Paul Smith

Our local library has got the *best* new exhibition.

As if to prove the point, the second map she’s been given to identify the 5 counties she wanted to learn *has different boundaries.*

“Why can’t people just enjoy the character and charm of the Cotswolds without trying to turn their gardens into some kind of tacky Benidorm resort?”

A wonderful report on David Cameron’s 6-year long attempt to secure permission for a pool in his back garden.

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/2583255...

Pretty sure that @jonnelledge.bsky.social has set my daughter’s homework this weekend. Although it doesn’t come with a long explanation about why, actually, some of these aren’t really counties so maybe he hasn’t.

This is a great read on what it’s actually like to try to secure planning permission.

open.substack.com/pub/samdumit...

Kind of him to send me a new one though.

Although @samuelstafford.bsky.social doesn’t think planning is black and white, he apparently has different ideas when it comes to mugs.

I remember when Barnsley was going to become a Tuscan hill village.

The planning system is clunky and slow. Even without touching policy, there are plenty of ways we can remove grit from the system and make the machine hum.

Here are some ideas for doing that. And the list is so long there’ll almost certainly be an idea you hate.

open.substack.com/pub/longwall...

Rishi Sunak on planning reform in The Times.

www.thetimes.com/business/com...

🤔

The planning system is clunky and slow. Even without touching policy, there are plenty of ways we can remove grit from the system and make the machine hum.

Here are some ideas for doing that. And the list is so long there’ll almost certainly be an idea you hate.

open.substack.com/pub/longwall...

It is almost 6 years since Planning for the Future promised us "a radical, digital-first approach to modernise the planning process."

Yet the *terrible* standard of our planning data means that is still a distant dream.

Here's why and what we can do.

www.housingtoday.co.uk/comment/wher...

🎂We're celebrating a first birthday today! 🎂

This time last year, we submitted a request for pre-application advice for a new housing development. We paid a fee and everything.

12 months later, we still haven't had a response, so it's officially turned 1!

Everyone watching the voting at the round table thinking how tense it is, and developers everywhere wondering what the fuss is about because it’s just like planning committee.

There’s a lot going on here.

(From @newscientist.com)

What a headline this is.

Our housing crisis is now so bad, increasing numbers of people have to win TV game shows to buy a home.

#Traitors

Read it properly.

Read the piece.

Some thoughts on the increasing use of AI to object to planning applications, and what we might be able to do about it.

open.substack.com/pub/longwall...

This morning, Tameside Council refused its own planning application for new homes at Godley Green, a site allocated in the Greater Manchester-wide plan “Places for Everyone.”

When HS2 to Manchester was described as a “generational project” I thought it was a reference to its importance, not its build period.

#BazPaul

Who was the first king of England? A surprisingly complicated question.

"When I was a very small child, I had a sense, whereof I know not, that William the Conqueror was the first king of England and that history began in 1066. When I was a slightly less small child, I was delighted to learn that this wasn’t so..."

Regarding a surprisingly complicated question

Possibly the most important polling we’ll see this year.

Councils rely on ‘sticking plaster’ extensions to meet planning targets Local authorities in England increasingly push back deadlines on decisions as system becomes more complex

Great piece by @claradoodle.bsky.social in the @financialtimes.com including comments from me about why, with the ever growing list of issues planning applications are expected to consider, it's little surprise that it takes so long for applications to be determined.

www.ft.com/content/10d3...

A polite reminder.