In its centenary year, the charity Joseph Rowntree Foundation may initiate a major programme of public policy research relating to land and tax. Director Lord (Richard) Best hosted a dinner for key speakers at the conference "Towards Land Value Taxation for Local Government" in Oxford on 16 September, to ask their advice on what most needs to be done to provide the evidence as to the practicality and desirability of LVT in 21st century Britain.
Most of Lord Best's guests were Lib Dems are he reminded them that JRF's founder was a Liberal follower of Henry George.
ALTER Chair Tony Vickers has since written to Lord Best are suggested two priorities:
1. Trying to involve Government in any research programme, because only Government can make public the information collected on the nation's behalf about land.
2. Initial focus on completing key data sets, such as the Land Registry, and integrating them into a National Spatial Data Infrastructure. Vickers' own research is into the business case for 'UK plc' to undertake Value Mapping (see www.landvaluescape.org)
September 2004 Archives
The Centre for Reform (CfR), a charitable centre-left-leaning think-tank, has offered to publish a pamphlet after the next General Election provisionally entitled "Towards Land Tax". ALTER Chair Tony Vickers recently met CfR's Duncan Greenland to discuss the proposal. "CfR would definitely like to proceed with the project", said Greenland after consulting with CfR trustees.
ALTER supporter and town planner Greg McGill, who recently retired as a senior lecturer in surveying at the College of Estate Management and now, like Vickers, is a PhD student at Kingston University, would be his co-author.
CfR's support is dependent on funding to enable a research assistant to work on the project, which would draw on research under several Fellowships in Land Value Taxation funded by the American Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in recent years on the theme "Preparing for LVT in Britain".
The proposal can be viewed by downloading the file Towards Land Tax
