Rowan Moore mentions how 2.8 million people now live in areas based on the idea of the garden city (“Green belts once served a purpose, but now they are squeezing the life out of cities”, Comment).
In order to start solving the housing problem, would it not be possible to build new garden cities and suburbs? Why not allow building on some of the numerous sterile, hedgeless, fields growing cereals or monocultural ryegrass, but with the presumption that any building scheme would result in increased biodiversity? With tree planting, allotments, and front gardens not concreted over for parking numerous cars, this would be easy to achieve.
Igor Cusack
Greystones, County Wicklow
There is a way that green belts can be built on and still retain their traditional purpose. Instead of just being an area where city dwellers can experience nature, they should be given a new role as “carbon sinks” for city emissions. There should be a specific set of planning requirements, with sufficient funding, to ensure that all development on the green belt is carbon negative. This would incentivise environmental building techniques which could be exported around the world.
The government needs to establish green belt development corporations which ensure that the increases in land value on granting planning permission are captured and converted into green technology advances that benefit us all.
Richard Gilyead
Saffron Walden, Essex
Moore is correct in his optimism for a Labour government’s housebuilding ideas under Keir Starmer. The notion that a green belt, rigorously enforced, is adversely changing cities is too simplistic. Less affluent house buyers in urban areas need to be centrally located to avoid transport costs and to be near resources.
It is gentrification that has made urban development expensive. Brownfield sites exist in all our towns and cities, but superior buying power and weak control on low-cost housing provision has excluded poorer buyers.
Jonathan Hauxwell
Crosshills, North Yorkshire
Children deserve better
Thank you for drawing attention to the issue of a lack of care for children with mental health problems (“Becky, 12, tried to kill herself. The care she received? Eight weeks in solitary”, Comment).
As someone who benefited from three inpatient stays in the 90s between the ages of 14-17, I can testify to the importance of receiving care. I’m still in touch with a number of former patients who also benefited from secure, safe inpatient care. These were once kids who tried to commit suicide (myself at the age of 12), self harmed, were abused, starved themselves.
We remember those who didn’t make it, the child who starved herself to death or the young adult who jumped in front of a train. Without suitable care many children end up in the revolving door of adult mental health or they die. Thank you for shining a light on this as without change more lives will be lost.
Kate Guy
Claybrooke Magna, Leicestershire
Exploiting vegans
As a vegan for 15 years, my favourite phrase is “they stole our revolution” (“Has the vegan bubble burst? Sales stagnate in UK as brands withdraw plant-based products”, News).
The issue isn’t that vegan food isn’t selling well. It’s that, as your article mentions, the “plant-based” sector is considered premium. In today’s world, people just can’t afford this.
All the companies that jumped into “plant-based” realised the same thing – create a plant-based formulation, but charge twice the price of the meat/dairy analogue.
I’m afraid it presented veganism as a luxury but for me and others it’s a core belief which we ask is respected in a similar way to religious eating requirements. No food manufacturer would create a halal or kosher version of their product and charge double the price, for example. So why with mass market veganism?
Keir Thomas-Bryant, Manchester Vegetarian and Vegan Group
Cadishead, Greater Manchester
Trumpian Tories
You report that Tories are warning of the danger of a “Trump-style takeover” (“Senior Tories say party is finished if it lurches to the right”, News). But that happened when Boris Johnson, the nearest thing to a Trump in British politics, became prime minister in 2019.
Since then, we have seen a succession of ideologues from the far right of the party be awarded seats at the cabinet table which they proved to be singularly ill-equipped to fill.
Senior Tories may belatedly be waking up to the fact that they might lose their seats. But if they are worried about the direction their party is taking, they have been remarkably quiet over the past few years.
Dave Pollard
Leicester
The eye of the beholder
Martha Gill tackles the “sensitive” issue of age well (“There’s no shame in waging war on old age – long live Martha Stewart”, Comment).
The issue of Sports Illustrated’s cover photo is a dangerous one because the underlying emphasis is that age should be avoided (by all means) if it can. That is because age is seen as unwanted and that looking great is the standard that everyone (women more than men, unfortunately) will fall short of.
When beauty (and yes, Stewart is a beautiful woman) is equal to being a great, admirable person, we have lost sight of what value is. And when the beauty is “obtained” or “created” by years of sculpting, of cosmetics tugging, pinching, eliminating, and enhancing that point is even more important.
Torben Riise
Anthem, Arizona
Scramblies, anyone?
Perhaps it is just me, but new words appearing in the Observer Magazine make me feel slightly out of touch.
Is “merch” as in “merch rail” an accepted abbreviation for “merchandise” (“Race to the bottom”), and are “scramblies” (“Sunday with Annette Badland: ‘We enjoy a prance around the living room’ ”) a new type of food? Perhaps we should ask Jay Rayner.
Ian Dowding
Herstmonceux, East Sussex
