> the pub campaigners and the council won: the China Hall was ordered to remain as a pub.
But it was too late for Norris. The fight had taken it out of him, and his health deteriorated rapidly. He died on 22 June 2023, aged 74. Some 250 people turned up to his funeral in Honor Oak.
Sounds like a class act.
As long as there are no negative consequences for billionaires to behave like this they will continue to do so. Only a matter of time until people take matters into their hands.
Thing is, for it to truly stop an incentive has to be removed. It shouldn't be a profitable idea. A business open in a particular place has to be the most profitable business possible there. What's the problem if it's not the pub? Drinking rates are nosediving in UK, and that's a good thing, a generation ago half the country was spending their life sloshed days long.
But that is the same thing! The rent reflects maximum profit that can be extracted at a particular place. If some other business is able to pay the rent, the rent will be higher than a pub can afford.
Money is NOT the entire (nor even accurate) scorecard for all things. The "free market" is not the best solution to all problems (e.g., start with the Tragedy Of The Commons, which "free markets systematically exacerbate).
Just because the external benefits of a more cohesive society and pleasant neighborhood cannot be full monetized does not mean they don't exist or there is not much more value there than appears in your idea of profit.
Tautologically using profits as the measure of value is idiotically reductionist.
Because this is what naturally happens. The more you try to bend economic reality by forcing people to do less optimal things, the more the economy starts to resemble Soviet Union - i come from there and i don't want to go back. I agree, it is sometimes necessary, but it should be approached with great care, to do only when indeed absolutely necessary.
I don't think that follows at all. If a business is on the area and successful, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is the most successful business that could be there.
Sounds like a class act.
As long as there are no negative consequences for billionaires to behave like this they will continue to do so. Only a matter of time until people take matters into their hands.