Housing Focus
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Features
A vision for 150,000 homes but no water to supply them. Does Gove’s Cambridge plan stand a chance?
The housing secretary wants to build nearly three times as many homes as the target set by Cambridge’s own planners. Is there something he knows that they don’t? Daniel Gayne reports
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Features
Rise of housebuilding ‘superleague’ predicted in wake of Barratt’s deal for Redrow as analysts brush off regulatory worries
Yesterday’s £2.5bn move has analysts wondering who might be next to join forces – and reduce risk of being picked off themselves
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Features
‘The figures on starts are terrifying’. What’s really happening to the £11bn Affordable Homes Programme
The government has admitted that it will not hit its development targets. Joey Gardiner asks what’s really going on and looks at how the situation can turn around
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Features
Gove and Khan’s row over London’s housing delivery numbers explained
How the mayor’s spatial development strategy become the centre of a spat in this year of multiple elections
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Features
How and why Stewart Milne collapsed: analysing the numbers
The collapse of the well-known Scottish housebuilder has shocked many within the housing sector. As Daniel Gayne finds out, the firm’s balance sheets over the past few years provide some clues as to what went wrong
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Features
Will biodiversity rules prove a net gain for the housebuilding sector?
From this month, all developments will have to show how they increase biodiversity by 10%. Joey Gardiner examines what the policy means
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Features
Top 50 Housebuilders 2023: The calm before the storm
Despite a year of turbulence in the housing sector, the year’s Top 50 rankings largely record the growth period seen before Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini Budget imploded the market last year. Joey Gardiner sees what the numbers say about who’s up and who’s down
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Features
What happens to development plans when a council goes ‘bankrupt’?
When a section 114 ‘bankruptcy’ notice is put in place, a council’s non-statutory services are restricted and housebuilding ‘goes to the back of the queue’. Yet the growing number of councils in this situation are finding ways to carry on building
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Features
Revealed: average salaries for leadership roles at largest 50 housebuilders
A new survey reveals the locations and job titles within the industry that command the most impressive wages and bonuses. Matilda Battersby reports.
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Features
UK housebuilding recession: How much worse is it going to get?
With little prospect of a rapid reduction in interest rates to spur a recovery, many in the industry are now just looking to “survive until ’25”. Joey Gardiner looks at the prospects for residential developers doing so.
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Features
Can the 16th housing minister in 13 years make a difference before the election?
The past nine housing ministers have come and gone in the time it takes to get a large project to site, says Joey Gardiner. So what are the chances that the latest incumbent in the role can do what is required to pick the industry up off the floor?
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Features
Key takeaways from the Conservative Party conference
This party conference will long be remembered as the place HS2 died. But rail was far from the only topic on the agenda in Manchester, as Daniel Gayne reports
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Features
Will Gove’s latest local plan reforms have a positive impact on delivery?
Matilda Battersby talks to industry players about the local aspect of the housing secretary’s long term strategy, and what it might mean.
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Features
Long process: How compliance with the new products code will be verified
The CPI has been set up to verify manufacturers’ compliance with the Code for Construction Products Information. Chief executive Amanda Long explains how she intends to scale up its activity
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Features
Remember when we had a chief construction adviser? Paul Morrell reflects on his time in the role
In the second part of our interview, veteran industry heavyweight Paul Morrell describes his time in Whitehall and considers whether we need a similar role again.
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Features
What went wrong for Ilke Homes?
Following the collapse of the Knaresborough-based business lauded as a pioneer of modular construction, Matilda Battersby asks the experts what happened and how other businesses in the space can avoid a similar fate
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Features
Lord Kerslake: our 2008 interview with Britain’s busiest man
We are republishing this interview after the news of Bob Kerslake’s death. The interview took place as he was taking the helm of the Homes and Communities Agency in 2008.
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Features
Time for ministers to enforce boardroom diversity? Meet Lara Oyedele
Have we reached the point where diversity needs to be enforced through regulation? The CIH president thinks so
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Features
Sandbach saga: meet the housebuilder standing up to Michael Gove
In the latest example of the housing secretary intervening in planning on design grounds, we talk to Colin Muller of Muller Property Group, about the Sandbach development in Cheshire East which has been called in