Move fast and make things

Posted Posted in Intensification, infill, and regeneration, Planning, land, and housing policy, Transport, mobility, walking and cycling

Nicholas Boys Smith explains what councils, particularly rural councils with greenbelt, need to do and do fast to avoid the risk of ugly and ill-located ‘housing by appeal’ If you live in England, particularly southern rural England in the green belt, then the weeks before Christmas 2024 witnessed the most important announcement for your neighbourhood’s […]

How the humble hedgerow saved the planning system

Posted Posted in Planning, land, and housing policy

“our new National Planning Policy Framework….affirms the vital importance of planning, the central role of planning professionals in shaping our communities anew, and the route to many more, and more beautiful, homes through a plan-led system” Rt Hon Michael Gove MP Secretary of State speech to RIBA, 19 December 2023 “The plan making system is […]

From housebuilding to town-building

Posted Posted in Planning, land, and housing policy, Sustainable development, Transport, mobility, walking and cycling

Report from our event at Labour Conference: New Towns. Old Challenges. How do we create new places which are popular and durable, viable and fair? ‘Be it enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by […]

The mansard revolution: a little YIMBY victory

Posted Posted in Intensification, infill, and regeneration, Planning, land, and housing policy

Samuel Hughes, argues that we should preserve the new liberty to create mansards that ‘fit in’. Mansard roofs are such a familiar feature of British streetscapes that most people barely notice them. A mansard is a double-pitch roof which creates usable living space over nearly the entire area of the building. They cost somewhat more […]

It’s time for Britain to become a nation of townbuilders

Posted Posted in Planning, land, and housing policy, Sustainable development

Labour has often repeated its ambitions to build a generation of New Towns to deliver 1.5 million new homes. What might have escaped most people’s attention, however, was what these towns might actually be and look like. After all, there is a big difference between successful historic extensions to cities, such as Edinburgh’s New Town […]

Why Coventry’s ring road needs to go on a diet

Posted Posted in Planning, land, and housing policy, Street design, Transport, mobility, walking and cycling

A Coventry public official writes anonymously about the restitched future he would like for his city. I often ask myself, what might have been had Coventry taken a different planning approach after World War II. Where might we be now? How might we reverse some of the twentieth century’s planning decisions? It is a question […]