Blog
Upward extensions: making our cities fit for families
London’s housing crisis is pricing out families. The sky-high cost of space means that many Londoners face a tough question: if you want to have children, what do you sacrifice? Do you try to fit your family into a small home, or do you say goodbye to the community...
How much space can you afford to buy?
The cost of living is often discussed as a question of energy prices, groceries, and wages. But there is an even more fundamental driver persistently pushing up costs for families across Britain: housing costs. The average house now costs eight times more than the...
How much space can you afford to rent?
A map of rent per square metre for renters in England and Wales If you rent, you probably don’t think in square metres. You think about how many bedrooms and space you can actually get for your monthly budget. Take £1,500 a month. In parts of the North East or Wales,...
The promise of suburban renewal
The Government has made significant progress in its first year of streamlining the planning process and has announced three new towns to be initiated during this Parliament. The goals are simple: build new homes for workers and grow the economy. One effective way to...
The cause of the affordability crisis
Britain’s housing crisis is, at root, a shortage in the places people need to live. That is why prices sit far above what it costs to build, why young people delay forming households, and why rents are so high. Tax tweaks could free up some extra homes, but they...
Lessons from the housing crisis in Ireland
This is a guest piece from Connor Holbert. Connor is a working professional who lives in London. He has also lived in the United States, Mexico, and Ireland, personally witnessing how housing scarcity affected each country. I moved to Dublin in autumn 2022. By then,...
Residential annexes: a blueprint for backyard homes
Residential annexes are Britain’s most overlooked housing opportunity: low-impact, family-friendly, and essential for scaling up new infill homes. Drawing on international success and UK examples, this piece sets out how a clear national framework and locally tailored...
How the government can still build more homes
This week brought two pieces of news on planning. First, we now know that the consultation on ‘brownfield passports’ will be delayed. The Government’s intention is that these passports will make it easier to build more homes on previously developed land. They were...
Grey belt: the underestimated game-changer for housing
John Myers writing in Red Brick Blog A recent case in Bagshot in Surrey shows how the Labour Government’s new ‘grey belt’ rules, introduced in late 2024, will likely unlock hundreds of thousands of much-needed homes across the country. The reform of Green Belt rules...
The 2025 Planning and Infrastructure Bill
This is a guest post from Alfie Robinson. Alfie is a historian and heritage consultant operating across England, with a keen interest in policy issues. You can find Alfie on LinkedIn or find his website here. The much-anticipated Planning and Infrastructure Bill has...