This does kind of seem like the routine sort of thing councils should be sorting out without the help of the MP?

MHCLG estimating that "196,500 net additional homes have been delivered in England between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025". The numbers are heading in the wrong direction for the government to get anywhere near their 1.5m target and they'll be lucky to hit 1m at this rate.

This case does highlight the (I'm sure unintended) "anti marriage" effects of the second home stamp duty - a married person must pay the premium on buying a property (even if they don't own the house they live in) but a cohabiting couple can buy a second home by owning one each with no extra charge.

Well I've always considered September to be an autumn month. But it's still summer for the Government apparently

Great thread here showing how increased taxes on landlords after 2016 helped homeownership to grow again.

EPC ratings are being used for access to grants, to ban landlords for letting low-rated properties, and for access to green finance. But yet another study has found they bear no relation to energy used. share.google/oqiQWuAtGTJ4...

On a practical level, given most of the flags I've seen have been 20 foot up, how would I do this? Given: - I'm not fit enough to shimmy up lamp posts - I don't own an open topped double decker bus

And in the meantime, HMOs are a really important part of our housing system - for students, people moving to a new city (or a new country), for young professionals, for low earners - for all types of people who can't afford a flat of their own. Councils should be encourage and support this sector.

There is no easy answer to how to house new people without causing local conflict when there's simply not enough homes to go around. We need to build more homes. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Yay! Can now save posts on Bluesky. A feature I've always missed from Twitter.

A depressing set of stats from the HBF. The new Government has been trying to reform planning so why is this happening? - New Planning Bill hasn't passed yet, nor have the new higher housing targets come into effect in most areas - Housing market isn't strong - Viability on small sites collapsing

Oh dear. There are not 1.4m planning consents just waiting to be built. Neal explains why this isn't true in detail in his blog linked to in the thread below.

I'm pleased to see this. There's lots of problems in housing currently, but having a minister committed to the sector has got to help in fixing them.

Steve Reed is taking over from Angela Rayner as SoS for housing www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c0...

Useful summary here of the legal issues around hotels being used as asylum seeker accommodation and whether or not planning permission is required. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/is-planning-...

Anyone who believes flags can only bring people together is being totally naive. And has clearly never set foot in Northern Ireland. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

This is a false dichotomy - all new housing creates new homes for people. It isn't *not* for people, just because it's built by a for-profit developer. And even social housing will be actually built by construction companies who make a profit. Social housing matters, but it isn't all that matters.

Build, build, build isn't much use as mantra if you then leave the new homes sitting empty for a year or more while the Building Safety Regulator gets round to approving them. This process used to take a matter of days when local authorities were in charge of it. news.sky.com/story/bluesk...

It's nonsense to suggest that slow house price growth related to the very recent discussions on reform to property taxation - the data that Nationwide have published today is from sales completed in August, which will have had prices agreed back in the spring.

Government allows councils to double council tax on second homes - expicately "to end the scourge of empty second homes" Data shows that this prompted some owners to sell up. But @thetimes.com somehow concluds that this means it "fell flat" www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Excellent analysis of why housebuilding is grinding to a halt in London here. With an important challenge to those who want to focus only on social housing.

I've heard good things about the work of the New Homes Accelerator which has been tackling stalled build out on a site by site basis. So pleased to see it taking on new sites.

This is not how housing markets work. Landlords don't see high rents (for plush newbuild flats with private gyms etc), decide to raise theirs and magically find a tenant willing to pay it for the shabby old terrace. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Interesting chart here - suggesting the UK currently raises more money on property (stamp duty, council tax and capital gains tax) than many other countries. Is there room to go further on this to tax housing wealth more? Or is it more about shifting from transaction taxes to annual ones?

I've written approximately 14,000 pieces about property taxation this week (Sure feels like it anyway) so capping it off for The Sunday Times with a bit of a think piece on how we could, or should, tax property instead. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Reports suggest Labour may introduce capital gains tax on home sales in the Autumn Budget. It sounds like an easy revenue raiser - but the evidence shows it would slash transactions, gum up housing chains, and could even collect less tax overall. Thread:

This is an excellent blog from @danneidle.bsky.social discussing the pros and cons of reform to stamp duty and council tax. taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/08/21/l...

If councils crack down on HMOs that won't just hit the Home Office trying to house asylum seekers. It will also hit young people on low incomes where a room in a shared house is all they can afford. We simply need more housing to get out of this mess. But in the meantime we really need HMOs.

There's much focus on the cost of living - but this analysis of social rents shows how much they've fallen in real terms over the last 10 years - this is having a huge impact on the ability of social landlords to maintain homes.

This is a real problem for the Home Office - presume a lot of councils will now apply for injunctions on the same grounds.

I think the ideas here for property tax reform are really interesting. Essentially it's a cap stamp duty at around £15k (what you currently pay on a £500k home) but people purchasing homes >£500k then pay an annual charge of around 0.5% each year. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Yet fuel duty will no doubt remain frozen for yet another year. Making it ever cheaper to drive and more expensive to get the train. www.theguardian.com/money/2025/a...

This is untrue. Insulation is not the problem. It can help keep the heat *out* on a hot day. It doesn't trap heat in the home unless there's no ability to open windows or ventilate.

This part of the industry is on its knees - planning/BSA/investor nerves/local authority financial peril are conspiring to freeze the market with layoffs and insolvencies. Unless Angela Rayner gets her skates on there will be no one to design or build the homes she has promised

The London collapse in new housebuilding shown here is stark. The reason is largely the disaster that is the building safety regulator - which has processed about 20% of the applications it's been given in the last year.

I think this is an overlooked reason why some older people keep driving - they may be aware their eyesight is failing but they need the driving licence as ID.

Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day

This should be how we're building all new towns soon.

This is a really important point with government data - you can't just publish statistics that don't actually answer the question people are likely to want to ask ("Are immigrants more likely to commit crime?" in this instance) - you need to work that out *correctly* and publish it alongside.

The number of new house building registrations in the UK in 2025 Q2 was 4% higher than a low base a year ago according to NHBC (which covers around 70% of the house building sector) but... (1/n) #ukhousing #housing

I'm sceptical about some of the claims in this paper: - Pubs - have closed, but more than compensated by growing number of cafes and restaurants - Youth clubs - have closed, but from a very low base - Parks - not mentioned once in the paper! So is this really causing the rise of the far right?

Alerted by @thejogginggoth.bsky.social this is the horrowshow of lies that google's AI summary throws up if you search 'evicting council tenants for asylum seekers'. Sod 'the complex issue with legal and ethical considerations', it cannot be done. People have been searching for this in their area

Really DEFRA? Who do you set on writing these consultations???

Good to see this issue being raised. I don't think most people realise that councils can't/won't maintain the roads on many new housing estates, so the owners have to pay for it privately. This isn't fair, as they're paying the same council tax as everyone else, to maintain other roads.

While some children are packing for the summer holidays, thousands are packing up their lives into suitcases, again. We need action: 🏠 Build social homes 📈 Unfreeze Local Housing Allowance 🛠️ Support councils to get building

Good to see the Conservatives continuing their tradition of annual replacements of the Housing Secretary even in opposition - James Cleverly now announced as replacing Kevin Hollinrake as Shadow SoS for Housing. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It's a time of much change at The Housing Forum as our longstanding CEO, Shelagh Grant, retires at the end of the year.

We previously expressed concerns around proposals to use policy compliance to determine which applications go to committee, when this is rarely black and white. We are pleased to see that the Government has listened to these concerns and proposed criteria which look to be much more practical.

Good to hear recommendations to make water meters mandatory. It's crazy that we currently hold back much-needed new homes because of inadequate water supply, whilst allowing 40% of households to use as much water as they like unmetered www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4...

"THAT Group were approached for comment." There's often good reasons why developments stall after planning. But developers do need to get much better at explaining the issues to councils, MPs and local people.