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This blog is about the issues involved in changing our towns and cities. Many people pursue this by taking an interest in design, but I was more interested in the practicalities of organisation, viability and funding. My interest in 'spaces and places' was professional as well as personal; I worked as a developer, ran public regeneration agencies and then as a consultant. 

In the posts that follow, the first is material I used for analysis and teaching in my professional life. The rest are notes on issues that have arisen since my effective retirement in 2013. Also, some ranting on the whole activity of planning and development. Some of these are mirrors of posts on my oildrumlane.co.uk blog. 

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching & Preaching on Regeneration, Development and Viability

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The pic is neurons under a microscope.  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 I like to think they were engaged when I was writing this stuff.  The links here take you to my OneDrive account where there is a small selection of material on development economics and delivery strategies that I used. I still get asked for them sometimes and the downloads are safe.   Most of this is quite old and a lot of the hard data and references to regulations are out of date, but the general analysis is still mostly relevant and website analytics tell me that people still look for them. I hope you find it expressed here in rather more accessible terms than in the dreary text books.  Development Viability Appraisal s  An...
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Wringing Housing and Jobs out of the Planning System

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  The Current System The Government is intent on speeding up the planning system to get more houses built and more business investment. 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 sti...
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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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