Category Archives: Planning policy

NSW to allow taller, denser property developments while curtailing power of councils

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Projects worth at least $75m and have 15% of units set aside as affordable housing could be fast-tracked under changes

The New South Wales government will allow developers to build taller and denser buildings – and have approvals fast-tracked – under sweeping changes to planning rules that will also curtail the power of councils to decide on major housing projects.

The proposed will see housing developments, valued over $75m and of which at least 15% is to be used for affordable housing, given access to a “state significant development” pathway that would fast-track approvals.

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House prices need to fall relative to income, Keir Starmer says

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Labour leader accuses Conservative government of killing the dream of home ownership

House prices need to fall in relation to people’s incomes, Keir Starmer has said, in a sign the Labour leader is willing to take on the objections of existing homeowners to get more people onto the property ladder.

Starmer told the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference on Wednesday that he believed prices should come down to make homes more affordable as he accused the Conservatives of killing the dream of home ownership.

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Planning applications in England fall to record low in housing blow

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Experts say developers deterred by changes to planning system brought in by successive Tory governments

Planning applications in England have fallen to their lowest level in at least 16 years, according to figures published this week by the levelling up department that highlight the scale of the country’s housing crisis.

Local authorities received fewer applications to build new buildings or improve old ones in 2022 than at any point since before 2006, the earliest year for which the government provides statistics.

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England’s new housing supply likely to fall to lowest level in decades, study says

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Home Builders Federation warns planning policy changes will result in government meeting less than half its annual target

Housebuilding in England is due to fall to its lowest level since the second world war, according to an analysis by the Home Builders Federation (HBF), owing to a range of government policies that threaten to dramatically slow development.

The study says the supply of new housing is likely to fall below 120,000 homes annually over the coming years, less than half of the government’s target, as a result of changes to planning policy and what developers say is over-strict enforcement of environmental regulations.

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Row growing after third historic rail bridge filled in with concrete

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National Highways faces third intervention by a local authority over infilling, after burying Congham bridge in Norfolk in tonnes of concrete

A controversial practice by the government’s roads agency of burying historic railway bridges in concrete has been dealt a fresh blow after a third council intervened over another infilled structure.

King’s Lynn and West Norfolk council has told National Highways it must apply for retrospective planning permission if it wants to retain hundreds of tonnes of aggregate and concrete it used to submerge Congham bridge, a few miles east of King’s Lynn.

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CBI urges Jeremy Hunt to relax immigration rules to ease UK staff shortages

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Lobby group says failure to tackle workforce shortages would be highly damaging for the economy

Britain’s foremost business lobby group has urged Jeremy Hunt to use this week’s autumn statement to shake up immigration rules to support companies struggling with chronic staff shortages and a looming recession.

The head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said urgent action was required from the chancellor on Thursday to bolster the economy, including “tough political choices” to allow more overseas workers in Britain as employers struggle with a desperate lack of staff.

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British rural voters ‘ignored’ by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak

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Tory leadership hopefuls ‘taking countryside voters for granted’ and neglecting pressing issues, says CLA business group

Neither of the candidates for leadership of the Conservative party has made a convincing pitch to rural voters, despite that demographic being one of the biggest sources of Tory power, the head of the UK’s biggest rural business organisation said.

Mark Tufnell, president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which represents about 30,000 landowners and rural businesses, said Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had done too little to show how they would boost the countryside economy and deal with pressing concerns such as planning, rural broadband, and farm support.

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NSW introduces seven-star energy standards for new homes

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Renovations valued at more than $50,000 will be subject to the new NSW government planning policy

Tougher energy standards for new homes will be introduced in New South Wales, but small residential blocks and shopping centres won’t have to adhere to them because of developers’ concerns about added complexity and costs.

Under a new policy announced on Monday, new houses and high-rise towers will need to have a seven-star energy rating, while large office buildings must show the ability to become all-electric-powered.

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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss facing Tory members in Leeds for first official leadership hustings – UK politics live

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Leadership rivals bid to win members’ support in foreign secretary’s home town

Drug-related deaths in Scotland fell by nine in 2021, according to the latest figures released by National Records of Scotland, the first decrease since 2013 but falling well short of the significant reduction that campaigners are calling for.

The latest figure of 1,330 is still the second highest annual total on record, and Scotland continues to have by far the highest drug death rate recorded by any country in Europe and five times the rate in England.

We’ve had a raft of reports, policies and strategies that say what needs to change, and families are more likely to be included round the table, but it’s much harder to track their influence on the ground. We don’t understand what’s getting in the way of good words becoming good deeds.

1,330 of our fellow Scots have died entirely preventable deaths and we should not be celebrating this as an achievement ... The solutions are no secret. We need action, not reports with recommendations that are never implemented.

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Floating windfarms could be hosted off Cornwall and Wales, crown estate says

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Five ‘areas of search’ in the Celtic Sea could be developed and offered to businesses by 2023

Floating windfarms could be built off the coasts of Cornwall and Pembrokeshire after the Queen’s property manager identified a clutch of sites in the Celtic Sea that could host them.

The crown estate, which generates money for the Treasury and the royal family, has published five “areas of search” that will be narrowed into development plots to host wind power generation.

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Improved disease control in public buildings ‘could save UK billions a year’

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Measures such as improved ventilation would boost economy by helping prevent ill health, says report

Mandating improved ventilation and other forms of disease control in public buildings could save the UK economy billions of pounds each year through the prevention of ill health and its societal impacts, according to a report.

It is the first study to comprehensively evaluate the health, social and economic costs of airborne infections, including Covid. Even without a pandemic, seasonal respiratory diseases cost the UK about £8bn a year in disruption and sick days, said the report by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. In the event of another severe pandemic within the next 60 years, the societal cost could be as high as £23bn a year.

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Rollercoasters v water voles: ‘Disney-on-Thames’ plan could devastate wildlife

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Proposed theme park the size of 136 Wembleys will threaten protected species and local jobs, say campaigners

It promises to be one of Britain’s most unusual planning battles. On one side is an array of endangered wildlife that includes a species of jumping spider. On the other are backers of a theme park that they claim will rival Disneyland in its size and ambition.

The park, called the London Resort, would be built on the Swanscombe peninsula on the Thames, near Gravesend, where it would cover land equivalent to 136 Wembley stadiums and would include themed rides, a water park, conference venues, hotels and a shopping centre.

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New Gabba train station centrepiece of $1.8bn infrastructure spend in south-east Queensland

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Three levels of government announce ‘city deal’ plan in Brisbane to address ‘positive issue of growth’ amid population boom

Environmental and “liveability” pressures that are mounting on south-east Queensland as its population booms will be alleviated under a $1.8bn “city deal”, the prime minister, Queensland premier and Brisbane lord mayor have all promised.

The three leaders spoke on Monday morning from inside the Gabba, the stadium that will be knocked down, rebuilt, integrated into a new underground train station and will, according to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, form the heart of a deal which plans for the next two decades.

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‘It’s shortsighted’: farmers lament veto of Jeremy Clarkson restaurant

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Cotswolds food producers argue case illustrates disconnect between planners and farmers’ need to make living

He left the meeting in a right old huff, chuntering that it was a bad day for farming and dismissing one of the planning officials as a comedian, after his scheme to build a hilltop restaurant on his Oxfordshire farm was flatly turned down.

But Jeremy Clarkson, petrolhead turned farming reality TV show star, may be heartened by the concern and interest in his case that rippled through the Cotswolds this week.

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The Wodge: can London’s tallest new skyscraper survive the Covid era?

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Nicknamed The Wodge because of its girth, the capital’s tallest ever office has just muscled onto the skyline. But in the age of coronavirus, who wants to jostle for 60 lifts with 12,000 others?

With the City of London deserted once more, its streets only populated by the occasional Deliveroo driver or tumbleweed-seeking photographer, it seems a strange time to be completing the largest office building the capital has ever seen, not least because the very future of the workplace is now in question.

But, rising far above the Cheesegrater and the Walkie-Talkie, dwarfing the now fun-sized Gherkin and boasting the floor area of almost all three combined, 22 Bishopsgate stands as the mother of all office towers. It is the City’s menacing final boss, a glacial hulk that fills its plot to the very edges and rises directly up until it hits the flight path of passing jets. The building muscles into every panorama of London, its broad girth dominating the centre of the skyline and congealing the Square Mile’s distinctive individual silhouettes into one great, grey lump.

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Battle for Brixton’s soul as billionaire Texan DJ plans 20-storey tower block

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Residents vow to stop Taylor McWilliams’s scheme to develop a site that looms over the famous Electric Avenue street market

The outcome of the fight may help shape London’s future skyline. In one corner is a Texan millionaire DJ and property developer who has put forward plans for a 20-storey office block in Brixton, next to a conservation area and the district’s famous Electric Avenue.

Taylor McWilliams’s property company Hondo, which owns most of Brixton market, claims the proposal will “deliver” 2,000 jobs in the area and generate £2.8m every year for the local economy.

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Boris Johnson backs Robert Jenrick despite planning row

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Senior MP says questions remain over links between housing secretary and Richard Desmond

Boris Johnson has full confidence in the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, Downing Street has insisted, despite fresh revelations about his relationship with the billionaire property developer Richard Desmond, in documents published this week.

Pressed about Jenrick’s role in rushing through a decision on the development, allowing Desmond to avoid a £45m payment under the community infrastructure levy, Johnson’s official spokesman signalled that No 10 had no concerns.

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UK approval for biggest gas power station in Europe ruled legal

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High court rejects challenge after ministers overruled climate objections of planning officials

The UK government’s approval of a large new gas-fired power plant has been ruled legal by the high court. A legal challenge was brought after ministers overruled climate change objections from planning authorities.

The plant, which is being developed by Drax in North Yorkshire, would be the biggest gas power station in Europe, and could account for 75% of the UK’s power sector emissions when fully operational, according to lawyers for ClientEarth, which brought the judicial review.

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On Loch Lomond’s banks, anger grows at £30m resort plan

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Locals and naturalists oppose a proposed hotel development on ‘beautiful and historic’ wooded national park land

A storm is brewing on the banks of Loch Lomond. One of Scotland’s most serene beauty sites has been rocked by a planning and environmental row that swamps anything the elements can throw at it.

Last week, updated plans for a £30m leisure facility near the small town of Balloch at the southern end of the loch were presented to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park. The project has the backing of Scottish Enterprise, the government agency tasked with stimulating economic development and investment.

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Super-tall, super-skinny, super-expensive: the ‘pencil towers’ of New York’s super-rich

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An extreme concentration of wealth in a city where even the air is for sale has produced a new breed of needle-like tower. By Oliver Wainwright

It is rare in the history of architecture for a new type of building to emerge. The Romans’ discovery of concrete birthed the great domes and fortifications of its empire. The Victorians’ development of steel led to an era of majestic bridges and vaulted train sheds. The American invention of the elevator created the first skyscrapers in Chicago. Now, we are seeing a new type of structure that perfectly embodies the 21st-century age of technical ingenuity and extreme inequality. A heady confluence of engineering prowess, zoning loopholes and an unparalleled concentration of personal wealth have together spawned a new species of super-tall, super-skinny, super-expensive spire.

Any visitor to New York over the past few years will have witnessed this curious new breed of pencil-thin tower. Poking up above the Manhattan skyline like etiolated beanpoles, they seem to defy the laws of both gravity and commercial sense. They stand like naked elevator shafts awaiting their floors, raw extrusions of capital piled up until it hits the clouds.

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