With a General Election now imminent Sam Stafford thought that it might be interesting to try to compare what is being offered by the main political parties in relation to housing, planning and development with what the housing, planning and development sector would like to see being offered.

In a conversation recorded at Outset Studios in Shoreditch Sam speaks to new friends of the podcast Richard Blyth, Tony Mulhall, Marie Chadwick and Ian Fletcher, and old friend of the podcast Paul Brocklehurst, about the policy proposals that their respective organisations are promulgating.

Richard is Head of Policy & Practice at the RTPI; Tony is a Senior Specialist at RICS; Marie is Policy Leader at the NHF; Paul is Chair of the LPDF; and Ian is Director of Real Estate Policy at the BPF.

Sam invites them all to outline their respective manifestos and then they focused on two key areas that everybody agreed need to be addressed: the need to get more resources into LPAs and the need to reintroduce strategic planning whilst at the same time getting local plans moving again.

Towards the end of the episode Sam also asks Marie about the issue of RPs not bidding for S106 sites, which is a very live one at present.

Some accompanying reading.

Blue belt, grey belt, wild belt – the manifestos compared

https://lichfields.uk/blog/2024/june/20/blue-belt-grey-belt-wild-belt-the-manifestos-compared

RICS’ Land & Rural Manifesto overview

https://www.rics.org/news-insights/rics-uk-general-election-land-and-rural-manifesto-review

The BPF General Election Manifesto

https://bpf.org.uk/our-work/general-election-2024/

LPDF’s 10 Point Plan for a Step Change in Delivery

https://lpdf.co.uk/latest-lpdf-publications

RTPI’s Planifesto

https://www.rtpi.org.uk/new/our-campaigns/rtpi-planifesto-2024/

Some accompanying viewing.

NHF’s campaign for a Plan for Housing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmM3WLCjcwQ

Some accompanying listening.

Manifesto by Roxy Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjkVYOArUQM

50 Shades - T-Shirts!

If you have listened to Episode 45 of 50 Shades of Planning you will have heard Clive Betts say that...

'In the Netherlands planning is seen as part of the solution. In the UK, too often, planning is seen as part of the problem'.

Sam said in reply that that would look good on a t-shirt and it does. Further details can be found here: http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2021/07/50-shades-of-planning-t-shirts.html

Any other business.

Sam is on Bluesky (@samuelstafford.bsky.social) and Instagram (@samuel__stafford). His blog contains a link to his newsletter.