Submission to Rt Hon Damian Hinds MP

PHAEDRA PONTSIVO

📌 Note on Submission

I was invited and subsequently received by Rt Hon Damian Hinds MP on 30 May 2025, when I had the opportunity to submit this document to him in person.

I am publishing it here to ensure transparency, to invite broader public dialogue, and to support constructive momentum around the ideas it contains. While the outcome of this submission remains open, my expectation is that it contributes meaningfully to the wider national conversation — and ultimately to real-world reform.

Dear Rt Hon Damian Hinds,

This is a formal request for political leadership on what may be the most dangerously overlooked national threat in modern Britain.

The UK housing crisis is no longer merely a matter of affordability. It is a structural failure with far-reaching consequences for sovereignty, public trust, national resilience, and the long-term viability of our land, ecosystems, and democratic institutions.

The six legislative proposals enclosed are not isolated reforms. Together, they form a coherent legal framework to address what is now a uniquely British emergency — one enabled by policy gaps, regulatory capture, and exploitative financial models that our current system not only tolerates, but in some cases rewards.

We face a system marked by:

  • Legalised extraction of value from land without reinvestment into the communities that generated it,
  • Systematic degradation of infrastructure and public services through speculative, uncoordinated delivery,
  • Erosion of democratic oversight, as land is acquired, banked, or promoted by entities operating through offshore holding structures or limited-liability SPVs,
  • And generational displacement, as land and housing are treated not as civic infrastructure, but as speculative instruments — indifferent to long-term livability or environmental impact.

The British public rightly expects that land granted development value should serve the national interest — not be diverted into private offshore gain or speculative asset cycles.

With urgency,

Why This Threat Is Uniquely Dangerous in the UK

Unlike many European democracies, the UK currently has:

  • No national framework to regulate developer profitability,
  • No statutory obligation to align housing delivery with infrastructure readiness or environmental thresholds,
  • No enforceable rules requiring ownership transparency during the planning process,
  • And no licensing regime to prevent repeated abuse by known bad actors.

At the same time, many of the UK’s largest developers — including publicly listed firms — operate through offshore holding structures or tax-efficient arrangements. These structures fragment liability, conceal profit flows, and sever ownership from delivery responsibility.

This creates a planning environment where:

  • Permissions are hoarded, not delivered,
  • Land is commodified, not planned,
  • Profit is extracted invisibly, not reinvested,
  • And public and environmental costs are offloaded onto future generations.

This is not market failure. It is state-enabled legal extraction — on a scale and with a level of impunity few other democracies would accept.

What’s at Stake

If this trajectory continues unchecked, Britain risks:

  • National security exposure, as development land is controlled by offshore or unaccountable entities,
  • Civic fragmentation, as communities lose faith in fair process and infrastructure collapses under speculative growth,
  • Environmental exhaustion, as poor development patterns overwhelm local ecosystems,
  • And irreversible loss of sovereignty, not by conflict, but by legal inaction and regulatory decay.

| The land is still ours — but only if we act now, with law, clarity, and structural accountability.

Purpose of This Submission

The six strategic interventions are outlined in full at the links below. Each page presents:

  • The problem it addresses,
  • Proposed national and local actions,
  • Legislative mechanisms, and
  • Precedents or implementation paths.
Intervention Point 1: Add Housing to National Risk Register
Intervention Point 2: Strategic Land Use Security Bill
Intervention Point 3: Resilience & Sovereignty Test in Planning
Intervention Point 4: National Public Land & Development Register
Intervention Point 5: Redefine Housing as National Infrastructure
Intervention Point 6: Licensing & Criminalisation of Planning Abuse

These are not abstract proposals. They are:

  • Evidence-based,
  • Structurally proportionate,
  • And entirely achievable within existing legislative frameworks.

They are grounded in the principles of:

  • Transparency — Know who owns, who profits, who is responsible.
  • Sustainability — Align planning with infrastructure and environmental limits.
  • Accountability — License those who operate; exclude those who abuse.
  • Fairness — Reinvest what is extracted; stop value leakage from public land.

These reforms aim to:

  • And protect the right of future generations to live in communities that are viable, just, and built for the public good.
  • Recognise housing and land control as strategic infrastructure and security matters,
  • Reverse legalised value extraction through profit caps, clawback tools, and ownership transparency,
  • Equip local authorities and Parliament with the tools to block abuse, deliver sustainably, and restore trust,
Why and How to Deliver a Moratorium on Developer Donations
2025-05-30: Submission to Rt Hon Damian Hinds MP.pdf