Housing minister Grant Shapps has today pledged nearly £1bn of funding for councils that give planning permission for new housing development.
In the proposals for the New Homes Bonus, which are now open for public consultation, the government will match the council tax raised from new homes for the first six …

Communities secretary Eric Pickles acted unlawfully in unilaterally revoking the system of regional planning strategies in England, the High Court has found today.
The court has given its judgment in the judicial review brought by housebuilder Cala Homes against the revocation of regional planning. It found that the secretary of state …

The government is set to introduce a presumption in favour of viable development as part of its national planning framework, which is due to be published next year.
The rule will mean that, in areas lacking their own “neighbourhood plans” that have been put together by local communities, developments that are …

The administrators of property services firm Connaught believe the amount owed to unsecured creditors could be as much as £100m, the Financial Times reports.
KPMG believed that the social housing maintenance arm of Connaught owed £46m, in addition to £22m owed to HRMC.
But 50,000 invoices have been discovered that had not …

Communities secretary Eric Pickles has offered local authorities £55m over the next five years as part of a bid to encourage more localism in the planning system.
In a letter to councils, sent after yesterday’s Spending Review, Pickles gave details of how various grants would be distributed over the next five …

The country is bracing itself for £83bn of public sector spending cuts that chancellor George Osborne is due to set out this lunchtime.
Today, Osborne is going to announce the results of the Treasury’s comprehensive spending review, which the government expects to lead to the loss of 490,000 public sector jobs …

John Rowan & Partners head of affordable housing Mash Halai and A2Dominion regional development manager explain how to use renewable energy technology in affordable housing schemes:

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The Strata Tower in Elephant and Castle (pictured below) – which is the first building to ever include wind turbines as an integral part of …

The government is expected to give the go ahead to up to 26 of the 56 local partnerships that are due to replace regional development agencies.
Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Greater Birmingham are three of the local enterprise partnerships that the government is expected to approve.
These groups will be given powers …

Housing minister Grant Shapps has today announced that local authorities will be given freedom to spend council housing revenues as they want, rather than handing them back to central government.
Under proposals set to be introduced in the forthcoming localism bill, the government will remove the obligation to pay council house …

Pat Ritchie has today been appointed as interim chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).
Ritchie is the HCA’s current director for the north-east and will take over from Sir Bob Kerslake as chief executive on 1 November.
Kerslake is moving to the Department for Communities and Local Government, where …