By Daniel Fryd, Senior Consultant Somewhere in the middle of the Chancellor’s 95 minute Autumn Budget speech was a single line on the publication of Oliver Letwin MP’s ‘Independent Review of Build Out’ report. Developers, we are told, ‘do not engage in systematic land banking’. That’s it then. One year …

  Chelgate Local is supporting Built Environment Networking’s upcoming event focused on development in Essex and the South East. Get up to speed with the Essex property market with discussions by leading local politicians and industry experts, outlining the development plans for some of the region’s biggest projects. With close proximity …

By Daniel Fryd, Senior Consultant Despite weeks of internal scrapping over rule-changes, anti-Semitism rows and haranguing from the right-wing press, Labour came together to actually deliver a coherent and articulate vision for their Britain at their conference last week.  Brexit naturally captured the headlines, and the possibility of a people’s …

By Kasia Banas, Consultant It’s been another memorable Conservative Party Conference with the PM’s closing speech and erratic dancing grabbing the covers of most major newspapers this week. Mrs May impressed not only with her moves but also by showing a rare glimpse of humour and self-deprecation. In what some …

By Kasia Banas, Consultant In his first appearance in front of the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee on 5th September, Housing Minister Kit Malthouse MP made it clear he is not planning to introduce a new mechanism for capturing uplifts in land value. Instead, Malthouse insisted the recently introduced …

By Daniel Fryd, Senior Consultant It’s been an eventful month for the Oxford-Cambridge arc. The route for the new Expressway was revealed, the Housing Minister embarked on a CaMKOx tour and called for “transformational” ideas to drive growth in the area, and the Communities Secretary changed planning rules in Oxfordshire …

By Kasia Banas, Consultant The government has been called on to consider radical reform of land value capture for communities in an open letter addressed to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP. The letter from conservative think-tank Onward was signed by …

By Daniel Fryd, Senior Consultant Just when it looked like ‘Voluntary Right to Buy’ was firmly buried in the long grass, Communities Secretary James Brokenshire dug it out earlier this month and announced £200m to revive it as a new pilot scheme. The new scheme allows housing association tenants in the …