Honesty …

Are the quantity surveyors totally incompetent in calculating a reasonable budget? Are the architects so totally arrogant that they just do as they please? Are clients so devoid of any comprehension of what they want that they have no control over their projects? Is the original budget kept low for fear of the project being cancelled?

Isn’t it about time that all the team become a lot more honest with one other so that reasonable budgets are produced in the first instance? It can be done, but only if “professionals” work together honestly.

The poor bloody builder, who has little or no control over budgets or design, usually gets the blame for going over cost. When are we going to learn?

Peter Whitbread

Send George Osborne on a crash land economy course. put land taxes at the top of the manifesto … go on, Mr Gove, i dare you

Stephen Hill

… is the best policy

In response to Michael Gove’s column (12 September, page 30): the government must assert to landowners the true cost of bringing land into sustainable development, with a fiscal regime that rewards innovation and long-term sustainable investment, penalises speculation at high marginal tax rates, supports landowners who promote sustainable living, discourages allocated land being kept out of the market or used unsustainably and shares long-term value uplift created through public and private investment.

Ironically, only Mr Gove’s party stands any chance of carrying this off politically by speaking to its own natural constituency of landowners. Send George Osborne on a crash land economy course. Put land taxes at the top of the manifesto … go on, Mr Gove, I dare you.

Stephen Hill, director, c2o futureplanners