A hypothetical worked example that shows why London’s brownfield pipeline has three sequential problems — and why fixing one without the others changes nothing Meet David and Sarah. They have run Meridian Autos, a busy car repair workshop in south-east London, for fifteen years. The site is roughly half an acre. It is an eight-minute […]
I have been grappling with conflicting data and policy moves in the housing sector this week. Taken together, they illustrate something PropViews has been arguing for months: the government is simultaneously trying to accelerate housing delivery, increase the cost of housing delivery, and reform the system that determines whether housing delivery happens at all. The
What the planning blogosphere’s best minds think is coming — and where I land on all this good stuff On Tuesday evening I was thrilled to join the celebration of Simon Ricketts’ ten-year anniversary of Simonicity — one of the most consistently authoritative planning law blogs in the country. Simon gathered some of the sector’s
On 28 May 2026, Enfield’s new Conservative leader Alessandro Georgiou wrote to housing minister Matthew Pennycook to formally withdraw the borough from the government’s New Towns programme. The planned 21,000-home settlement at Crews Hill and Chase Park — one of the three highest-priority sites in the New Towns Taskforce’s programme, with spades in the ground
The Battersea Glassmill decision and the policy that requires a tower to work — then refuses the tower Last week Rockwell had their application at the Glassmill at 1 Battersea Bridge Road, Wandsworth — a part ten, part twenty-eight storey mixed-use building — dismissed. Perhaps UKREiiF which was happening at the time, is a good
For decades the UK development land and commercial agency market relied on a familiar model: relationships, applicant lists, discreet circulation, personal networks. The agent with the strongest black book was assumed to have the edge. Relationships, advisory judgement and negotiation still matter. But the market has changed too much for any agency to rely on
The Aylesham Centre decision and the system that has learned to celebrate delivering nothing “This is a great day for Peckham.” That was Southwark Council, on 18 May 2026, responding to the Planning Inspectorate’s decision to refuse Berkeley Homes’ appeal for the redevelopment of the Aylesham Centre on Rye Lane. Zero homes. Zero affordable housing.
Lots of insights coming out as the UK grapples with the brownfield emergency: Keeps eyes tuned for more as we progress through the conference.
“Fully expected and anticipated in opposition.” That is how Matthew Pennycook described the collapse in housing delivery this week, to a room of developers at UKREiiF in Leeds. On stage: ministers, panels, glossy brochures about unlocking delivery and the biggest affordable housing push in a generation. Off stage: Homes England emailing providers to say they
UKREiif 2026 — 12 months on, what came true, what didn’t We’re back. UKREiif ’25 feels a distant memory: sun on my face and cautious optimism in the air. A new Government with a working majority, a wave of planning applications supposedly on the way, and a sector that wanted to believe things were about