Expert says Britain’s ‘can-do’ attitude to planning has been replaced by a process that is a ‘gamble’ and highly politicised
“We can’t keep banging our heads against the wall,” said Jamie Dolan, the billionaire owner of New York’s Madison Square Garden arena, who last week abandoned a five-year effort to build a glowing orb concert venue taller than St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
The Trump donor, who also owns the New York Knicks basketball team and built his first Sphere venue in Las Vegas, had foundered on the craggy rocks of the UK’s planning system – the same one that took more than eight years to approve a fifth terminal for Heathrow airport and fails to build enough affordable housing but allows forests of speculative skyscrapers to stand partly empty.
