By Kasia Banas, Consultant Having parents with property wealth is significantly more important in determining your ability to buy a home than your earnings or education, new research has shown. Young people whose parents have property wealth are now almost three times as likely to be homeowners by the age …

By Kasia Banas, Consultant  There is a ‘chaotic patchwork’ of different planning responsibilities in the country, the long-awaited Raynsford Review of the planning system warned earlier this month. The report, which provides “a holistic appraisal of the kind of planning system that England will need from 2020 onwards”, calls for …

By Kasia Banas, Consultant In one of the biggest announcements from this year’s Conservative Party conference, Theresa May presented government’s plans to remove the cap on councils’ borrowing against housing revenue accounts (HRA). She told the conference in Birmingham that solving the housing crisis is the “biggest domestic policy challenge …

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 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 Kasia Banas, Consultant Following months of delays and anticipation, a ‘new deal’ for social housing residents has been launched by the Secretary of State for Communities, James Brokenshire. But despite a raft of new Ministers working on the plan and promises from former Communities Secretary Sajid Javid that the …

By Kasia Banas, Consultant There is still no sign of the highly anticipated Social Housing Green Paper, which was expected to be released before Parliament’s summer recess. Announced by the now Home Secretary Sajid Javid in September last year, the paper was touted as a “nationwide conversation” starter on how …