Housing UK news
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Keep updated with, and share the latest news from, about and of interest to UK community agency networks (CANs) and community groups with an interest in democratic ways of meeting housing need within planetary boundaries.
2025
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The Guardian view on the planning bill: new towns must be for people who need them, Editorial, theguardian.com (Mar 11, 2025) - Work starts on energy efficient affordable housing, BBC News (Mar 01, 2025)
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- Delivering better outcomes with a Multifunctional Land Use Framework, Sue Pritchard, ffcc.co.uk (Jan 28, 2025) — "Through our long-term trials we have seen how keen people are to engage in and work through the complex and messy problems. We’ve seen... communities working with planners to design places with attractive, affordable, sustainable homes where people want to live and work."
- Home truths: the only thing Labour is building is a bigger, more dysfunctional housing market, George Monbiot, theguardian.com (Jan 26, 2025) — since 2016, more homes have been bought as “additional dwellings” (second homes, holiday homes, Airbnbs, buy to lets, and so on) than by first-time buyers
- Frome residents win five-year battle for community-led housing project, theguardian.com (Jan 23, 2025) — “What’s really exciting for me is that it’s not actually about the amount of commercial space or the affordable housing it will provide – it’s about the sense of confidence and agency and possibility that I think it will give us as a community.” Fiona Barrows, Frome town councillor
- Why improving social housing could be remarkably simple (and affordable), theconversation.com (Jan 17, 2025)
2024
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- Charity preparing to take legal action against a government decision to permit a housing development in part of the Kent countryside, BBC News (Dec 20, 2024)
- UK 'not ready' for extreme weather like Storm Darragh, BBC News (Dec 08, 2024) — "There are risks to our food yields, there are risks to where we can build safe homes for people, and risks to our towns and cities which are built on coastlines. These things are very obvious and we should be acting now to tackle them.", Emma Pinchbeck, head of the Climate Change Committee
- Keeping up with the policies. FFCC’s Georgie Barber on why we need land use coherence, ffcc.co.uk (Dec 04, 2024)
- Why being close to a cycle network can boost house prices, theconversation.com (Dec 03, 2024)
- Construction is the world’s biggest carbon emitter, yet Labour still refuses to tackle it, Simon Jenkins, theguardian.com (Nov 19, 2024)
- “We live in a mere shadow of the world we could have”. Dil Green—building commons by means of housing and local trading, in Stroud and Liverpool—has a pathway, Daily Alternative (Nov 03, 2024)
- Sale of Essex acid grassland for homes would set ‘catastrophic precedent’, theguardian.com (Oct 19, 2024) — Idea that every habitat is replaceable is a misuse of biodiversity net gain, say ecological experts
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- CPRE submits response to consultation on planning system, cpre.org.uk (Sep 25, 2024) — Among CPRE's many recommendations in response to the wide scope of the consultation, CPRE calls for a more transparent method of assessing genuine housing need, a new definition of affordable so that house prices reflect average local incomes, and a greater focus on sustainable travel.
- Create ‘positive tipping points’ with climate mandates, governments urged, theguardian.com (Sep 23, 2024) — Comment: Bolder: whole of housing zero emissions by 2035 or sooner! including new build & (acknowledged & reduced) embodied emissions, plus similar for local areas so communities can gain democratic right to constrain their own emissions, wouldn't that be a really super tipping point? Philralph (talk) 15:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)
- Nimby name-calling will not solve Britain’s housing crisis, theguardian.com (Sep 22, 2024)
- Solving the housing crisis via the commons, By Dil Green, resilience.org (Aug 23, 2024)
- Announcing a Citizens' Forum on Housing!, x.com/CivicInitNI (Aug 16, 2024)
- ‘Building something better’: the UK residents retrofitting their homes amid the climate crisis, theguardian.com (Aug 03, 2024) — From weekly skills-sharing to rewilding streets, communities are working to improve the planet while bolstering the health of people
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- Demolishing buildings is bad for the planet – here’s an alternative, theconversation.com (Jul 23, 2024)
- Fruit & veg deserts & the death knoll of the local greengrocer, wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk (Jul 23, 2024) — Is there a way back?
- House builders 'failing to deliver on nature pledges', BBC News (Jul 21, 2024)
- Community Planning Alliance Writes to New Labour Ministers, communityplanningalliance.org (Jul 10, 2024) — The Community Planning Alliance seeks greater participation for communities in planning, alongside greater environmental protections and the right developments & infrastructure in the right places. "On the subject of community participation, Labour leadership must understand that communities are not "blockers" as they do not have the power to prevent development... Instead, let’s see moves towards co-creation and engagement for positive outcomes... Sustainable development will only be achieved if communities are fully engaged and the Community Planning Alliance can provide insights, expertise and experience from the 600 campaigns registered on our map."
- Retrofitting homes and neighbourhoods helps us "embrace the wholesale reimagination of how we live together", says Civic Square's Immy Kaur, Daily Alternative (Jul 04, 2024)
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- The UK’s coastal ‘ghost enclaves’ are the result of government failure on low-use homes, theconversation.com (May 23, 2024)
- Meeting housing needs within planetary boundaries requires opening the black box of housing “demand”, By Stefan Horn, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, medium.com (May 21, 2024) — "If the goal of housing policy is to meet housing needs within planetary boundaries, then we have to open the black box of housing “demand” and prioritise meeting housing needs over expanding housing independent from use."
- Stroud Housing Commons: latest developments, lowimpact.org (May 08, 2024)
- Why we need to change direction on building homes, sustrans.org.uk (Mar 10, 2024) — "Our report shows how better design and investment decisions – based on ‘gentle density’ and sustainable transport – can deliver the same number of homes on just 40% of the land."
- Oxfordshire housing development ‘should be blocked due to failing sewage system’, theguardian.com (Feb 27, 2024)
- Developers in England will be forced to create habitats for wildlife – here’s how it works, theconversation.com (Feb 15, 2024)
2023
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- England has ‘twice as many empty homes as families stuck in B&Bs’, theguardian.com (Dec 24, 2023)
- Housing crisis poses threat to survival of rural communities, CPRE Report, cpre.org.uk (Nov 28, 2023) — CPRE urges government to redefine ‘affordable housing’ to directly link to average local incomes.
- Labour’s housing plans will not solve the affordability crisis, theguardian.com (Oct 15, 2023)
- Labour’s supposedly bold ‘new towns’ idea has been tried before. And it failed, Simon Jenkins, theguardian.com (Oct 12, 2023) — These vast sums should be spent improving our ‘second-tier’ cities – not on costly, carbon-guzzling developments in the rural south
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- How Sunak’s back-pedalling on net zero could damage efforts to decarbonise Britain’s homes, theconversation.com (Sep 21, 2023)
- The organisation transforming derelict homes – and how you can support it, positive.news (Sep 15, 2023)
- Lords sink plan to axe homebuilding pollution rules, BBC news (Sep 14, 2023)
- Win for local communities as NDMP scrutiny amendment is passed in the Lords, cpre.org.uk (Sep 07, 2023)
- Back to the stone age: the sustainable building material we’ve all been waiting for…, theguardian.com (Aug 06, 2023)
- Insulating Britain: while politicians dither, this social enterprise gets the job done, positive.news (Aug 01, 2023)
- Birmingham's Zero Carbon House is doable, scalable and beautiful - and expresses what the "climate majority" want, says Rupert Read, The Daily Alternative (Jul 29, 2023)
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- Halt new roads and developments adding to emissions, advisers to tell UK government, The Guardian (Jun 23, 2023) — “scandal” new homes that would continue to contribute to climate change through heating, cooking and poor insulation were still being built, says Lord Deben
- Kent and Sussex hosepipe ban announced amid water shortage, BBC News (Jun 19, 2023)
- 'Not fit for purpose': Over 100 firms call for UK planning reforms to support nature and net zero, businessgreen.com (Jun 15, 2023)
- A model for senior living? London’s commune for older women, positive.news (Jun 14, 2023)
- Local democracy threatened by levelling up bill’s key measures, warns CPRE, cpre.org.uk (May 01, 2023)
- Where property prices are set by what local people earn, BBC News (May 01, 2023)
- ACAN @ Futurebuild 2023, architectscan.org (Apr 14, 2023)
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- New report reveals "growing, invisible homelessness crisis in our countryside, English Rural (Mar 17, 2023)
- Builders are making thumping profits by over-charging for new homes – new findings, The Conversation (Mar 07, 2023)
- Something radical is happening in Hastings. It might just tell us how to solve Britain’s empty homes problem, bigissue.com (Mar 03, 2023)
- Regenerative Thinking: The problem with new housing, Wicked Leeks (Mar 02, 2023)
- Britain is addicted to the wrecking ball. It’s trashing our heritage and the planet, Phineas Harper, The Guardian (Feb 10, 2023)
- Stroud Commons part 1: We’re putting our house into the ‘commons’. Follow our progress and replicate it in your community, lowimpact.org (Jan 08, 2023)
2022
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- The Tories are tearing themselves apart over housing – but this is another crisis of their own making, John Harris, The Guardian (Nov 27, 2022)
- About 50 MPs sign amendment to scrap mandatory local housing targets for councils, The Guardian (Nov 22, 2022)
- England’s housing strategy carries a high carbon cost – unless politicians are willing to change plans, The Conversation (Nov 10, 2022) — "our research demonstrates that, based on current trends, England’s housing strategy could consume our entire carbon budget by 2050."
- Cohousing is empowering people to fight back against a global housing crisis, The Conversation (Nov 02, 2022)
- If more houses had water butts, it could help with drought, flooding and water pollution, The Conversation (Nov 02, 2022)
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- What if the power and resources to build our neighbourhoods were in community hands?, medium.com/reimagining-economic-possibilities (Oct 27, 2022)
- Neighbourhood green space is in rapid decline, deepening both the climate and mental health crises, The Conversation (May 18, 2022)
- Hundreds march in Dorchester in protest at housing plans, BBC News (Apr 03, 2022) — protest at plans to build 4,000 houses on open land and "desecrate" the Thomas Hardy countryside
- Why the government needs to make sure net zero is in local plans, CPRE (Mar 25, 2022)
- Laying the myths to rest: Canterbury crisis shows how desperate government policy and housebuilder attitudes are making homes unaffordable… and destroying our countryside, CPRE Kent (Feb 15, 2022)
- New greenfield housing still designed around cars, report finds, BBC News (Feb 07, 2022)
- Camden calls for sites that could deliver Community led housing, communityledhousing.london (Feb 02, 2022)
See also: Saving water in South East England, Urban sustainability news
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