China Needs LVT - first PLRG talk at LSBU 16 Sep 6pm

The Professional Land Reform Group (PLRG) is pleased to announce that London South Bank University has offered to host its bi-monthly meetings, starting with a talk by PLRG Chairman Dave Wetzel entitled China needs LVT next Thursday 6pm.

The venue is Borough Road building of LSBU (103 Borough Rd, SE1 0AA), Room B172. Travel directions

Please let Tony Vickers know if you are coming. The event is free to PLRG members and to those interested in joining. You are receiving this because we think you are in one of those categories.

The Progress Report, an American online publication, has regular features on China. Recently it featured one that said "China Adopts Hong Kong's Land Model". Good - because it means the state retains freehold and much of the value of land as public revenue; bad (says Professor Fred Foldvary, another contributor to Progress) - because the leases are too long, so leaseholders capture too much of this value in times of rising prices.

The next talk in the series will be in November, was to be by Dr Rana Roy on The Fall & Rise of Australia's Resource Taxing Government - very topical! Unfortunately he has just told us that he is unable to return from 'down under' by then, so we will have defer the topic for now. Dr Roy had been an adviser to the previous Australian PM.

Meanwhile we would greatly appreciate ideas for our November talk. One that we are pursuing is Land Use Futures: the Foresight Study Report earlier this year - and what has happened to its recommendations. The very first paragraph in the Executive Summary of the report said: "...It demonstrates that there is a strong case to develop a much more strategic approach: to guide incremental land use change, incentivise sustainable behaviours, and to unlock value from land." Can anyone recommend a speaker on this? Ideas to Tony Vickers

PLRG is very grateful to Professor Munir Morad, Head of Department of Urban, Environment and Leisure Studies at LSBU and Joint Editor of Local Economy, for hosting its meetings.

Ideas for future talks or other PLRG events are always welcomed. The PLRG committee will discuss these immediately prior to each meeting and develop a programme of activities for the remainder of the academic year.