Insights & Reports

The Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission's (BBBBC) report ‘Living with Beauty: Promoting Health, Wellbeing and Sustainable Growth’ was published last month.

The Housing Delivery Test (HDT) results for 2019 have been published by the Government with much excitement in the planning press and on social media.

All political parties have made it clear their commitment to increasing woodland cover in the UK. That comes as good news to the forestry sector and the large numbers of people and organisations who are interested in investing in this green industry.

The Greater Cambridge Sustainable Design and Construction Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) has been recently adopted by both South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council (Greater Cambridge Planning Services).

Oxford faces a record level of 1.1m sq ft of office space requirements going into the new decade.

Planning Inspectors have dealt a blow to St Albans City and District Council (SACDC) by cancelling the remaining Local Plan examination hearings after just one week of initial discussions.

The early days of the general election campaign saw several overdue announcements in support of science and technology research. But places like Cambridge and Oxford played a bit part in the national debate.

Does your school building project seem to be dragging on? Are you having meetings about meetings, and not seeing any progress?

Almost 25% of the UK’s population is over 65 and by 2050, this proportion will have grown to an estimated 37%. While we have ambitious carbon neutral targets for this date, the planning for the care and housing of over a third of the population remains an area short in policy detail. Is this a tenable position for the new government who received votes from an estimated 60% of the UK’s over 65 population?

Bidwells' Alison Wright and Jonathan Bainbridge reflect on the priorities and commitments set out in this week’s Spending Review and long-awaited National Infrastructure Strategy, and highlight what they mean for the planning and development sector.

In October 2019, Historic England (HE) published an advice note, which provides guidance on the assessment of heritage assets. In Bidwells' latest planning alert, Chris Surfleet and Steven Handforth sets out the advice note's key points and how this affects the decision-making process relating to heritage assets.

New PM Boris Johnson used his first speech outside No 10 to deliver an energetic new narrative around the UK economy. Those listening with an interest in Oxfordshire and science and technology will have sat up a number of times, writes Head of Oxford, Richard Todd.