Here and There

December 2022. The levelling up and regeneration bill is merrily making its way through the report stage to a soundtrack of supermarket Christmas tunes. It’s a special time when MPs can gather round, suggesting amendments. Puncturing the festive legislative atmosphere, a group of Conservative MPs tabled a mutinous amendment seeking prohibition of mandatory housing targets and the abolition of five-year land supply. Surely, you cried, so few people couldn’t have such an impact? But they could. When I reached the fifth door of my advent calendar, Michael Gove capitulated. Although targets were only ever a starting point, it represented a shift. There is broad consensus this will reduce housing delivery and undermine plan-making: Merry Christmas. A crisis If you possess a functioning memory you may recall a government promise to build 300,000 houses a year, reaffirmed by Gove as recently as October. Many argue we don’t need that many. I believe we do. If anything, housing needs are undere...

Planning, housing and infrastructure have never been more salient political issues. For good reason. The UK may have economically recovered from Covid earlier than thought , but as a country we are not well. We are ailed by the significant and competing challenges of affordability, productivity and climate breakdown. Where Labour might once have prescribed public spending, a challenging fiscal picture has led them to join the Conservatives in calling for growth . Planning represents a potential route to administer that treatment and manage its side effects, but it is not currently fulfilling its potential. We see evidence of this in national news. We are struggling to deliver enough homes in the right parts of the country at prices people can afford. Capacity issues across waterway, sewer and electricity grid systems are constraining development. Large infrastructure projects are expensive and complex; HS2 is battling to connect into London , let alone the rest of the country. Whilst ...

Policy Exchange's " A Matrix for Measuring & Delivering Placemaking Quality " was published last week with an endorsement from none other than Michael Gove. As Simon Ricketts pointed out in his excellent blog , this means we should probably give it some consideration.  I've therefore repurposed some thoughts on the matter: Conflicts of interest  I'll be honest,  I'm not a fully impartial commentator: 1. I work for an organisation has an evidence based framework setting out the key ingredients (physical and non-physical) that help support quality of life at a neighbourhood level. 2. I helped develop and write the National Model Design Code with colleagues and national government at my previous job.  Let's get into it Ok, that being said, here are my thoughts on the matrix: 1. Lack of clarity on process/use Intended scorer and process I can’t get a clear sense of who the intended “scorer” is (developer “marking their own work” or LPA) and how it is to be...