Burnham to hand mayors power to overrule local councils’ planning decisions Politics Andy Burnham will give mayors across the UK new powers to overrule planning decisions made by local councils and to greenlight large-scale developments. The prime minister will unveil proposals this week to give regional mayors in 13 areas including Manchester, Liverpool, and the West Midlands, powers to take over planning decisions as well as direct [...]
New planning rules ‘could blight high streets with empty pubs’ Hospitality Angela Rayner’s attempt to stop pubs being redeveloped into offices and housing could “blight high streets” with empty venues, property experts have warned. The housing secretary has unveiled reforms to planning rules which mean that developers can only turn a pub into housing or an office if there is no reasonable prospect that it can [...]
Let them build homes near stations, but let them be beautiful too Opinion Rules to allow thousands of new homes near stations is cause for celebration, but the government must avoid creating 'anywhere developments'.
Stop recycling Angela Rayner and reform planning instead July 21, 2026 Angela Rayner is back as housing minister but still nothing substantial has changed in housing policy, says Duncan Kreeger Angela Rayner has returned to the housing brief. Fine, I suppose – she’s paid her stamp duty bill now at least. But if Andy Burnham wants us to have hope that the country might actually build [...]
Britain must speed up to survive the AI era July 1, 2026 The AI era will reward the small number of countries that can adapt and build quickly enough and it will punish those that can’t, says Sam Richards “Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else – if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve [...]
‘Great shame’: Berkeley challenges blocked Peckham development June 26, 2026 Berkeley has launched a bid to push through its 850-home development at a “run down” Peckham shopping centre, slamming the council for its “spectacular failure” to meet housing targets. The FTSE 250 housebuilder has applied for a judicial review of the planning inspectorate’s decision to block the plans, which it says wrongly put heritage concerns [...]
Fuse boss attacks planning rules as a ‘self-imposed bottleneck for growth’ June 16, 2026 Alan Chang believes Britain’s energy crisis is largely self-inflicted. The founder of Fuse Energy, the $5bn (£3.72bn) energy supplier and infrastructure developer, argues that the UK already has the ingredients needed to drive investment in the sector. What it lacks, he says, is a planning system capable of turning that potential into projects. “There is [...]
Jeremy Hunt is right to ask Can We Be Rich Again? June 9, 2026 With the CBI’s latest economic forecasts warning of a dramatic spike in unemployment and a prolonged period of anaemic GDP growth, it’s a good time to reflect on the question posed by former chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his latest book, Can We Be Rich Again? The book is the latest in a series of works [...]
Soho killjoys are the worst kind of Londoners June 4, 2026 The Soho Society has declared a Nimby campaign against all new licensing applications. If they don’t want to live in the party centre of London they should leave, says James Ford What is the collective noun for a bunch of party poopers? A kennel of killjoys? A complaint of curmudgeons, perhaps? Well, if left to [...]
£450m City block approved after developers lop three storeys of plan May 29, 2026 Revised plans for a new £450m tower in the City have been rubber-stamped by the Square Mile’s planning committee after developers chose to lop three stories off the building’s design in response to fierce local criticism. The City of London Corporation greenlit an adjusted proposal for the 1 Silk Street mega-scheme on Thursday, saying it [...]