The BBC NEWS story (5/02/26) reports that the team responsible for renovating the Palace of Westminster say the revamp could take 61 years and cost £40 billion.( FACT.CHECK : yes these are the two numbers in the report). Running costs are £1.5 million a week.These figures are spectacular evidence that something has gone wrong. It … Continue reading Are buildings assets or liabilities?

On Tuesday, 27 January 2026 the MHCLG issued a press release headed Housing Secretary rallies sector at housing and infrastructure roundtables making plain the Housing Secretary’s concern, saying “….the Housing sec stressed that while recovery is underway, government and industry alike cannot afford to let a generation down and must rise to the challenge together. … Continue reading Rallying support for change

Labour Together is a left leaning think tank, which has just published a proposal with lots of merit, which in time is doable and thank the lord has plenty of market potential. Right place and right time. So it is naive that it contains two fatal errors. Why is Labour and its activist and intellectual … Continue reading Elementary errors

Two housing experts with insight and experience have recently told us why house prices are excessive. Both make telling points. Both offer solutions. The solutions point in different directions. One solution could work. The other is will not. Both agree that the planning changes now being put forward by the government will fail to mend … Continue reading Wishful thinking or reality?

For years I have suspected that one of the biggest, and least visible reasons why so many people fear the idea of spatial change near them is this. People like, well sort off like if not love, the enduring and comforting sense of continuity their local out of doors never changing urban or rural environment … Continue reading Go big: be positive

Conversation during the Christmas break with sensible and informed observers of the broken housing market have made me see that what is plain to me is not plain to them. To repair the broken housing supply delivery pipeline, as I have said in previous blogs, there is an absolute necessity for a two step plan, … Continue reading Step 1; then Step 2 = NLS

Two articles explaining the reasons for housing supply failure and the solution are helpful. . By two well regarded experts each illustrates why there is a housing policy problem. Both make good points, but neither article nails why English housing policy since the 1970’s has failed. All the same both are welcome examples of the … Continue reading Messaging is messy

Yesterday’s edition of The Times (3 December 2025) carried an interesting and limited article by Neal Hudson. He is a housing market analyst. Interesting because his descriptions of the market failures, explaining why UK houses are not getting more affordable are correct. With some frustration they do not explain the root causes: why this gloomy … Continue reading More about house prices & market failure

Matthew Pennycook, housing minister says early in the new year the government will publish new plan regulations. This announcement gives a glimmer of hope, that the government will grasp the housing nettle. Let’s just repeat the basic problem. You cannot build lots of new homes without local support. So the question which must be asked … Continue reading New plan making regulations to come soon

And are not the solution. To England’s broken housing supply market. This is the reality. So it is desperately sad that Matthew Pennycook, Minister of State for Housing and Planning has just re-stated the government’s commitment to their retention. Today, (27 November 2025) he made a Statement about their future role which includes this quotation … Continue reading Local plans are the problem