Paul Smith
@Paul_SLG
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Developer, land promoter, planner, surveyor, cyclist, YIMBY. MD of @WeAreSLG , @THELPDF board member, @PricedOutUK advisory board, @Housing_Today columnist
Manchester
Joined November 2013
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Pinned Tweet
Some housing stats. A thread. 🧵
England has consistently built fewer new homes than other countries.
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Your periodic reminder that town planning used to be an Olympic event.
John Hughes won gold for Team GB in 1932.
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Every one of the red dots on this 1889 map of Manchester is a pub.
I miss pubs.
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HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds.
What's an unlikely train route under 250 miles that you think would actually perform very well?
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We’ve just been promised the savings from HS2 will be spent building a tram line to Manchester Airport.
Although that line actually opened in 2014.
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How can we get the “cyclist” emoji changed from someone in Lycra on a road bike 🚴♀️ 🚴♂️ to someone in normal clothes with a basket of shopping on the front?
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We haven’t won town planning Olympic gold since the Town and Country Planning Act. Make of that what you will.
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Planning applications have become much more complex over the last thirty years.
The cost of preparing the reports required is about five times more than it was in 1990 (and that’s before the application fee itself if taken into account).
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It’s almost like the point of competition for house builders has shifted from selling homes to buying land.
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The housing crisis in numbers.
(From The Sunday Times today: )
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As amazing as these plans for Stretford look, there’s *no way* anyone is going to sit like this with their feet in the canal.
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Seattle has a similar population to Leeds.
Here is a map showing Leeds’ light rail network overlaid on Seattle.
here is London’s tube map overlaid on Seattle (left) and Seattle’s light rail network overlaid on London (right)
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Here’s
@zacksimons
performing a public service in
@thetimes
by simply and clearly explaining what the green belt actually is.
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Fascinating interview with Theresa Villiers in The Sunday Times today, where she admits to not really knowing anyone affected by the housing crisis.
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The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it. “No room! No room!” they cried out, when they saw Alice coming. “There’s *plenty* of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
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“[The council’s] water champion, said Thames Water has ‘still failed to make a plausible case’ for the reservoir.”
🤔
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“If new developments were all like Poundbury, local communities would support them.”
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Hi
@tim_cook
, please could you change your “cyclist” emoji design to be a person in normal clothes with a basket of shopping on the front?
It’s more representative than the current “racing bike and Lycra” design - and it might help people see cycling as transport not sport too.
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Developers will build more homes if we let them.
Increasing housing supply can be simple.
When local councils in Britain change their housing policy to allow more building, construction soars.
Two neat examples. First, Croydon in London:
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The green belt is the most recognised part of the planning system - and also the most misunderstood.
Polling for CPRE revealed that 64% of people want to protect it from development - but 71% admit they didn’t really know what it is.
So what actually is it?
🧵
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Can you believe St Ann’s Square used to be open to cars?
We wouldn’t have it any other way now.
We’ll be saying the same thing about Deansgate one day.
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With Christmas nearly upon us, it’s time to reflect on what 2023 has brought.
So here are my favourite planning objections of the year.
Which ones did I miss?
🧵
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“Proposals were scotched by a public inquiry in March 2011 when it was found there was ‘no immediate need.’ There were calls for similar scrutiny when plans resurfaced in 2018 and the same argument is being made now.”
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Today was my last day cycling to work.
Large parts of the A56 pop-up cycle lane were removed last week. I’ve given it a go since but it just doesn’t feel safe any more.
If
@AndrewHWestern
does deliver a permanent route, I’ll be back.
For now I’m afraid I’ll be using the car.
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This is such an obvious change to make.
Our current rules mean zebra crossings cost £40K each. Allowing “paint only” zebras - as are used in most of Europe - reduces the cost to £1K, allows them to be provided in more places and STILL makes walking safer.
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“He won’t push through planning reform, instead he kills off the dream of home ownership. Too weak to take on his party. Too weak to take on vested interests.”
Fighting talk from
@Keir_Starmer
.
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🚨GREEN BELT UNDER THREAT LATEST🚨
New figures from DLUHC show that the green belt *grew* in size last year. Just like the year before.
More land is now designated as green belt than when the NPPF was introduced over a decade ago.
Meanwhile the housing supply crisis continues.
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It’s good to see Conservative MPs get behind using the planning system to dramatically increase the supply of homes.
Once we’ve done it for swifts, please can we do it for people next?
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It looks like Natural England have found a new way of blocking new homes
- air quality.
If they’re going to do this, Natural England should also sanction councils for not allowing enough new homes if that results in increased commuting distances.
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If you need me this afternoon, I'll be working my way through this list of application documents trying to work out which one is the layout.
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Astonishing research from
@HomeBuildersFed
.
At the same time as 160,000 homes are held up by nutrient neutrality rules, the Environment Agency has approved farms exceeding standard legal limits of nitrogen use by 1.1m kgs.
That’s equivalent to more than 600,000 homes.
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DLUHC have started a 29,000 word, 80 page consultation on reforming the plan-making process by complaining that local plans "are often lengthy, word-heavy documents."
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Brilliant to see how the Americans see England (or at least how Disney see us).
I’m a big fan of the “Yorkshire County Fish Shop” in particular.
I wonder what
@createstreets
would make of it?
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There are 678,860 homes in Kent, so if there really are just 1,000 long term empty homes - about 0.17% - that’s a sign of an acute housing shortage.
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More proof as if we need it, that more than 1,000 homes in Kent sit empty despite predicted homelessness surge - Kent Live
@BorisJohnson
@RobertJenrick
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How many new homes do we really need? 🏘️
The proposed changes to the NPPF have prompted lots of debate about their impact on meeting the government’s target of 300,000 new homes per year.
And is that even the right number in the first place?
A thread 🧵, with graphs. 📊 🥰
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This site is partly owned by Homes England and was allocated for development in a local plan 9 (nine) years ago.
A five-year battle against controversial plans to build 1,100 homes in rural Lancashire looks to be over after it emerged that the legal process to challenge it had been exhausted.
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Does anybody else write things on their to do list solely so they can cross it off?
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This is really very good.
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Natural England objected to their own planning application in Cornwall.
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Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has suggested Labour could introduce a planning bill as one of their first acts in government.
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Or, maybe, development is difficult, building things takes time, and all the "land banking" headlines or nonsense.
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WhenI saw the headline, I imagined it was some sort of massive new building with dozens of kids.
But no.
They just want to look after three children in this house.
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It’s been reported in
@ManchesterMill
that Places for Everyone, the Greater Manchester-wide development plan, could be on the brink of collapse.
The reason? Proposed changes to national policy making it easier to plan for fewer homes.
Here’s why that really matters. 🧵
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This is from the Conservative’s manifesto for the 1951 General Election.
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Huw Pill, chief economist at the Bank of England, on the housing crisis.
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The map is from “Manchester: Mapping the City” which I would highly recommend.
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I’ve been commuting to work by bike since our office re-opened at the end of June. I’ve loved every minute of it.
Since the cones were removed I’ve experienced too many (very) close passes from too many speeding cars.
Joy has been replaced by fear.
So I’m done.
🚗 1 - 0 🚲
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Let’s try this.
Hi
@tim_cook
, please could you change your “cyclist” emoji design to be a person in normal clothes with a basket of shopping on the front?
It’s more representative than the current “racing bike and Lycra” design - and it might help people see cycling as transport not sport too.
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Here’s my latest bit of lockdown reading - the Manchester Plan from 1945.
The cover might look as dull as the book sounds, but it’s utterly amazing with some brilliant illustrations.
Stick with me, I promise it will be worth it!
Thread. 👇
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Roughly 13% of England is designated as green belt. The green belt has increased in area since 1979.
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Being pro-cycling doesn’t mean you’re anti-car.
“The one thing we know for sure, because we understand geometry, is that if everyone drives, nobody moves. Even if you’re a daily driver, it’s in your best interest for walking, biking & public transit to be as attractive as possible for everyone else.”
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House prices have far outstripped wage growth over the last quarter of a century.
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We have fewer homes relative to the population compared to most other European countries.
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This is great from
@JonnElledge
.
After the local elections, Castle Point doesn’t have a *single* councillor from a national party.
And a huge reason for that is opposition to new homes.
If you haven’t been following their local plan process it is, as the kids say, wild.
"...the People’s Independent Party, a group of previously independent councillors brought together by their opposition to 5,000 new homes, like a sort of nimby Avengers Initiative." Here's the not very long-awaited return of NIMBY WATCH
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It’s not the price of homes that’s the problem, it’s “the EasyJet, gym, coffee, Netflix lifestyle” apparently.
We’re also told that Allsop bought her first home at age 21 with family help when the average house price was £112K (adjusted for inflation).
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Residents of a new development in Cheshire objected to having bus stops put in.
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Planning permission was refused for an EV charging station in South Kesteven in case it became a magnet for dogging.
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A decision to refuse an application was rescinded because a committee member was asleep, the application was then approved, but the decision to rescind the refusal was then challenged, and now the council will have a third go at determining the application.
And all for 14 homes.
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We have far fewer empty homes than most other developed countries.
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The green belt was expressly intended to restrict economic growth.
Take a look at point 6 in the circular which allowed them to be established: development was to be restricted even *within* the urban area to make sure no extra demand for homes was created.
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Although if the new residents won’t have much spare time, presumably they won’t be able to go to the Wine Club anyway?
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What does good house design look like? 🏠
We asked more than 800 people to tell us how much they liked homes built by PLC and SME house builders as well as “one-off” architect-designs.
Here’s what they told us.👇
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Here’s an application for new homes that was refused on appeal because the future occupiers might not speak the right language.
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Your periodic reminder that France - where home ownership rates are higher and housing costs are lower - has c. 25% more homes per capita than England.
We would need 6 million more homes to match their level of supply.
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Good to see The Guardian covering the planning application statistics released yesterday. It gets top billing on their website too.
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I found this post from CPRE Essex fascinating.
They come *so close* to arguing for reform of the green belt.
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Friends when you explain to them how the planning system works.
′′The Weight of Thought′′
Sculpture by Thomas Lerooy.
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A cafe in Dorset was forced to close because of the smell of bacon and the clinking of tea cups.
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So I asked OpenAI to write the vision for a local plan and, apart from the town name, I think it’s pretty much nailed it…
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I see we’re at the ��empty homes are the cause of the housing crisis” part of the debate again.
But they’re really not.
We have far, far fewer homes than most developed countries and eliminating them entirely would actually be bad for the housing market.
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Some more great data-viz this morning from
@jburnmurdoch
looking at housing supply and house prices in different countries.
Tell me again why the housing crisis isn’t about supply.
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“Too few of England’s town centres, even those which are superficially successful, are places where anyone would choose to be.”
Lovey piece on the decline of our town centres - and how we can revive them - by
@createstreets
in
@TheCriticMag
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“Prices now down 14% amid glut of supply as firm says landlords working hard to avoid empty homes.”
Supply and demand *does* work in the housing market.
If we build more new homes, selling prices will fall too.
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“The problem isn’t that the free market can’t deliver the number of new homes we need; it’s that we haven’t even let it try.”
My latest column for
@housing_today
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House building rates could fall to as low as 110,000 per year if the government follows through with planned changes to the NPPF, according to this research.
That would have a devastating impact on our already chronic, acute housing supply crisis.
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Government:
“If all new homes looked like Poundbury, people wouldn’t object.”
People:
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