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I agree with you on this Raymond, it always makes me chuckle when you see the pictures and wordings on hoardings around development sites using such language as "luxury" and so forth.Infact I don't think I've ever seen a residential development site that isn't described on the surrounding hoarding as "luxury" or other superlatives.  But, of course, that's what marketing departments are for, and what one person thinks is "luxury" another person might think is bog standard.I think it be fair London is in a very difficult place right now, we all know how much development has taken place in the last 20 years in both the Brentford area and the whole of the capital, and yet Jenrick is telling Khan that it's not enough and its too slow.  Of course the cynic in me thinks this is because the Tories don't want the traditionally 'blue' Home Counties to have to provide lots of additional residential development, including loss of Green Belt, as they know it doesn't go down well with their constituents, so for political reasons they're going to push Khan to squeeze everyone into London.And that's essentially why new residential development within the capital is all about flats, it's all about the total unit numbers, after all the Tories introduced the various prior approval relaxations which have also led to a big increase in unit numbers but, unlike with a planning application, on prior approval applications the authority has no control over the size of the units, the mix of units, there's no requirement to provide affordable housing and so forth.And the strong indication coming out of the Government is that post-corona the controls are only going to be relaxed further as part of trying to re-stimulate the economy - e.g. this summer the Government is set to introduce a new permitted development right to build on top of existing flatted developments to provide more units.So whilst I'd largely agree that profit is king, it's the unit number driven approach that drives that - after all a significant part of the planning system in 2020 has no control whatsoever about the size of residential units.

Adam Beamish ● 1877d

Any start of this event will be over a month away. None of us know what the state of the virus will be in a month's time. None of us (yet) know what the arrangements will be for social distancing inside the event. At this stage the organisers, people from GP and the council are looking at what's possible.I went to Secret Cinema when it was on before and in most places it was not crowded. My daughter and I watched from I should think 60-80 m away and could see perfectly. The proposal is for 20% of the people previously admitted into the same amount of space so it certainly does not need to be crowded - how it's managed remains to be seen. Gunnerbury Park has lost all the revenue from Lovebox, weddings, smaller events and now most of the revenue from the cafe.I want the museum to stay open, the grounds to be maintained and people to keep their jobs. The public appeal has so far raised £18K - helpful but miles away from being enough. I don't know about Ealing but Hounslow already has a £14M hole in an already tight budget due to Coronavirus, and is getting many calls for support from individuals, businesses, community organisations etc.If this is successful, 69,000 people will get to see a unique outdoor cinema experience in beautiful surroundings at a time when most if not all other cinemas will be closed. Some of these people will have been cooped up for weeks in overcrowded homes, some with no outside amenities. This is likely to make a decent contribution to their wellbeing and mental health.Of course, we must be mindful of safety but there are a lot of reasons why we should be hoping this can happen, and working to make it so.

Guy Lambert ● 1885d

To turn this on the head, when are those people who are worried about a second wave going to feel safe ?.With the notable exception of Iran, name me one country that has experienced a sustained second wave ?.  Yes there have been isolated incidents of small clusters of new infections, for example around that mine in Poland and the nightclub area of Seoul, but such instances are few and far between.Spain's release from the lockdown is accelerating, with over half of the population able to go to bars, nightclubs and casinos (unlike here).  More and more countries are opening their borders, and the indications are that even those who are still (understandably) preventing Brits from going there will loosen such restrictions in the coming weeks.The death rate, although tragically high, is dropping at a significant, consistent rate (when one takes into account the rolling 7 day average and not daily fluctuations.  Inevitably some people who have been infected and are struggling to overcome it will die, that's a sad but simple reality, but the stats from countries like Italy and Spain suggest that both existing patients and new patients who are critically ill makes up only 1% of the active cases.There's always going to be a minority of people who are overly cautious by nature, in the same way there are those who are going to be cavalier.  Someone in all of that there's a middle ground, and whilst I'm pretty scathing of the UK government and it's handling of the pandemic, all of the signs at the moment are that the situation is improving rapidly in the UK, and the experience of the vast majority of countries ahead of us (in terms of when they started suffering the pandemic) is also very encouraging.In the same way that the cautious people can label people as being selfish and irresponsible for believing that, unless there's a considerable deterioration, the release from lockdown and the restoration of normality should escalate in the coming weeks, the cavalier people will say that it's unfair that their lives should be dictated by an overly-cautious minority who are probably benefiting from the lockdown and hence have no desire to rush the return to normality.Needless to say I'm one of the latter, reflected by how I already have a flexible 1 week holiday to Las Vegas booked in late August as something of an 'escape' to myself having spent the last 3 months cooped up with family and being one of those self-employed who 'dares' to earn above £50k per annum  without getting a penny of support from the government (unlike the supposed 95% of self-employed who have pocketed a £14k handout from the government whilst still being able to work).

Adam Beamish ● 1886d