According to the December 2024 English Devolution White Paper spatial development strategies are to be introduced to all of England. Typically the strategic areas will contain populations of about 1.5 million. It looks like a return to strategic planning. This is a welcome change of direction and overdue since David Cameron’s coalition government abolished strategic … Continue reading Devolution: spatial development strategies

Friday’s Financial Times has a serious piece (George Parker, et al , 24 January 2025; Reeves to go further and faster for growth after recent turmoil) examining the chances of the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuing a more aggressive growth agenda. She plans to accelerate flagship investment projects; re-direct regulators to prioritise growth; and attract … Continue reading Can Reeves deliver growth

Local councils want more autonomy, more devolution but some seem unaware that with it goes local responsibility, or civic duty. Government inspectors have found that Shropshire Council’s draft local plan is unsound, despite raising their concerns with the council. The council are not providing the sites for overspill housing needed by their neighbours in the … Continue reading Are they blind?

On 13 December 2024, the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner sent a letter to Housing Industry Stakeholders. It is she says, all about building the homes we need. She makes telling points. Her immediate objective is to set out the principal changes in the new National Planning Policy Framework. I support the spirit of her … Continue reading Plan-led housing supply

Surrey Heath Borough Council has proved that England has lost all sense of its direction, and now lives in Alice in Wonderland. For those who don’t know where Surrey Heath is located, its capital is Camberley. A location I rarely visited despite living in Surrey Heath for over thirty years. Why? Well go yourselves and … Continue reading Lunacy has arrived

Until local political leaders place the civic loyalties of their local areas beyond tribal ideologies of their party housing in their areas will remain unaffordable. You might expect lobbying to preserve the status quo from change from Conservative councillors who represent those already owning homes who fear change. Misguided but understandable. But this reactionary mind-set … Continue reading Local politics destroys