Writing in The Sunday Times on 10th January, the Prime Minister said “I’ve put the bulldozing of sink estates at the heart of turnaround Britain”. He claimed that housing estates bring together “deep social problems – the blocked opportunity, poor parenting, addiction and mental health problems — that mean so many are unable to fulfil […]
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I have been wondering for some time whether there is something other than increasing the supply of planning permissions which is needed to address the housing shortage and affordability. The Government has pledged to construct 1,000,000 houses during the life of this Parliament, by 2020 therefore. They also pledge 200,000 Starter Homes in the […] Sajid Javid The Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills, Sajid Javid, launched proposals for productivity on Friday 11th July, in a Command Paper called “Fixing the Foundations”. The parts which got press coverage were the reforms to planning. In outline, the major changes are to adopt a zoning system for brownfield […] In mid- October, The Lyons Housing Review published its report. Sir Michael Lyons, a former chief executive of three local authorities, was asked by the Labour Party to look into the causes of the shortage of new houses and suggest action to address the problem. One of the suggested solutions is “Use it or lose […] A few days ago the Labour Party announced proposed reforms of the rented housing market. In short there are three reforms. 1 – landlords would no longer be able to charge tenants the agents’ letting fees. 2 – rent increases would be limited – ceiling yet to be decided. 3 – the standard tenancy would […] Ed Miliband’s speech today at the Labour Party conference contained the following promise (or threat, depending on how you look at these things). “… we’ll say to private developers, you can’t just sit on land and refuse to build. We will give them a very clear message – either use the land or lose the […] The market town which has been the subject of these “We want a say” posts is Saffron Walden and this week just past saw a television programme on Saffron Walden in the BBC’s series “Town”. This is a series in a similar mould to Coast and is presented by Nicholas Crane who also presented Coast. […] The outcome of the election I described in my last post was that the independent candidate opposing the development was elected, in a very close contest. He ousted the sitting member by 48 votes, just 0.1% of the votes cast, garnering the support of 2079 voters. However, there is more confusion and some irony, because […] The Growth and Infrastructure Bill was introduced in Parliament yesterday. It is effectively a new planning bill making the changes some of which have been trailed already this autumn). It is relatively short, at 28 sections. I will blog on individual provisions at greater length in due course, but to note now: 1 It allows […] Last week saw another step in the Government’s campaign to secure growth by changes to the planning system. My colleague Martin Goodall has posted an excellent summary and comment in his blog, see the link at the end of this post. The announcement is in a ministerial statement. It covers increasing investment in the private […] |
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