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

Maybe a Conservative government is going to scrap hope value? At least for development schemes that provide high public benefit, examples being affordable housing proposals and new education and health facilities. If they do, for the developers, planners and their armies of consultants, it will be ‘D’ day. Or as history suggests is more likely, … Continue reading ’D’ day on the horizon?

Emma Duncan at the Times ( post 21 February) and Ed Balls (post 26 February) have both made their beliefs clear. clear in the last few days. That if the government is serious about solving the chronic housing crisis it should start talking to the opposition about a long term solution: so the main parties … Continue reading Working Together: an expert view

MP’s in Westminster all know we need to build lots more homes. It is not politically divisive. Prices and rents are too high. Nor is the need to also have for local support divisive. The divisions that arise are spatial, where do the new homes go? But community leaders priorities in local areas do diverge, … Continue reading Can political parties work together?

In The Times last Friday (16 February 2024) their correspondent Emma Duncan (Build houses where people actually want to live) was the first national journalist to correctly identify the key to solving the chronic housing crisis. She rightly said that “If the government is serious about solving this crisis, it should start talking to the … Continue reading Working together

Our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak wrote an revealing Comment piece in The Times, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 about his government’s housing policy in England. His intentions may be good and his objectives seem to be worthy, but my goodness. His understanding of the reasons why 14 years of Conservative policy making have created an unaffordability … Continue reading Is there a plan?

Michael Gove says he wants to force councils to accelerate brownfield development. I wish him well. Having spent a career trying to assemble brownfield sites in high demand areas like the Thames Valley, for both residential and commercial redevelopment, ie. regeneration of brownfield land, my opinion is that he will discover this solution to the … Continue reading Can brownfield sites help?