Blog
Short pieces on the housing shortage, the planning system, and how people can support well-designed schemes — without needing a campaign office.
How strategic allocations can sit in a Goldilocks zone that triggers expensive infrastructure without enough homes to fund it
There is a quiet form of sabotage in English planning that rarely makes the headlines. Allocate just enough homes to trigger a secondary school and a river crossing — but not enough to make that infrastructure viable. The arithmetic does the rest.
Read more →Fix the incentives and the rules together — or the shortage persists
Piecemeal tweaks leave perverse incentives intact. Here is a package that gives councils a stake in growth, clearer rules in the right places, viable obligations, and a realistic Green Belt and delivery model.
Read more →Why the system systematically favours constraint, delay and under-delivery — beyond the infrastructure-viability trap
English planning and local government finance are stacked with incentives that reward caution over delivery. Here are the most significant ones — and how they reinforce each other.
Read more →Why almost nobody writes in support of new homes — and how that can change
Across UK planning portals, comments in support of housing schemes are vanishingly rare. Organised opposition is not. Here is why that matters, and what ordinary people can do about it.
Read more →Homes. Infrastructure. Action.
Build On is a grassroots project to help people support well-designed housing and infrastructure through the planning system — with evidence, not noise.
Read more →