Launch (June 2024) A general election will take place on 4 July 2024. Despite several decades of housing policy failure in England the outlook for lots of new homes that are needed remains grim. Available grounds for believing any of the three main political parties have a deliverable housing policy, which is what all three … Continue reading HOUSING MANIFESTO 2024

Is this a return to strategic planning abolished by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011? The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) last month published a report they commissioned written by Tony Poulter entitled Homes England Public Bodies Review 2023. Significantly it says Homes England should play a bigger role in leading and … Continue reading DLUHC, or local? Which agency?

On 13 March 2024 the Institute of Government think-tank published a valuable paper, How should The the next government complete the job of English devolution? A serious and sensible piece of work, that reminds me of the earlier, heavyweight CMA report in some regards, more blind spots. . This new analysis of the governance weaknesses … Continue reading Is Devolution the housing solution?

Local opposition is at the heart of our broken planning system. Nimbyism has over several decades shown its power to stop progress . Excessive house prices, weak economic growth, failed levelling up, unloved new builds and outstanding zero carbon targets are all the symptoms of policy failure on several fronts: local democracy, fear of local … Continue reading How powerful is Nimbyism?

Encouraging news from Manchester. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority, comprising nine local councils, came into being on 21 March 2024. Its purpose is to align cross border spatial policies. But it will have no statutory planning powers nor a remit to act as a spatial leader with power to deliver growth policies. The President of … Continue reading Who will decide?