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Showing posts from April, 2025

Where to find the missing 200,000 new homes

It was striking to read Angela Rayner asserting this week that the Government remains confident in the 1.5m new home target because the OBR’s recent 1.3m forecast did not take into account measures included in the Planning & Infrastructure Bill. The Deputy Prime Minister added: “Our other plans, including the homes acceleration plan and the money that we’re investing since then, and the Planning Infrastructure Bill changes will mean that that number will increase and we will meet our 1.5 million homes target. There is much to commend about the Bill and it is very likely to contribute towards a more coherent planning system in the future, but, as I have written here , there is little in it that will make a material difference to planning applications being prepared and submitted right now (and certainly little in and of itself to justify the ‘ biggest building boom in a generation ’ sobriquet). In your correspondent's humble opinion the difference between the 1.3m OBR forecast...

Podcast episode 136: Back in Black

Episode 136 of the podcast is available now via this link or from iTunes and Spotify . As you may know, Readers, a material change in circumstances meant that I stopped podcasting in October, but, pleasingly, a further material change in circumstances has meant that I am starting again. So what have we missed in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and world of town and country planning? Well, plenty... This, I think, is everything that has emerged over the past few months. 9 December. Publication of a working paper on modernising planning committees. 12 December. Publication of the NPPF (and Government response to the NPPF consultation). 15 December. Publication of a working paper on development and nature recovery. 16 December. Publication of a white paper on English devolution. 19 December. Compulsory purchase process and compensation reforms. 23 January. The Prime Minister’s ‘Plan for Change’ speech. 26 January. Publication of working papers on streamlining infrastructure planning...