During the Thatcher premiership, popular capitalism came to the fore, focused on boosting home ownership and broadening share participation. It was a period when the City was growing and finance was helping drive economic success, and there was a desire for more people to share in this. The Big Bang reforms of 1986 transformed London’s […]
The rules of growing up in modern Britain appeared to be simple for decades: if you work hard at school, go to university and graduate with a degree, you will come out with a well-paid job that sets you up for life. The argument seemed straightforward: since graduates earned considerably more than non-graduates, the way […]
There are few things that are consistent in housing policy. The Housing Secretary has changed 10 times in the past decade. We’ve seen multiple National Planning Policy Frameworks in the past few years. Since the Housing, Town Planning, etc. Act 1909 first introduced town planning to the statute books, almost every single Parliament has passed […]
Back in the 1980s The Beastie Boys famously sang that ‘you gotta fight for your right to party’. Fast forward to 2026 in London, and perhaps it’s never been harder to take advantage of that ‘right’. The house party has become one more casualty of the housing crisis. While there’s no hard quantitative evidence (those […]
It’s the last Nimby Watch of 2025. The taste of snow is in the air (probably). Santa is coming soon. How will we mark the occasion? It’s Christmas! Have we found something suitably festive? A planning dispute over a reindeer enclosure, perhaps? There’s more than a week until Christmas and we’ve both still got work […]
Rents go up and up and up. That is how most people my age view their lot in the property market, particularly in London. A steady, year-on-year increase in rent eats up any increases in wages they earn and more. If you look at the statistics over the past few years, they’re right to think […]
I am unapologetically pro-growth. Growth is good. But getting local agreement on significant economic expansion has historically been tricky. That’s why Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s new Local Growth Plan (LGP) is a precious thing; a genuine moment of unity and real ambition for our region’s economic future. The LGP is the roadmap for my target of […]
An eternal optimist, I cheered when Labour, in opposition, U-turned and backed liberalisation of the planning system to allow an increase in the housing supply. The 1.5 million housing target, an annual average of 300,000, would not have been transformational. It would still have left the young (and the not so young) struggling to save […]
Today’s S&P UK construction data should set alarm bells ringing in Number 10. Construction activity across housing, commercial and civil engineering has seen its steepest fall since the pandemic, with new orders nosediving and employment declining for eleven consecutive months. This is not a natural cooling of the market. It is the predictable consequence of […]
Those with the broadest shoulders may have the biggest homes, but as Michael Simmons of The Spectator has often said, they also have the longest legs. On Budget day, the final kites have been flown before Rachel Reeves brings the tax hammer down to fill her £30–40 billion black hole. One of her more destructive […]
In this edition of Nimby Watch, we’re going everywhere and nowhere – we’re on the information superhighway, in cyberspace! Hang on, I was about to ask you where we were going this week, but I’ve read the intro and it sounds like we’re on a 1990s episode of Tomorrow’s World. In a way we are! […]
If we judge governments by rhetoric alone, then this Labour Government is, by a country mile, the most pro-development in history. At the Labour Party Conference a few weeks ago, Housing Secretary Steve Reed proudly wore a hat bearing the slogan: ‘Build Baby Build’. In fact, the most common sight at the conference was Reed […]
Earlier this week, Housing Secretary Steve Reed effectively handed in his resignation. He told BBC One’s ‘Panorama’ that his job should ‘be on the line’ if he failed to meet Labour’s target to build 1.5 million homes by the end of the parliament. Even if it is far shy of the estimated 6.5m homes we’d […]
There is nothing wrong with the zeal of a convert – if you happen to be an adherent to the cause that has been embraced. St Paul’s decision on the road to Damascus to stop persecuting Christians and become an apostle was thoroughly welcome. So I am keen to take the Housing Secretary Steve Reed’s […]
In this edition of Nimby Watch, we’re off to some industrial wasteland near Brighton, where some homes have been planned, for quite some time… Anywhere nice this week? Not really! We’re in Brighton, which has many lovely attractions – the pier, a pebble beach, chic shops on the Lanes, but we’re not going to any […]
For anyone even slightly involved in the debate over British housing policy, there are few things more likely to live in their head rent-free than the ‘Two Staircase Rule’ – which probably ranks above even Martyn’s Law as the most egregious example of something-must-be-done policymaking in recent memory. If you’re fortunate enough to be unfamiliar […]
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