By Michael Hardware, Associate Director, Chelgate Local – Essex Garden Villages This article was published as an opinion piece in PlacemakingResource on 22nd January. You can view it here (subscription needed). Essex may soon overtake Kent as the ‘Garden of England’, with numerous garden communities planned and new bids about to be announced. Several of Essex’s councils are taking an increasingly prominent role in the development of these new communities. Working collaboratively using garden city principles and an infrastructure-first approach, the new garden towns and villages are set to deliver significant numbers of new homes in communities in which people […]

Dominic Raab MP has today been confirmed as the new Minister for Housing. An up-and-coming MP who was part of the 2010 intake, Raab is thought of as veering towards the right wing of the party, and will be a controversial choice for some in the housing and planning sector due to his tough views on immigration. Raab becomes the 16th housing minister in just 20 years, and will work with the newly re-appointed Secretary of State Sajid Javid to keep Housing at the top of the Government’s agenda. Leaving his post as Minister of State at the Ministry of […]