New director of city development for York

Businesses from all corners of the built environment sector are throwing their weight behind a campaign to pressure government into providing grant funding to solve the North’s viability crisis. Have you signed up yet? 

In its push to achieve housing targets, the government wants to lower the cost of CPOs – but will this well-trodden path be effective? Plus: the differing fortunes of speculative offices and data centres.

Published yesterday, the draft bill sets out Labour’s intention to unshackle the North’s towns and cities. While it has been widely welcomed, leaders across the North are wary of the ‘distraction’ local government reorganisation could cause.

Mayors will be handed a suite of new powers to allow more decisions on planning, housing, and transport to be made locally, while district councils are to be scrapped as part of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner’s plan to allow towns and cities outside London to “take back control”.

Property professionals across the North universally welcomed the revised National Planning Policy Framework, especially its changes to the Green Belt.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has stepped up its efforts to secure government backing for its redevelopment ambitions, with a public engagement phase triggered ahead of detailed planning.

Councils will have 12 weeks from today to ensure new local plans are up-to-date with the revised National Planning Policy Framework, which reintroduces mandatory housing targets, requires Green Belt reviews, and increases the number of years for which authorities must demonstrate a housing land supply.

Amongst the nine, four Leeds City Council staff members have been arrested on suspicion of bribery offences. 

Housing applications that comply with local plans could be decided by council planning officers rather than politicised committees according to proposals unveiled by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner yesterday.