How should London tackle its housing shortage?
The unrelenting climb in property prices and lack of affordability in the market has led to consensus amongst the public and policy makers that the UK is in the midst of a housing crisis. Average house price to median income ratio is a common measure of affordability in the property market and shows that rises […]
Impact of the Night Tube on London’s Night Time Economy
The team at Volterra produced the figures which underpinned Transport for London and London First’s report on the impact of the Night Tube on the night time economy in London. The findings indicated that the Night Tube will support 1,965 permanent jobs in the night time economy, and that there could be time savings of […]
More ideas like HS3 are needed to solve our regional problems
In London and much of the South East, the recovery has been well under way for a considerable time. House prices boom and restaurants are packed. The economic data for the UK as a whole looks just as encouraging, with employment being at its highest ever level. Yet there are persistent complaints that the recovery […]
Paul Buchanan speaks at the RTPI 2014 Planning Convention
Paul’s central argument is that economic growth is coming primarily from cities. We have been witnessing this trend for the last 50 years and it looks as if it will continue. The dominance of cities is increasing in population terms and even more so economically. The planning industry needs to be thinking about how they […]
Frangleterre… Labour Mobility undermines Tax and Spend regimes
Pimlico Plumbers will be a familiar brand to many readers – it has a prominent advert on the approach into Waterloo station. But the company is now calling for plumbers who are fluent in both English and French, and says applicants will be interviewed by a native French speaker. This is just the tip of […]
‘Re-inventing’ London: Planning for the Future
London is changing. But then, it always is. The theme of my new book, ‘Reinventing London’ is that change is the lifeblood of a great city. Over the past thirty years it has replaced around 1 million jobs in manufacturing, largely around the edge of the city and along the radial routes, with more than […]
Should London be an Independent City State?
Forget Scottish independence – in his blog for the Guardian this week Larry Elliot suggests that it is London that should devolve – a move he says that would bring an economic boost to the rest of the UK. He quotes some findings from our own Paul Ormerod about changes in unemployment at the local […]
No free lunch. Defaults today mean less jam tomorrow
Potential defaults in the Euro zone have been in the news again. In Portugal, the ruling coalition parties and the main opposition Socialists have been unable to agree on a European Union-led bailout plan after days of talks. Yields on the country’s 10 year bonds have approached 7 per cent, compared to the 1.5 per cent in […]
A wake-up call for the Department of Transport: do the proper sums, HS2 is worth it
The High Speed 2 rail project is under fire on many fronts. The Nimby protests in the affluent Home Counties have been augmented last week by more weighty criticism by the National Audit Office (NAO) of the scheme. At least, this is how the NAO’s work has come across in the media. But the NAO […]
Networks, the North and Prosperity
What can be done about the North? The gap between London and the South East grows and grows. The response of many in the political class in the North is the dispiriting whinge of entitlement. The Leader of Newcastle Council has recently attracted national publicity for his decision to cut all arts funding in the […]
