A collection of essays examined ways to make suburban areas more sustainable and better places in which to live and work.
Source: Paul Hackett (ed.), Housing and Growth in Suburbia, Smith Institute (020 7592 3618)
Links: Report
Date: 2009-Sep
A report by a committee of MPs said that financial incentives given to local councils in England to speed up housing planning applications might have had 'perverse' consequences. Cash incentives for councils to reach judgements within 13 weeks had speeded up decision-making: but councils could 'lose interest' in an application once the 13-week target had been missed.
Source: Planning for Homes: Speeding up planning applications for major housing developments in England, Thirty-third Report (Session 2008-09), HC 236, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | BBC report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2009-Jul
A report said that private developers, local councils, and housing associations needed to work better together to manage land supply more efficiently. A poor grasp of land economics, over-reliance on section 106, aversion to risk, and a lack of understanding of the roles of other players in the complex land supply chain were hindering the provision of land for affordable housing.
Source: Abigail Davies, John Perry and Jamie Ewing, Great Expectations: Management of land supply for affordable housing, Chartered Institute of Housing (024 7685 1700)
Links: Report | CIH press release
Date: 2009-Jul
The government published the list of locations identified as having the potential for an eco-town. It also published (following consultation) a planning policy statement setting out the standards that any eco-town would have to adhere to.
Source: Press release 16 July 2009, Department for Communities and Local Government (020 7944 3000) | Planning Policy Statement: Eco-Towns – A supplement to Planning Policy Statement 1, Department for Communities and Local Government (0870 1226 236)
Links: DCLG press release | Statement | Consultation responses | LGA press release | RTPI press release | TCPA press release | CPRE press release | CIH press release | CFBT press release | TUC press release | Guardian report | Inside Housing report | Local Government Chronicle report | FT report
Date: 2009-Jul
Researchers examined how towns and cities could be planned so that they were socially inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and economically efficient. The government's policy of concentrating new housing in existing urban areas and on 'brownfield sites' was not working, and could build up problems for the future. High-density urban housing developments could be incubators for a range of social and economic problems. In the south east region of England, existing policy could increase production and housing costs by £30 billion a year by 2031. The report proposed a policy of 'sustainable suburbs' that, although they would inevitably encroach on green belt land, would reduce living costs and provide housing in which people wanted to live.
Source: SOLUTIONS (Sustainability Of Land Use and Transport In Outer NeighbourhoodS): Final Report – Strategic Scale, SOLUTIONS consortium (Cambridge University and four others) (info@suburbansolutions.ac.uk)
Links: Report | Cambridge University press release
Date: 2009-Jun
