Category Archives: Housing
Research with communities objecting to new house-building
In 2019 I am carrying out national research with groups objecting to housing development. I would like to hear from any community groups who would be interested in taking part in this research through interviews or group discussions. For my … Continue reading
Green Belt – a capacity to engage
Green Belt is an environmental designation internationally adopted by spatial planning regimes, and famously associated with the arousal of passionately loyal identification. The passions aroused by Green Belt are often disparaged by the planning profession, but the capacity to arouse … Continue reading
Public support for Green Belt: common rights in countryside access and recreation
Public support for Green Belt is legendary. It is unquestionably the most popular planning policy, and perhaps the only one that is readily recognised and fiercely defended. This passionate support is often dismissed as sentiment or as an attachment to a … Continue reading
The use of direct democracy to decide housing site allocations in English neighbourhoods
In this new paper I want to investigate the use of direct democracy to decide the location of new housing in England as part of a suite of participatory practices known as neighbourhood planning. I am not satisfied with the way … Continue reading
The Housing Crisis Weaponised
The government does not intend to solve our housing crisis. Instead it aims to use the housing crisis as a weapon of policy against the beliefs and attitudes that sustain a welfare state. Much of the attack on the welfare … Continue reading
The new tenants’ movement
One hundred years since the famous Glasgow Rent Strike of 1915 and we’re still battling the same housing crisis. One hundred years ago the Glasgow rent strikers won the right to rent regulation and council housing. In the last thirty years … Continue reading
Five things the government has done to worsen the housing crisis
1.Wrongly expected the volume builders to deliver for housing need The government expects the volume house builders to deliver the 240,000 extra homes we need each year. And it has cleared every obstacle to ensure the house builders get the … Continue reading
That starter homes pledge
So the promise of 200,000 starter homes will be fulfilled by ending affordable rented housing on private developments. Instead the Prime Minister has announced that developers can meet their planning gain obligations (known as S106 agreements) by building discounted homes … Continue reading
The radical roots of Garden Cities
Garden cities figure prominently in government aspirations for house-building these days. They seem to be the politically acceptable face of New Towns. While garden cities have establishment support, the only really practical solution to the housing shortage – more council … Continue reading
Generation Rent – it’s time for action
With the launch of his new book about the Tenants’ Movement, Leeds Beckett author and lecturer in housing studies, Dr. Quintin Bradley looks at the pressures on ‘generation rent’ and the emerging signs of a mass popular campaign around the … Continue reading