Welcome to our May issue of Planning Ahead. We hope you all enjoyed the Coronation Bank Holiday weekend. This is our post-election edition. With all the major changes arising from the local elections, we have augmented our elections page with the results, changes of power and councillor numbers. This covers our operating areas: the Home Counties, East Anglia, and the Midlands area. Further analysis has been provided for certain councils. This month, we also have articles that delve into a national perspective of the local elections; an article on the most recent developments and scrutiny over the NPPF reforms; […]

  Welcome to our April issue of Planning Ahead. We trust you had an enjoyable Easter break. This is our pre-election edition. This year, for the first time, we have uploaded a list of all the councils up for election in our operating area: London, the Home Counties, East Anglia, and the south and east Midlands. This includes what elections are taking place, the current administration and the existing balance of power. It also includes some predictions. You can view these here. Other predictions will be uploaded in the coming weeks. If you would like to see more detailed predictions […]

  Welcome to our March newsletter, marking hopefully the start of spring. In this issue we look at: the new Housing Minister, Rachel Maclean, and peoples reactions to this; the Westminster debate on updating green belt regulation; the Conservative Councillors Association Local Government Conference and their special guests. We have a political update, our usual local plan update and some comment from us.   New Housing Minster – Rachel Maclean Rachel Maclean has been confirmed as the new Housing Minister. This was due to Lucy Frazer being promoted during Rishi Sunak’s department shake-up on February 7. Maclean becomes the sixth […]

  International PR firm, Chelgate Ltd , today announced that it will give a one-off £1,000 cost-of-living crisis bonus to every employee on their staff in their September pay packets.   The Consultancy’s Executive Chairman Terence Fane-Saunders explained : “ These are horribly difficult times, and with the arrival of autumn, and heating bills soaring, things will grow even more difficult. We realise that we can’t solve this Government’s problems, nor wholly protect our staff from the grim times the whole country- in fact, most of the world – is facing, but we have a committed and hard-working team at […]

  This month we have four articles looking at this week’s local elections, levelling up, planning gain reform and the current shape of the local plan system. We also have our local plan updates and an invitation to a seminar on Housing Policy and Older People. Please do feel free to get in touch and share your thoughts.   2022 Local Elections It is that time of year again By Michael Hardware, Director of Planning and Property It is that time of year again: tomorrow sees a plethora of district, borough, city and parish elections, together with all the London […]