'Cabe was architect of its own demise'

Amanda Baillieu echoes some of my thoughts on why CABE should be abolished in her BD blog. Like me, she thinks that CABE is a design police force, although she stretched the metaphor a bit: 'It was a design police force run out of the equivalent of the Kremlin.' She also thought that the functions of CABE should be part of the planning system and not as an external agency. Few people today would agree that 'planners aren’t there to tell us what’s good design', but I wholeheartedly embrace this sentiment. Fat chance of this happening.

Now that the fate of CABE has been decided, I must stress that it was abolished for the wrong reasons and not part of a major reform of the planning system. The consequence will be that CABE will be reborn in a different shape, less costly but as intrusive.

A thought for all those losing their jobs, we must express our solidarity with them. They are not responsible for CABE's actions but will face the consequences of New Labour's flippancy and authoritarianism and the coalition's crisis-management mentality which they're attempting to pass off as policy.