Posts

Teaching & Preaching on Regeneration, Development and Viability

My interest is 'spaces and places' was professional as well as personal, I worked as a developer, in public regeneration and as a consultant. Many people pursue this by taking an interest in design but I was more interested in the practicalities of organisation, viability and funding. Towards the end of my career, I did quite a bit of coaching and teaching mainly focused on the financial hydraulics and art of getting things built and and aimed at environment professionals ranging from student architects and local authority planners to developers and the Planning Inspectorate.  The pic is neurons under a microscope. I like to think they were engaged when I was writing this stuff.  The first post contains links to a small selection of material on development economics and delivery strategies that I used. It takes you to my 'Onedrive' account. The downloads are safe.   Most of this is quite old now and a lot of the hard data and references to regulations are out of date...
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Wringing Housing and Jobs out of the Planning System

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  The Current System The Government are intent on speeding up the planning system to get more houses built and investment by businesses. The current system is simple enough in theory. In practice, it isn't. Every Local Authority in England with town planning powers should have a Local Plan that sets out land use and related policies on transport, utilities, drainage, environment etc. This is based on an extensive process of research, analysis and consultation. In practice, not all areas have a Plan, and in others it is out of date by the time it is completed and agreed.    In general, things in the real world move faster than the planning process. The policies themselves are often either opaque or overly specific, so a lot of detail needs to be negotiated at the scheme application stage. This can be very time consuming, and it doesn't help that the planners usually  don't trust developers, with  good reason.  After all that, the final  decision is stil...
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Housebuilding Freakenomics

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  The government aims to increase housebuilding in the hope that this will improve affordability. In the long term, they might be right, but  I doubt it. I n the short term, the terms on which mortgage finance is obtainable might be more important, and the Government are now looking at this. However, in any case, the supply of suitable land is a concern. My intention here is to illustrate the extent to which the increase in land values consequent on high house prices mainly benefits landowners, when it could be used to improve the supply of affordable housing.  The key distinction here is the difference between the value of the land in its current use and its potential value if redeveloped for housing. The increase is often enormous, and obtaining planning permission is the key to unlocking it.  If a site has already been zoned for housing in the Local Plan, development is effectively agreed in principle, so what remains is haggling over detail, and the sale agreemen...
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