher than my present council tax?

--
Myth, after all, is what we believe naturally. History is what we must
painfully learn and struggle to remember. -Albert Goldman