Welcome shift
Posted: July 29, 2014 Filed under: Housebuilding, Planning Leave a commentPeople seem to be getting the ‘Yes to Homes’ message at last but have the nimbys really had their day?
A survey of public attitudes to new housebuilding published by the DCLG on Saturday reveals a welcome shift when people are asked whether they support or oppose more homes being built in their local area.
New housing and planning minister Brandon Lewis welcomed the results as evidence that nimbyism is on the wane.
-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Closed doors
Posted: July 28, 2014 Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Housing market, London, Planning | Tags: New York City Leave a commentWhat is it about a ‘poor door’ that causes so much outrage?
The term has captured something on both sides of the Atlantic: first on an exclusive development in New York City last year and then applied to agrowing trend in London reported in Saturday’s Guardian.
The London building at the centre of that story – One Commerical Street on the eastern fringes of the City – was the same one that I blogged about last year when it was chosen by chancellor George Osborne as the venue for his speech arguing that the economy was ‘turning the corner’.
-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Shuffling the deck
Posted: July 16, 2014 Filed under: Bedroom tax, Civil service, Housebuilding, Planning, Universal credit | Tags: Brandon Lewis, Eric Pickles, Iain Duncan Smith Leave a commentSo housing seems to have kept the politicians who should have gone and lost the one who was making a difference.
Speculation ahead of the reshuffle suggested that Eric Pickles and Iain Duncan Smith would leave their posts as part of the cull of middle aged men in the Cabinet. True, some of the stories seemed a bit thin (a woman with a posh accent overheard talking on the phone didn’t seem like much to go on) but I lived in hope. I also looked forward to the DWP press release arguing that it proved that universal credit is ‘on track and on schedule’.
Instead it’s business as usual at the top of their two departments with a shake-up lower down the ministerial scale. After just over nine months in the job, Kris Hopkins is now the former housing minister and is shunted sideways into local government. Brandon Lewis moves from that job and gets a promotion to minister of state for housing and planning. Penny Mordaunt comes in as junior minister responsible for coastal communities.
-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
In case you missed it
Posted: July 15, 2014 Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit | Tags: DWP, IDS, Reshuffle 2 CommentsToday looks like a very good day for the DWP to sneak out independent research on the impact of the bedroom tax and cuts to the local housing allowance.
While Iain Duncan Smith seems to have survived the Cabinet cull of middle aged men, the two reports offer in-depth scrutiny of two of his most controversial policies. There is as yet no DWP press release or comment but you can find the reports here and here on its website.
This blog will concentrate on the independent evaluation of what the DWP calls the removal of the spare room subsidy. The report by the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research and Ipsos Mori analyses the effects on and the responses of tenants, landlords, local authorities, voluntary and statutory organisations and advice agencies and lenders.