English Heritage Conservation: Housing

Posted on: 9 May 2014
By: mackene
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English Heritage have published the latest edition of its Conservation Bulletin, with a specific focus on how traditional housing, historic building conversions and sensitively designed new homes can meet housing demand while conserving and enhancing heritage. The Bulletin looks in greater detail at both the likely implications of current housing demand on historic places, and how this can be managed to create successful outcomes. The report covers articles on areas including making garden cities a reality, neighbourhood planning, and making better use of the planning system. The Bulletin is published twice a year by English Heritage, with the intention of communicating new ideas relating to the understanding, management and enjoyment of the historic environment. Back copies of the Bulletin, together with the latest issue are available online.

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NHBC New Homes Statistics Review: 1st quarter 2014

Posted on: 9 May 2014
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The latest quarterly statistics from the National House-Building Council (NHBC) reveal sustained growth and consolidation in the UK housing industry for the start of 2014, with encouraging growth in London and the rest of the UK.

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Permissions to land: Busting the myths about house builders and ‘land banking’

Posted on: 9 May 2014
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The Home Builders Federation has published a report which claims that house builders are not hoarding land. Research showed that 63% of land that Britain’s larger housebuilders own is on sites under construction. The Federation said that with the nature of large sites, homes would be at various stages of completion and take years to build out. The report found that most of the remainder of the land was in the planning pipeline without an implementable consent. Only 4% had an implementable planning permission, with work not yet started on site.

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Residential planning and the NPPF

Posted on: 7 May 2014
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This report from Glenigan argues that there has been an upturn in successful planning applications for residential schemes following the introduction of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), with a ‘substantial increase’ in the number and proportion of larger housing schemes securing approval over the last two years. 

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Where is housing heading? So what’s not to like about social renting?

Posted on: 6 May 2014
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The latest paper in a series of policy discussions, published by the Chartered Institute of Housing, on the key issues facing housing over the next five years. The author of this paper argues that reinventing social housing could bring about huge benefits.

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Smaller housing associations’ capacity to develop new homes

Posted on: 2 May 2014
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This report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation considers the capacity of smaller housing associations to develop new homes and their ability to utilise this capacity to provide significant growth. Some commentators have said that the major unused capacity to develop new homes in the housing association sector is among smaller associations. There is a lack of hard evidence to support or deny the claims and the research for this report was therefore designed to consider this issue. The resulting report focuses on: current development and growth of smaller associations; financial analysis to consider potential unused capacity; and barriers to smaller associations utilising their capacity. There is a lack of evidence about smaller housing associations’ capacity and how they can use it to develop new homes. This report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation presents clearer indications of any potential unused capacity and identifies barriers to associations using it effectively.

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Building the homes we need: A programme for the 2015 government

Posted on: 1 May 2014
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Research by Shelter and consultancy firm KPMG shows that a radical new housebuilding programme is needed to provide nearly 250,000 new homes a year.

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Turning houses into gold: the failure of British planning

Posted on: 28 April 2014
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Britain’s crisis of housing affordability is nothing to do with foreign speculators, according to Professor Paul Cheshire. The author, from the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance, suggests that it is a result of decades of misguided planning policies that constrain the supply of land. He adds that houses have been converted from places in which to live into people’s most important financial asset. Professor Cheshire also considers the social and environmental benefits of greenbelts.

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Local Growth Fund (Housing Infrastructure): prospectus

Posted on: 24 April 2014
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This prospectus sets out the detail on how to access the £50 million part of the Local Growth Fund in 2015 to 2016. The Fund is designed to help speed up and restart housing developments between 250 and 1499 units that have slowed down or stalled. It aims to support housing schemes which are important for local growth and meet local priorities.

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CIL and Section 106 obligations: Where are we now

Posted on: 23 April 2014
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Changes to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and section 106 regimes announced in February 2014 will not lead to more homes being delivered, according to a survey of developers. This presentation was presented at a seminar on 27 March 2014.

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