I attended an event yesterday that unintentionally illustrated a lot that is fundamentally wrong with this country. I hasten to add that that is no criticism of the organisers, who did an excellent job, and whose idea to run the event was in itself good.

My locality is facing the by far the largest expansion of housing stock in the country, double that of the next largest. Some people are claiming it is the biggest green-field development since Milton Keynes. It entails three ‘garden settlements’ in close proximity, strung along the A120 in north Essex. It will eventually total some 40,000 houses in what are now predominantly very rural areas.

The event was a conference called to created dialogue and share opinion. But…

…as I walked in, it became apparent (in the way it only really can to a native Briton) that those gathered were…err… not exactly socio-economically representative of the local population. The preponderance of country-wear, and the audibly plummy accents suggested that by far the majority of the audience of perhaps a couple of hundred were older members of the entitled tiers of society. Who else could find three hours on a regular Friday afternoon to attend such an event? Most of them seemed to know each other.

I have nothing at all against such people – except that they are, by default, representatives of that sector of society that has run this country as its own private club for at least a couple of centuries too long. They have as much right to their share of the nation and its activities as anyone else – but no more than that. And they most certainly are not representative of the nation as a whole.

They are, however, the people who have tended to do best for themselves out of this country’s extremely un-level playing field – and even by default they clearly intend to keep it that way. This does not make them nasty individuals – but they and their nnforebears are nonetheless collectively responsible for many of the gross inequalities that exist in this country. They were out in their masses primarily to defend their own, often-considerable demesnes.

It was also very noticeable that these are not the people whom one tends to encounter in the streets and shops of this area. Accent alone betrays that; I recognised very few, though I knew ‘of’ some by reputation. I suspect that they keep themselves very much to themselves in the many large rural piles that dot this area, networking amongst their kind, and they tend to go ‘up to Town’ for most of their needs. They represent the fact that this country’s privileged have never disappeared: they just went underground. Integrated into the local community they are not – but they still tend to be that portion that turns out to make its voice known at such events, and to get elected to district councils and the like, where they are well-represented.

They had certainly turned out in droves to object to the destruction of their own little patch of Arcadia.

Speaking to us were a range of planners, businessmen and politicians, including prominent Brexiter, Bernard Jenkin MP who to be fair, managed to squeeze out a relatively non-partisan introduction. The chair of a local district council made a speech. He explained rather abruptly that he has to do what the national government tells him – and that means building lots of houses. He did not explain why we need to have more than anyone else. He also seemed totally unaware that part of his function might be to listen to grass-roots views and convey them in the opposite direction. Local democracy seems not to think it needs to listen to local views, let alone defend local concerns, any more.

A number of competent planners and others spoke, who generally did a good job of explaining both the official and alternative planning policies. But most seemed to agree that the only way it is possible to extract any public benefit at all from developers is to agglomerate to a massive scale, otherwise they simply wriggle through the system’s many convenient loopholes. As much as 90% of the land value uplift from development (which might be used to fund improved amenities etc.) goes nowhere near the public domain of the areas that have such developments imposed on them.

The (new) head of the development consortium spoke authoritatively on his brief, in which he conceded that consultation has hitherto been woeful. One might wonder why. He sounded every inch the developer-magnate who has large schemes on the go all over the place. But the tenor of his speech was very much that the affair was wrapped up between central government, developers and land owners. He grudging conceded that “sometimes things do come out of consultation…” – and I wish his expression of the importance of the ‘collective interest’ had sounded more convincing…

There was absolutely no discussion of the actual nature and quality of what might eventually get built. For ‘ordinary people’ this is actually the prime concern: will the houses be affordable and make good, well-built homes? Will services and infrastructure be adequate? Will a good life be possible in those places? For them it will not be a merely technical exercise of provision. The consensus seemed to judge that there might be an outside chance of making it so, if only the developers could be reined in. Otherwise probably not.

The objection to building in this rural area is easy to understand. The past of record of this Home County sets a very poor precedent in terms of quality, location, infrastructure and architectural merit. What continues to be built on the edge of local towns is the worst kind of dislocated concrete (well, brick) jungle – the slums of the future. Developers latch onto what they believe to be attractive, saleable locations – and proceed to wreck them. Why should we believe that what what comes next will be any different?

There was a sense of futility about the proceedings – plenty of people with good ideas for improvements or alternative solutions – all of which will quite clearly be totally ignored by those who have already decided what will happen.

For me, the meeting was torpedoed at the outset by the chairman, who opined that there was no point in discussing what we could learn from good practice from other countries “since this is Britain”. It would have been much more worthwhile to spend the time dealing with that point alone.

And I came away with a saddeningly familiar sense of being a foreigner in my own country. No doubt they are all lovely people – but many were so obviously from a privileged clique, whose very enduring existence damages the wider social fabric of this nation. I could probably ‘assimilate’ if I wanted to – but I don’t. On the other hand, I feel just as disconnected from the voiceless and often coarsened ‘masses’ who were barely represented yesterday afternoon, and who would no doubt have perceived me as part of the ‘County’ clan. I will be against that wall just as quickly as the rest, should the revolution come.

I actually take my lead from the relatively classless, social-democratic societies of the near-continent – and there is no home for that, even today, in this country.

The conference was well worth attending – but I came away with the strong impression that between the entitled stake-holders (some of whom were known to be ‘interested’ land-owners), the technocracy of the professional developers – and the jungle of impenetrable procedure and legislation that they have created, the whole thing was one great stitch-up. Pretty much a good summary, when seen from a lay-person’s point of view, of the whole of this country.