On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 20:13:07 UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Rod Speed wrote

A business vacates a shop and another takes it over. The first thing
they do is take out all the fixtures and fittings and put new ones in,

Not necessarily, most obviously with petrol stations

Petrol stations round here get closed and houses built in their place.

I've never seen that happen here, but we build a hell of a lot more
new houses on a bare block of land than happens in London now.

that's because there aren't as many bare blocks of land in london than in Aus. In fact Aus is pretty much a bare block of land.

The
town has more than doubled in size in the 45 years I have been here.

physical size or population.