Wine vs the NIMBYS

How England’s burgeoning wine industry is hampered by our convoluted planning system.

We’ve just had a general election in Britain and as predicted the Conservatives are out. It’s a Labour landslide, though with only moderately more votes than they got in 2017*, reflecting the unpopularity of the outgoing government rather than enthusiasm for Starmer et al. Don't worry, there is a wine angle coming.

Perhaps the principal reason that the Conservatives are so unpopular is that Britain feels a palpably poorer place than it was in the 2000s. Public transport is terrible, the roads are falling to pieces, and you avoid the NHS whenever possible. The economy hasn’t recovered from the Covid lockdowns and we’re still paying off Sunak’s insanely generous furlough scheme. You can blame Brexit for this but the malaise goes further back, the economy hasn’t really got going since the financial crash of 2008.

The fact that our convoluted planning system makes it incredibly hard and expensive to build anything is a massive factor in the lack of economic growth. You can see this in our ridiculous house prices. Most people under 30 will never own their homes. It also means that it is very difficult for businesses especially in rural areas to expand as viewers of Clarkson’s Farm will know. Bits of the economy that are doing well are stymied by an inability to build and it’s insanely expensive to upgrade infrastructure. 

Wine GB figures released last week show that English wine production increased by 77% last year (though perhaps more worryingly sales only grew by 10% - one for another day). And yet visit Chapel Down in Kent and they’re making wine in a small and badly-equipped winery in Tenterden. They’re been planning a move to a better-located and equipped £32 million site near Canterbury for years but legal challenges have delayed it. Eventually the case went to the High Court where Chapel Down won. Just think of all that time and money wasted to build a new winery.