Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, Labour leader and deputy, have an interesting and rare article in the Times today, (28 March 2024). Rare because the starting point is recognition by the authors that much of the analysis in the Tory levelling-up white paper.is good. Whatever the label means, levelling-up lies at the heart of Michael … Continue reading Levelling up with Labour

Reading the summary of Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor of the exchequer Mais speech, 19 March 2024 about their planning reforms I was overwhelmed with relief and shaken with concerns. My feelings of bedlam were, and remain an odd sensation of suspended hope and oppressive fear. Relief because Reeves did not hit one nail on … Continue reading Labour housing policy: but don’t forget!

Planning minister Lee Rowley said so on Tuesday. It does not surprise me. After decades of confrontational planning of the worst sort, the battlefield is littered with the debris of the war . Poorly located and poorly supported housing, priced at twice the fair rate, plainly designed to the lowest cost denominator, situated without regard … Continue reading Most people do not trust the planning system to make their lives better.

Dreams do not deliver without foundations. On the 6th March 2024 the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities issued Guidance, under the title The Case for Cambridge. And it makes good reading; raises great hopes; and contains some credibility which is rooted in market reality. Actually I endorse most of the paean to. Cambridge. … Continue reading Cambridge: the spatial vision comes first

Winning residents support for spatial change in local areas by persuading local communities to become willing hosts of new homes is one of, and probably the most important step to the delivery of lots of new homes. The government is committed to this huge shift in local attitudes being achieved. They think it is essential, … Continue reading How to win local support

Interesting to see the government has felt the necessity to separately issue the responses to the housebuilding market study working papers accompanying the CMA report published a few days ago. What caught my attention is the evidence they have overlooked. There are no landed estates responses in the ‘private management of public amenities on housing … Continue reading Silence from the real experts!

At the end of last month the Competition and Markets Authority published their study Housebuilding market study. A thorough and rational analysis of the housebuilding market. For this reason worth reading. It also contains valuable, but not complete clues to explain why the house building industry is broken. Unfortunately, if the objective of the CMA … Continue reading Housebuilding market: CMA report