By-elections are by-elections but the death of two-party politics is being oversold - although the labels of those two parties may differ. Perhaps people tend to find binary choices easier to rationalise.
@ncrenic.bsky.social
Fantastic, laugh-out-loud, writing from @whippletom.bsky.social this morning, particularly the reference to his father finding a ratchet. Brilliant start to the weekend.
www.thetimes.com/article/80c0...
I have read it. The paper includes many references to UK whilst quoting England only legislation, also references Britain (which is neither UK or England), examples from Scotland etc and p37 contains a brief list of references. Legal and policy structure is very different in Scotland.
Not a great start: the researchers don’t seem to understand that the 1.5m target is for England only - their report (and solutions) reference the whole country - it’s quite a basic error, but not uncommon.
Not entirely sure I agree with this - if post-Good Friday Northern Ireland is a guide - the two party system may continue - just not the usual two parties (and not the same two in each of the four nations).
In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.
"Found Great Crested Newts"
Kind of feels like a big deal that a Reform/Brexit Party former MEP has been convicted of taking bribes to promote Russian interests in Ukraine, and it feels like a bigger deal that this isn’t being treated as the major scandal that it clearly is.
Can’t think of any other significant economic area of the economy that is delegated down to such an unsuitable decision making level. Have no idea why Plans committees have been allowed to operate for so long!
99% of them would fail the test! It’s horrendous. Really don’t think enough people fully appreciate how shocking the reality is.
…and the frustration of seeing every objection listed in committee papers, even when the overwhelming majority were not relevant in planning law was horrendous - especially those objections from people living miles (sometimes hundreds of miles) from the application site.
Every bad committee decision resulted in an Appeal with a six-figure cost to the Authority - but with no impact to the committee members - particularly as few alternative councillors could be persuaded to sit on the committee.
Even after constant training, councillors were incapable of following even the basics of planning law. Officers management of the Plans committee and its likely decisions became a significant cause of delay for complex applications.
Having led a large planning authority it was clear that the councillors that were keen to be members of the Plans committee were often the ones least capable of understanding or appreciating planning law - and those councillors that refused to sit on them, were probably the more capable.
Imagine all cars were electric, and then one Volkswagen engineer comes up with another idea …
#EMobility
Which is why “1.4m permissions can be built in next 3yrs” is absolute nonsense (as @annaclarke.bsky.social and @resi-analyst.bsky.social correctly point out)
Many (esp Govt) under-estimate the timeframe required yo deliver larger housing sites (3k+). Business plan can be an average of 45yrs from initial option to final sign-off.
Line chart showing the annual number of new build Energy Performance Certificates in England by flats and houses, a useful leading indicator for net additions. Delivery of flats and houses have fallen in recent years and are well below the levels required to hit Labour's 300,000 housing target.
Labour's new build policies have been focussed on planning reform (important over the longer-term) but the more immediate problem is a crisis in demand. You can plan as many homes as you like but they won't get built if no one can buy them.
My latest market commentary
builtplace.com/market-comme...
Not at all surprising - planning law on hotel use was unsuccessfully challenged through the courts 2+yrs ago by several councils and it was pretty obvious that Epping wouldn’t stand at Appeal.
Agree - catastrophic outcomes that took a year to discover. The response by HMG, to do everything possible to mitigate this single human act, perhaps reflects better on the response of government than stories today reflect. However, genuinely surprised that original individual still at MOD.
Thanks for the inclusion on your list @annaclarke.bsky.social ! - it’s a really good source of people and bodies.
As Nazi-Grok appears to be driving quite a few new arrivals on Bluesky, I thought it would be worth re-sharing a starter pack of people posting about UK housing.
Good thread setting out the choices ahead given the (limited) finances available. Not enough clarity around the huge sums needed to be spent (and who’s going to build!) to achieve the targets set etc.
Local experience of University town with large researched student HMO market is: never underestimate how big the non-student HMO market is - tends to get masked by student numbers - but there’s a real need for it exist/grow to support employment market - and those non-students are certainly “local”.
…and by moving into purpose built blocks they will vacate family homes that have been converted into HMOs - although no guarantee that those will ever revert to homes, but student rents tend to be higher than the alternative.
New research prepared by Lichfields for LPDF and Richborough reveals a stark deterioration over the past decade in the amount of time it takes to determine outline planning applications for new homes despite a big drop in the number of applications.
More here: lichfields.uk/content/insi...
The next bit of #eurovision always the most interesting - the split between what each nation’s panel thought was best, and what the population actually voted for.
What was wrong with Finland!
