The Royal Wedding and Planning

You know, I can't abide the fuss that's being made about the scrubber Kate Middleton and the inbred royal halfwit Prince William getting married next year. Apparently David Cameron was banging the table in sheer molten joy at the news and that says it all - thank you Julie Christie for that one. Of course it is a Tory wedding for Tory times, likely to be the main event in England next year, celebrated by street parties of inebriates across the land, banging their colonial drums and wishing that their stupid country was great again.

So why am I mentioning this? What can an expert planner like me have to say about this that is relevant to our dynamic world of Scottish property development? Well, it's a conservationist's dream event - just look what happened in the 1980s after the the Charles and Di show. Wall to wall historicism, half-timber and red brick - yes, you've all forgotten that - so red alert! The backcloth to that royal wedding was the everyday grim environment of brick terraces and houses with bits of wood stuck on that became a wash of English suburbia which we still see lapping on the shores of Cumbernauld and Inverness. The Persimmons, Barretts and Wimpeys of this world knew exactly what to do - build more of it - everywhere. Now I'm not opposed to a bit of development as you know - in fact I'm highly partial to it - but the likely outcome of this in Scotland is more half-timbered Highland Housing Expo junk - but all over the place.

But wait - there's more! St Andrews is a place that is tainted by royalty. William met her there didn't he? It's actually like a wee bit of England sitting like a bunion on the coast of our fair land - like Milltimber or Eaglesham, but more royal. I know St Andrews well and I'm always appalled by its horrible tweedie tidiness and its tearooms for old women. So they must takes some of the blame for the conservation wash - and maybe for New Urbanism too!

So anyway, I'm ranting on now. Good luck then to the enlarged Munsters, the Addams family or whatever you want to call them. And to the rest of us, look out for a conservation revival soon. In particular, the rise again of the Royal Wedding House.