Remember the Preston Model? The council was meant to have saved their area by shifting spend to local SMEs. But the sums don't add up: council spend is just too small to explain it. @michaeljahill.bsky.social on the real Preston Model: build homes and roads. www.samdumitriu.com/p/the-truth-...

Picked up my bike from the otherwise completely empty bike storage in my building. Dropped it off at the half empty bike storage at work. Lovely sunny day. Are we subsidising a not particularly popular form of transport too much?

The Shoreditch Works application has taken 4 years and 9,000 pages of documents. Hackney Council has concluded what this project needs is… more documents.

The council decision on this was last night. After 9,000 pages and 4 years the decision was to......defer. More documents, more delay.

Would you say a 9,054-page planning application for an office block and some flats is: A) Too long B) About right C) Not long enough If you answered C, congratulations! You could work at Hackney Council.

Are supermarkets, industrial estates, and railway sidings 'brownfield land'? The answer is no. At least that's what the Government's definition for a new tax on housebuilding says. Our campaign director Sam Richards explains.

The UK’s Net Zero transition is very dependent on China. Over 80% of our solar panels come from China because China makes almost all the world's solar panels.

Labour spent ages arguing that the railways should be nationalised. They appear not to have spent much time figuring out what we can learn from the best nationalised systems. catchingmice.substack.com/cp/180687006

Britain can't reach Net Zero without Chinese supply chains. What are the risks and what should we do about them? This, from my colleague Michael Hill, is the best thing I've read on Britain's reliance on China to reach Net Zero. www.samdumitriu.com/p/china-the-...

NEW: Labour just announced the biggest change in planning policy in 80 years. My breakdown of the key measures and whether they will succeed. www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are...

"Scotland faces a choice: embrace nuclear and share in the investment, jobs, and clean power, or stick with an outdated ban and watch opportunity flow elsewhere" @michaeljahill.bsky.social writes for the blog on the opportunities for Scotland from nuclear power www.enlighten.scot/time-to-ditc...