Housing, Homelessness and the Politics of Place

In this episode of Planning After Dark, Jackie Sadek and Catriona Riddell are joined by housing and regeneration experts Rose Grayston and Jack Shaw for a wide-ranging discussion about the future of housing, planning and devolution.

Recorded during a day of significant political change, the panel reflects on the progress made under Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook, including planning reform, renters’ rights, social housing legislation and efforts to strengthen the role of local government. They consider why political continuity, experienced leadership and meaningful engagement with delivery partners will be essential if an ambitious programme of reform is to translate into homes and regeneration on the ground.

The conversation explores the urgent need to increase council and social housing, alongside the financial, structural and capacity barriers facing local authorities. Rose argues that solving the housing crisis will require the sector to use every available delivery mechanism rather than relying on a single traditional model of council housebuilding. This partnership-based approach is explored further in her Red Brick article, https://redbrickblog.co.uk/2026/05/how-to-increase-housing-supply-use-every-tool-in-the-box/

The guests also examine viability challenges, spatial development strategies and the risks posed by local government reorganisation. Jackie highlights the potential for spatial development strategies to provide long-term certainty, attract investment and connect housing growth with infrastructure and economic development. Her argument is developed further in the Estates Gazette article, https://www.estatesgazette.co.uk/news/why-spatial-development-strategies-should-be-a-kick-up-the-arse-for-the-economy/ .

A major focus of the episode is the ambition to end rough sleeping. Drawing on lessons from Greater Manchester and councils across the country, the panel discusses temporary accommodation, prison release, domestic abuse, support services and the need for coordinated action across Whitehall. They argue that homelessness cannot be solved through housing policy alone, but requires sustained investment, stronger public services and collaboration across government.

Rose also introduces the concept of “decline porn”, highly pessimistic and sometimes AI-generated portrayals of British towns and cities that use visible homelessness, tents and deteriorating public spaces as symbols of wider social collapse. The political significance of this emerging online trend is examined further in Prospect’s article, https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/conservatives/conservatives-and-the-british-right/73780/anglofuturism-and-decline-porn-the-brave-new-worlds-of-the-right.

The episode concludes with calls for more ambitious place-based regeneration, stronger development corporations, better engagement with councils and delivery partners, and greater sharing of successful approaches between places.

As always, the discussion is candid, informed and occasionally interrupted by breaking political news. It is part planning masterclass, part political therapy session and entirely unfiltered.

Get in touch! Message us at ask@planningafterdark.co.uk

Planning After Dark is the bold and insightful podcast where three powerhouse women in planning and development - Alex Notay, Catriona Riddell, and Jackie Sadek - shine a light on the industry’s biggest challenges, trends, and, yes, even a bit of behind-the-scenes gossip.

From navigating the complexities of development to debating the future of our cities, Planning After Dark is the no-holds-barred discussion you won’t want to miss.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Planning After Dark is powered by Kratos Group, the consultancy that lives and breathes local government. Whether it's regeneration, housing delivery, or political strategy, Kratos helps councils and partners shape the future. Learn more at Kratos.co.uk. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to yet another edition of Planning After Dark, the uh the must-listen to pad pod uh that seems to have this wonderful niche following amongst uh planners, uh fellow travellers of planners. We're going to meet a couple of those today, um, built environment professionals and even planning lawyers, uh, as long as Katrina doesn't keep slagging them off. My name is Jackie Sadek, and I am joined by Katrina Ridale and Rose Grayston. And Jack Shaw. And Rose and Jack are our star guests today. I ought to say at this point in the game that um those who listen carefully to the pad pod will realise that one of the regular numbers is missing. Uh Ms. Notte, sometimes known as that housing woman, uh, has got the toxic combination of a very onerous day job and childcare responsibilities over the summer holidays. So we've uh we've had to uh allow her to send apologies for this afternoon. But she is here in spirit and she will be listening avidly, as we all know. And you join us on a very we're doing this on a very odd day because of course today we're when we're recording is Monday the 20th of July and we're recording in the afternoon, and we still, although we know who the new Prime Minister is, we do not know who the top team are, so we're in a bit of a strange situation. Uh so what we wanted to do was do a bit of a review over the last of the last couple of years, where we've got to, where we're going to go to, and try not to conjecture too much, even though we all keep having to check our mobile phones. So forgive us for that. So let's start with you, Rose. What are you doing at the moment? How are you earning a crust, darling?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So I'm an associate fellow for IPPR, and I'm also doing some other work as a consultant for New Economics Foundation and others, looking at what is this thing we call social housing, what is council housing, how should we be taking it forward? Uh, looking at all of the issues that I looked at while I was in government working for Matthew Pennycook and how to do that.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Oh, you were a SPAD, weren't you?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I was an expert advisor, definitely not a SPAD, not a civil servant. Um, so you know, in government you're you're constantly firefighting, you're dealing with today's bin fire. Since I left in October, I've had the opportunity to sit back and think about all of these issues that we never had time to work through on that day-to-day basis. So, fiscal rules, for example, how what are the implications of the new fiscal rules for council housing and social housing, all of that fun stuff.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

So you can't mention bins, by the way, but uh just to say you are now able to breathe a little bit and decompress after having been in government because I know I know how hard you worked in there, and you're now having a big old think about policy and right. Well, we'll get into some of the some of that as we go along. It's been really fun. Oh, fabulous. And Jack, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Well, I have a very different experience uh to Rose. So I run a research consultancy called Groundwork Research. We specialise in working with local government and uh devolved authorities, but for this purpose you're probably more interested that I'm chair of an organisation called the Labour Housing Group, and we work as closely as we can with uh policymakers uh on housing policy but for a progressive lens.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

And is it true to say that neither of you are actually town planners? That's what we have you for.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Very true.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Well, I'm not just you are the experts. Guys, you are my reinforcements. I'm normally surrounded by the buggers, so I'm very happy to see you two.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

I'm not even really a true planner, I don't know any of the development management law or anything like that. People quote sections and acts at me all over the place. I haven't got a clue what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Get out of it. So, Katrina, tell us how should we structure today's discussion given that we don't know a huge amount about the stuff going forward? We need to have a bit of a kind of review of what's gone down and work out where we should be going. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_04 4:10

Yeah, absolutely. And I think um we were intending to well, we still will review sort of what's happened over the last two years and sort of the lead up to July, 4th of July 2024. You know, what successes have we had in housing and policy particularly? Um, and then a little bit of uh, as you say, it's a very strange day because we don't know who the bosses are gonna be, we don't know whether Matthew Pennycook will still be in post. So we're avidly waiting on some announcements. Um, but we will have a little bit of a uh I guess sky gazing session around what we think's gonna happen, what Andy Burnham might bring to the table, um and we've got two of probably the best people to talk about the housing agenda more than anything else, and devolution and everything else sitting right next to us. So we're gonna squeeze everything out of them that we can possibly can. Before we start though, I mean I I think we this may be Math Matthew Pennycook's last um sort of day. He sort of um made his final sort of announcements under the sort of before summer recess on Friday. He has been uh arguably one of the best planning and housing ministers we've had for a very, very long time. Um and I think we should pay tribute to him. He might not be in post, but LinkedIn on Friday there was a an absolute outpouring in terms of uh not just what he's brought to the role but being consistent. He was in post before in the shadow team with Angela um and he had Rose brilliantly um helping him in not a spAD role but in an expert advisory role. Um and you know he said 48 written ministerial statements. I heard um recently that by the 29th of October um he will be, if he's still in post, he will be the longest serving minister in that role for 16 years. I think Grant Shaps currently holds the record, but by nine by 29th of October, if Matthew's still there, he will be the longest serving. And that's really important because there's a massive planning and housing reform agenda going forward, and we're still in the middle of it, and we need that consistency. We need people in charge that actually know what they're talking about, and he's built up a huge amount of experience in in that role over the last few years.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

I mean he's measured, he's considered, he's nuanced, he works uh tirelessly. I, for one, will be absolutely gutted if he's not still in post tomorrow. I will be absolutely gutted.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

He's also extraordinarily passionate. This is the thing, his work ethic is incredible. He really knows his stuff because he really cares about this stuff. It's deep in his heart. Um, so you know, if he's not in the housing minister role, I'm sure that he won't be out of government for very long. I'm sure he'll come into a different role. But it's housing that he specifically wanted to do. He asked for that job. It wasn't gone into his lap. He's incredibly clever, he's incredibly switched on. You you mentioned the number of written ministerial statements we've got through. Just look at the legislation as well. Yeah. We've had the Renters Rights Act, we've got leasehold and common hold, we've got a Social Housing Act, we've got the Planning Infrastructure Act. Like we've we've got so much. I mean, the amount that he's managed to get through, and of course he's had brilliant secretaries of state ahead of him, but they have both relied really heavily on Matt because they know that he knows his stuff and he's going to make them look good.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

And as a policy professional, um, it's been much easier to work with someone that knows how planning policy works. Also, really difficult to influence someone like that because you you can't pull the wall over their eyes. But my one reflection on on Matt is I hope he will forgive me that at Labour conference last year he very kindly came and spoke and in conversation uh with us at the Labor Housing Group, and I chaired it, and uh he spoke for five or ten minutes, and I had only prepared one or two questions, and so I had I had left the crowd with 45 minutes of questions for him, and and he he managed to get through it, but I uh I hope he can forgive me for that.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

That was a bit harsh. It was a bit harsh. Well, I have to say, I'm the greatest fan, and I think if we lose him, I think the the sector will be devastated, and uh I was just I was listening to another another podcast.

SPEAKER_04 8:18

Um and they were talking about the Renters' Rights Act, they were talking about uh Keir Starmer's first two years, and they were talking about the legislation that had made a difference, and and one of them said, you know, the Renters' Rights Act is probably one of the bits of legislation that will impact on people for decades to come, and it was probably one of the best bits of legislation. And I know that wasn't easy to get through, but it is uh fundamental to the point you're making, Rose, about him being passionate about housing and making and and trying to solve the housing crisis.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

One in four. Yeah, one in four households with children now lives in the private rented sector. Um, that's up from 10% just 20 years ago. And of course, Matt sees that as a constituency MP in London. Yeah, the shape of the private rented sector, who it's housing, has changed so much that we need that greater level of security, and that's what he's delivered.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah. Well, I have nothing particular to add on the on the specifics of the housing, but just on the devolution side where we're thinking about wider place based regeneration. I think Matt actually has been really helpful in the department as well when you're thinking about Maryland Development Corporations and homelessness in particular, and they're not his portfolios, but how do they intersect with the work that he's been engaged with, and I think he's been really valuable there as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Well, we'll get on to homelessness in a bit because that's the one announcement that we have actually had today. Uh but let's just go over. I mean, are we happy enough with I mean, I'm a great believer in if it if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I, you know, I would have thought that the phenomenal uh the phenomenal kind of direction of travel that's been established over the last two years, we need to see more of that, don't we?

SPEAKER_04 9:56

Absolutely. Um as I said, we're right in the middle, the legislation may be in place for a lot of this, but we've got a very long journey ahead of us actually implementing that, and you know, we've got a lot of noise as well in terms of local government restructure and the devolution landscape is changing constantly. So there's a lot of things happening that we have to sit above to try and get the sort of the planning and housing reforms through, and we've got you know, we've got not got whole-scale and universal agreement around some of the stuff around viability and things like that. There's still some battlegrounds, I think, uh ahead of us, and we need a minister that understands that.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

And Rose, you understand quite a lot about viability, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 10:37

That was my first ever campaign for shelter. If you've heard of the viability loophole, wow. That was that was uh me and my colleagues in shelter that came up with it. Civil servants hated us. They said it's not a loophole. Technically, it's not a loophole. We said, Well, the media agree it's a loophole. The sun now thinks it's a loophole, so it's a loophole. How long ago was that then? That was nine years ago. Thank God for you.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Thank God for you doing that. That is fantastic, isn't it? It really is fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

But I mean, I'm not sure it worked. It worked for a bit. We did we managed to close the viability loophole and we saw affordable housing levels treble on large schemes for a bit, and then of course the market has turned, and because affordable housing is the bit of our planning system that's infinitely negotiable when everything else goes wrong, goes belly up, when market demand goes sour, when you have regulation, I'm sure we'll come back to this, that's been introduced in a way that's brought a lot of uncertainty in, that's brought a lot of reactivity. You can't choose as a developer not to comply with building safety regulation, and you can't not build the road, but you can technically build that scheme without social housing. So because we've we've still got social housing as the negotiable bit of a scheme, we have now, I think, seen the clock turn back on viability.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Listen, the fact the fact that you've got it up at all, I think you take the credit for that in the first place. I mean, you know, absolutely, we all know about the vicissitudes of what's happened recently and why things have ch things have shifted. But I mean, you know, take the credit for the upswing in the first place. So, can we get into the whole business of spatial development strategies and what's going to happen on all of that front? Because um I ventured so much as to um write a piece for the Estates Gazette last week to say I was deeply worried that the spatial development strategies wouldn't be followed through. Was that was that fair?

SPEAKER_04 12:20

I love the title of that. If you haven't seen it, um it was um Spatial Development Strategies to Kick Up the Backside for Growth That We Need or something.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Rather worse than that. Was it kick up the R secondary? Kick up the R, sorry. I was trying to report.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Are we allowed to swear on this?

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Yeah, uh well uh I in moderation. Soft and when it's in context, as you understand.

SPEAKER_04 12:41

But yeah, so I mean I I I don't know where we go with all of this. I mean, because um obviously spatial development strategies when when you know working with Matthew Penny Cook in the lead-up to the election with with Rose, you know, this was sold as a spatial investment framework, and that was the bit that got the mayors interested, and it it and it's it's frankly it's what got the politicians interested because they didn't see it as a big local plan. But Andy's experience in Manchester is of a big joint local plan. You know, he didn't um implement the spatial development strategy uh powers that he had, he left it to the local authorities, and you know that ended up 11 years in a massive fun fight. They got there in the end. Southport dropped out at the last minute, um, but they got there in the end, but it took an awful long time. Um so I'm hoping he won't he will actually grasp the nettle on this because I I agree with you, it is the arse. Okay, the kick up the arse that that we the is the arse is the kick up the arse we need because if we do sell them and do them as spatial investment frameworks, um it it it has the power to do so much, but we are we're just I'm I'm really worried we'll lose that if we've got a minister that doesn't get it.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Well, and it's not not that we just don't get have a minister that doesn't get it, we possibly would have a minister that doesn't get it. Treasury doesn't get it. Yeah. And and why doesn't Treasury get it? I I don't really understand this because of course it is about inward investment. And I I do all this work with inward investors all the time, and you know, I it's it's all about giving the private sector certainty. And it isn't only that Greater Manchester just ended up with a big local plan, the London plan is just a big local plan, isn't it? Now, weren't you, Jack?

SPEAKER_01 14:20

I'm gonna out you now, weren't you a London councillor? I was, I was a councillor in the London Borough of Barkin and Dagnham. I know Darren Rodwell gets uh a mention on this podcast. You've got time to love if you've got to from some, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Keep them off the streets, you know. We'll get on to keeping people off the streets in a bit, but you know, Darren's one person we that we like to do. Oh, I like what you did there. I like what you did there.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

I spent three years on the planning committee in uh Barkin and Dagnham. I uh I think I pay it played a very small role in in the London plan because I was consistently complaining about uh developments that we were approving that had significant amounts of um cycling storage, very supportive of active travel, but a huge amount of cycling storage, which was meaning that on the ground floor we basically had just bin spaces and cycling storage spaces. And I was saying, well, we could build more accessible homes, we could have a better streetscape. And I once tasked my my colleagues at the time at B First to review the the new developments and the use of cycling storage, and and there wasn't much appetite to do it. Oh, I'd love to put a bit of fly on the wall for that. I think it was very small. So I'm I'm pleased to see that uh earlier iteration of the London plan started thinking about cycling storage in particular. But yeah, I spent three years on uh on Barking and Dagenham's planning committee.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

Um first job I ever applied for, Dark Barking Play. Was it in Barking and Dagenham and Dagenham? Ah back in the days. But I didn't they got an interview and then they pulled the job because it was um during the recession in the 90s and uh there was no money. So it sliding doors moment, I could have been embarrassed.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Well, I'm I'm going to credit Jack with a massive um massive amount of credit for the upswing in social housing in Barking and Dagenham. Both our guests can take credit for an upswing in social housing. You have it, bank it away. Have it. Um we're not there yet. We've got a long way to go. I I know. Well, and and I have to say, Council housing coming up yet. Exactly. We'll get on to council housing in a bit, right? So let's look well, let's get on to it now. I mean, so this has been one of my central theses, I think, ever since Peter Bill and I wrote a book about housing crisis, was because we'd looked at the problem backwards, sideways, forwards, and at the end of the day, and I remember Toby Lloyd being on um news night and actually saying this, uh at the end of the day, you know, the last time we didn't have a housing crisis was when we still had wholesale provision of council housing. Um, and I I think one of the things I have been cheering about about Andy Burnham's uh stated policies is that he is in that space now. Rose, there's a bit of a kind of gap between saying it and delivering it, isn't there?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Absolutely. It's you know, we've had really low levels of social rent delivery in particular for for a long time. Um and I think it is gonna take time to get back up to the levels that we saw in the immediate post-war years. There's been a lot of speculation about what Andy Burnham meant by his statement of getting to the highest levels of council house building since the post-war period. To my mind, that's that's fairly easy to interpret. I think it means since the right to buy. I think if we got back to a place where you're building 60,000 homes that, let you know, let's say they're social rent homes delivered by councils, housing associations, partnerships between the two, perhaps community-led housing as well, whatever is going to work to meet public policy objectives, right? So it's councils that have the responsibility for homelessness. They know what housing need looks like locally, they need to be in the driving seat about what that housing looks like. But I don't think that they necessarily need to be doing all of the delivery, management, ownership, investing themselves. I think we now live in a world where we need a partnership approach. That's what's going to get the numbers up quickly, that's what's going to meet the needs. And we need to work out what that means. Because it's not about just doing it the way we did in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s. We live in a different world and we can do it better and faster if we embrace that.

SPEAKER_04 18:15

Oh good girl, I'm cheering now. Yeah, she wrote a brilliant, Rose wrote a brilliant uh blog for um Redbrick um recently about this if we're going to solve the housing crisis.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Well worth a look. We'll put the link onto the website definitely. Very, very good. So that's right, isn't it, Jack? It's not but it's gonna take more than just waving your arms around, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean I interpreted uh what Andy said in a different way. I thought he was using council housing as a a rhetorical device, a linguistic device, but what he meant was submarket rent or sociable or affordable in some other capacity.

SPEAKER_04 18:47

So you don't think there was anything in the fact he said council housing?

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Well, I I I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure. I think now it has become clearer that he does mean council housing. Um it wasn't initially clear to me at at the start. I would agree with with Rose. I think we're seeing some some wider changes though that are interesting. There is going to be a higher proportion of councils that are uh going to be stock-owning councils because many of them are uh emerging. So uh maybe some of them have got a bit more of a a head start, but some of the fundamentals in terms of their financial challenges uh are still the same. And I I agree with Rose that the world has moved on slightly a bit. If you look at every London authority now, almost all of them have got regeneration vehicles, they are working in part in partnership with the private sector, and I think that's much more the approach that they are taking. I guess the other point is some of this is slightly in how you measure uh some of the building as well. So there's a point about how we count these things. And then one thing I think that's different between now and what we saw in the 1950s and 60s and 70s, which we don't often uh appreciate, is uh Dame Evelyn Sharp, she was the first permanent secretary of MHGLG in the 1950s, she wrote this fantastic book about the department, you should read it. You have to be quite sad, you have to find the you have to find the book on eBay, really. I just wrote it down until sad I think.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Holiday reads, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

But she talks very much about the political culture around house building and how conservative and Labour politicians were vying for we'll build 400,000, no, we'll build 500,000 homes a year. And I think the political culture uh in recent years has really kind of settled on a figure that they think is a maximum, but they don't want to kind of progress beyond that. And I think we've lost a bit of that ambitious, boosteress political culture, and maybe Andy Burnham will also bring some of that back as well.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

We're not so keen on the numerical targets on this pad pod, are we, Katrina? We're not no?

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Can I just pick up on something that Jack said there? So this isn't isn't always understood. Just under half of councils own no homes at all, and they are overwhelmingly concentrated in the north and the midlands. So when we talk about council housing everywhere, that realistically cannot mean only the HRA, the housing revenue account, the traditional model of council housing. And as Jack says, local government reorganisation will help with some of that, because as councils merge, then if one of them has a housing revenue account, that then becomes available to the whole area. Matthew Pennycook, thank you, Matt. He also did some important changes here where councils can now own up to a thousand homes without a housing revenue account. So there's stuff that we can do under that model, but if we want to build these homes everywhere, if we want to start properly meeting the need of people that can't afford a market rent, then we are going to need to look at those partnership approaches as well, where councils are in the driving seat, but they're working with every bit of capacity we have, because we don't have any time to waste. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

We've been pushing for a number 10 delivery unit on housing, and I think I think we ought to put you in charge of it, Rose. I'm I'm just listening to this. And the other thing strikes me just listening to the Listening to both of you talking is that there are parts of the country where this would be relatively easy to do. As you say, there's I mean, you know, Central Bedfordshire, for instance, owns shedloads of land. But I don't suppose many London boroughs can say that.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I mean, you know, you I think you'd be surprised. I would. I uh clearly they don't own big parcels of of land. But I do think that local authorities, as a general rule of thumb, don't quite appreciate the assets that they do have and are certainly not much of a lot of people. Well you mean they don't know what they own. Quite. Yeah, some of them don't know what they own. Yeah, and that's not going to get you hundreds of units on individual sites, but being a bit creative, that will help you get additional um homes built.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

You're not allowed to use the word units, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

I almost I almost said units, that's why I paused.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

I would have banned the word units from government, not allowed to say the word units.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Pragmatic and you can always know when you're sitting with with with ghastly real estate consultants because they always talk about units and dwellings and rabbits. Listen, mate, a child yield. I mean, how Nazi is that absorption. I mean, it's just awful.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

But I mean, I think that there's um there's the brilliant work that um uh uh Ben Clifford and and Janice Morpha have done over the last few years monitoring sort of local authorities' involvement in housing in various different ways. And you know, for them they've they've demonstrated time and time again about 90% of councils are involved in some way, they may not own any stock. But uh Toby Fox also has that campaign, 1.5 million new homes, and he's been doing some really interesting work with a lot of councils looking at what they are doing in terms of local housing companies and things like that. My real worry is that in the areas he's been looking at, they are all going through local government restructuring, and that's gonna take you know, we know that's gonna be two, three, four, five years before all of that beds down. Um, so what happens in the meantime? They're not gonna have the headspace, the time to actually take these forwards. My worry is they all get sold off because they're going through that process as sort of a um a fire sale of assets. Um, you know, so there's um I'm a bit worried about the short term in terms of what happens for the 50% of the country that's going through LGR.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

I mean the government's been really clear that you shouldn't be selling off as as many assets as you've got, but some councils are um doing that. I think from a different lens. I've spoken to local authorities that have said we're not really going to do anything about temporary accommodation because hey, we're merging with council next door that's got loads of stock. And so I think you're right that local government reorganisation is meaning that people can kind of push decisions down the road. And then just on the regeneration vehicles, I I've never quite understood why every local authority, particularly in London, has one. I'd like to see some of them merge their regeneration vehicles because I don't think they're sustainable in the long term.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

You're a very wise man.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

Just had some some news through.

unknown 24:50

Come on.

SPEAKER_04 24:51

Uh Steve Reed's been sacked.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Well, build baby build.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

We're all absolutely in tears about that, aren't we? Yep, Tis said she makes no apology for her loyalty to Starmer in a letter to Burnham. Well, fair enough, frankly.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

I'm a great fan of Keir Starmer, if I'm going to be honest. You know, I thought I think I thought he did a stunking job.

SPEAKER_04 25:11

If you could merge the two of them, we'd have the best Prime Minister ever, wouldn't we?

SPEAKER_02 25:15

And I have to say, as not a member of the Labour Party, and I appreciate I'm in a minority here, you know, if the Labor Party now, if Labor members of Parliament in particular can't knuckle down and show a bit of discipline, I mean the game is up, isn't it, really? You know, so not been great, not been the finest hour of the Labour Party, this, has it really?

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Isn't it good that none of us know who any of the appointments are actually that is actually a a sign of culture change?

SPEAKER_04 25:40

Yes, I grew up. That's so true. Yeah, that is true. And there's not been I expected to see like the Sunday Times with a big list of who's gonna get the jobs because it'd all been leaked to them directly, and that's I think that's great. And there's a sort of a respect for the process, isn't it? He's always said, Dandy Burnham said, you know, I've not been appointed PM till Monday, I've got to see the king. There's sort of due process, I'm not in that position, and I think that's that's good, that's credible, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 26:04

I I agree, I agree. I think Rose puts it very well. I think it's that's it's great, a real culture change.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

It's also really annoying because it'd be lovely to be sitting here with you two as insiders to tell us who's gonna be the judge.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

But I ought to say to listeners, we do book these things some months and apart. So we didn't know there was gonna be a change of Prime Minister today, so we haven't done this on purpose, but it is a shame, I have to say. So let's get on to the big policy area that we know that Andy Burnham has announced, and that is his wish uh to end homelessness. Now, you know, God knows we're all cheering about that. How you do it? I mean, let's do let's let's try and unpick that a bit. Jack, you're a big old expert in T TA temporary accommodation, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Well, you could say that. Um I've just said it. Yes, we did indeed just say it. It's no fact, if there's no fact. That'll be on the Twitter bio. Well, Andy specifically said rough sleeping rather than temporary accommodation. Um I do think there is a and I think this is one of the weaknesses of the politics of house building that we've seen over the last two years, that it hasn't been human enough and it hasn't focused on temporary accommodation and homelessness that's really visible, i.e., the rough sleeping. So I think that's a a sensible approach. Um he has experience of that in Greater Manchester.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

That that meaning ending rough sleeping.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Ending rough sleeping, yes. So he had a bed every night programme that he introduced um at the start of his tenure as a mayor. That had seen some really good downward trajectory, but over the last couple of years those rough sleeping figures have started to increase. And so I think that just shows you how you really need to be on the ball and consistently aggressively kind of stay on top of the other.

SPEAKER_04 27:44

Is that because more people are sleeping rough, or is it because the policies are failing?

SPEAKER_01 27:48

I think some of the unintended consequence was that rough sleepers realised that Greater Manchester was a good place to be, I understand, and uh and so that was part of it.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

But I think there was people moved into the the area in order to get support.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

I believe so, yeah. But I also think that it was particularly um a political priority during the Covid period, and inevitably priorities change. On the temporary accommodation side, though, actually, Greater Manchester's been pretty good in that space as well, and they've been working with the Centre for Homelessness Impact and others to fix it.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

And is that the combined authority?

SPEAKER_01 28:23

The combined authority, the combined authority. So in Manchester, uh, as you might expect, the centre of Manchester, Manchester City Council has by far the highest temporary accommodation among the councils, but its uh temporary accommodation is on a downward trajectory. There are just a handful of councils that can say that across England, so that's positive. On the mayoral side, though, they are trying to think about how they disrupt the market in a soft way, so they're putting quite a lot of capacity and capability into uh empty homes, for example. They have been trying to bring local authorities round the table to stop them gazumping each other so that they're not paying over the odds on temporary accommodation. London tried it with capital letters, it wasn't a success. So I think that's a really good uh step in the right direction. But what's clear is the issue has only grown in scale as the house and crisis has got acute over time, and really bringing those numbers down is going to require some quite significant intervention.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

I think that sorry, Rosanica. Yeah, my my read on the rough sleeping record in Manchester is a little bit different because while rough sleeping numbers have gone back up in Manchester, they've been going up everywhere at a really alarming rate in the big cities, but also actually in smaller cities with affordability problems like York, like Bath, like Brighton. So I'm sure that there is an element of, you know, we know that people move to places where they know that there are more services, but that isn't the whole of the explanation. I think part of the explanation is failings that are happening when people are leaving institutions and above all prisons. That's the really, really big one. We have a crisis in our prison system. That is meaning that there's a drive to get people out as quickly as possible. That means that people aren't being matched up with somewhere to go when they leave, and it also means many more people are leaving prison on a Friday afternoon when the services aren't there to support them into somewhere else. And once you start rough sleeping, it's much harder to get out of it. And I'd also, of course, point to housing supply. If we don't have housing supply coming to the system, which is well matched to the needs of people who are either already rough sleepers or who are at risk of becoming rough sleepers, then it is no surprise that we will have an increase in rough sleeping.

SPEAKER_04 30:38

And it goes to the heart of a lot of what we talked about in the radicx big tank and things, it's a system. Um, you know, it's not as if we have to address just rough speed. That just that point about people coming out of prison unafrady, not having all of these things is we need we need that's why I think we need somebody that across Whitehall that can look at something like this across all different.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

This is a wider public service reform piece, isn't it? So some councils like Leeds, they have at their own expenditure put temporary accommodation staff into Leeds prison to prevent exactly that. Really? Yeah, brilliant. And councils are now beginning to flip that bill because they know that they're going to pay more down the line. Yeah. But most councils aren't aren't doing that, and that requires them to be fair to go above and beyond. Um, so you're absolutely right, it's a kind of systems-wide uh challenge.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

And that's why it's so brilliant that Andy Burnham is leading from the front, right? Because if you need to work across departments, you need number 10.

SPEAKER_04 31:33

Yeah. But there's also the other part of the systems uh I recently got involved in sort of um various things around domestic abuse and uh women leaving homes with children because of domestic abuse. There used to be a lot more support onwards, but they're not. So they're either choices, they go back into the abusive relationship, or they end up in temporary accommodation somewhere in a hotel or something like that. So again, things like that where there's the initial support but there's not the long-term support, and uh is is becoming increasingly challenging as well. You know, all these things.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Yeah, we've not talked about the revenue side of things, the support services side of things, the way that local authorities have been hollowed out over years, and that's then meant that they don't have the funding to support third sector organisations. You know, these are these are huge challenges. It's not just a housing problem, it's a support problem as well.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

We we've also lost a culture of of sharing best practice. There isn't, I mean, in in Jack's Leeds example, we haven't got, you know, that's not being disseminated across. I don't know what what on earth the LGI think they're doing at the moment, but I mean, you know, we're not we're not actually sharing what works, are we, really? Can I ask both of you a very I don't know, almost cheeky question. Would either of you have led your first prime ministerial policy announcement with I'm going to end rough sleeping?

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Would you have done it, Jack? No, I don't think I would have. Um, and I think that's a sign of the type of the Prime Minister that Andy Vernon wants to be. Um, he is focusing, it appears to be, and and he said some stuff about giving people breathing space, uh about looking at personal income tax, about thinking about utilities. I think he's he almost feels like the kind of you know the working man's prime minister, you can say, and and I think that seems really quite exciting. At the same time, he hasn't kind of pulled his punches away from some of the difficult stuff potentially. He also said in his speech in the Manchester People's History Museum that, you know, density, we're going to focus on density as well. And that, of course, is a political challenge, and he could have easily steered away from that, and he and he hasn't chosen to do so.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

I mean, hang on, Rose, would you have led with rough sleeping?

SPEAKER_00 33:41

If I was Andy Vernon, then I might have led with rough sleeping, and here's the case for it. Um, you don't solve the housing crisis by focusing on rough sleeping. We think there are about 15,000 rough sleepers a year, but it is the clearest and most visible place to start, right? I think it's really, really distressing to people to walk home from work to walk to the shops and see the same people day after day, often physically declining before their eyes and not knowing what they can do about it. I don't think it's any coincidence that we've got this um wave of AI-generated videos, decline porn, um, and it often shows people living in tents in English cities as a symbol of society, societal collapse. Well you clearly don't hang around in the grubbiest bits of of the internet. Um but homelessness, street homelessness, people living in tents are, I think, a symbol of decline for people. And I think what Annie Burnham is trying to do is pick something that he can get a grip of in the relatively short amount of time that he's got before a next election has to be called to restore some hope so that people can see government is capable of solving a problem. We can do things, and I think you have to start.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

He's also made some quite bold statements about high streets as well. And I had the I think he said no, he said he wanted to he basically wanted to sort out Britain Britain Britain's town centres and high streets, and I I I had the BBC on at me about this. It was very interesting. Oh, I'm gonna ask the Scotswoman, would you would you have would you have led with rough sleeping as a politician? I just can I just say I just think it was incredible. I I really applaud the bravery of it, the boldness of it, and the ambition. I really applaud it. Yeah, I do. But I just don't know how I mean I've watched people try and fail before.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

That's that's the point I'd make, which is I agree with everything that Rose has said. But as a as a jaded cynic, yeah, lots of politicians.

SPEAKER_04 35:31

You're not I told you, you're too young to be a cynic.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Including the mayor of London, has committed to ending rough sleeping and it's really hard.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

I think there's I think there's a few things, and you know, we're not going to solve this, but I think there's a few things. One back to something Rose said earlier about Matt wanting the job when he did it. You know, he's passionate about how sing um Angela Reina was as well. They they have all had lived experiences, and I was uh reading about Miyata Fambula's journey as well. They are all um politicians that have got into politics to make a difference to people, I think. And there's a sort of new breed under this current Labour Party where you've got a lot of senior politicians who genuinely are coming from that they've they've had that left experience, they haven't come from a commun communications background or a policy background, and you know, they they do want to make a difference and they believe in what they're doing. But I think that that's one thing. The other thing I do think, and we'll keep coming back to it, Jackie, is we do need cross Whitehill Whitehall um support for this. You know, as you said, you know, rough sleeping and things like that, they're very stark numbers. But if you started adding up, and the one I keep hearing about is the number of kids that are living in temporary accommodation, well over a million, you know, things like this. These numbers are the ones that tell us a story. Um, but we can't keep tackling it on an individual policy basis. We've got to do something that tackles the systemic issues, I think.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

That's my read of the Rough Seeping Initiative, right? Because it is about housing, but it's also about local government resource, it's about devolution, because that's how Andy has tackled it in Manchester, but it is about prisons, it's about immigration, um, it's it it's about high streets, as you've said. Actually, this is a cross-cutting agenda, which is one of the reasons why nobody's made any bloody progress on it for years, because we've had silent.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Not that you're cross or anything. We're not getting we're not getting these vibes, how you know, this anger coming off you, this rage.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

You know, and so it's about, you know, people have it it's it's harsh, you know the weather is is harsh anyway, but you know, as as we get hotter and hotter, and in the north, wetter and wetter, you know, it becomes just really, really dangerous place, doesn't it? And I think numbers are really important.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

We do 15,000 people a year.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

Yes. It's not beyond the wicked thing about this problem.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

I'm not saying it's easy, but it's possible.

SPEAKER_04 38:00

So when are you two gone into politics?

SPEAKER_01 38:03

I've I've retired, I've done my political. No, you're too young to retire. As a as a counselor, I've I've had my going.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

Any announcements you want to make?

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Can I say though, we did notice that you didn't answer the question. But if you were Andy Burnham, would you have led with rough sleeping? I just you know, it's just interesting, isn't it? It was just a very bold and brave thing to do. And and Rose, Rose is right, these are sending this these everything is sending a very interesting signal.

SPEAKER_04 38:31

So I'll answer that in a minute, just to let you know, straight off the news, David Lamy is out.

unknown 38:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 38:37

So he's obviously doing his sackings first. But he's doing it all properly, is what I says. Uh would I have led on that? Um I think he's done a temperature check of the issues, and certainly in his patch that people are worried about, and obviously that's one of them. No, I personally wouldn't have, but I would have led with housing, definitely, but not necessarily one bit of a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

I'm very I am very persuaded by the guys here saying that this is a very visible, it's a very visible symptom of decline, which is why you know why he's tackled this.

SPEAKER_04 39:08

I love what did you call it?

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Decline what?

unknown 39:10

Porn?

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Decline porn. It's yeah, it's uh there's AI generated. I don't think the youth ain't that, but the adults looking at the youth kind of judgmentally might might see it that way. Um so you've had these AI generated images, um, these these fake videos. So there was one Croydon Paul party. Um there is there is no um water park in Croydon, but videos were created showing monetization of social media, isn't it? And get getting their benefits and then going to this this water park and causing chaos, and you know, none of none of it's real. Um but there's loads of videos of the centre of London in particular, the centre of major cities covered in in tents, people living in tents. Um and I think it tells you something really important, which is when people are thinking about what decline, what this societal decline. We're a very we're in a very negative place. I think actually the West is in a very negative place, but I think the UK in particular is in a really negative place, and we have problems, but I think we're more negative than the facts suggest that we should be. Um but this this visible rough sleeping, it's interesting how visible it is in this internet commentary about that that negative.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

So that is a really interesting point because I think what um Andy Burnham has said is he's not gonna argue, you know, get into fights with the reform over X, Y, and Z or the Conservatives over X, Y, and Z. And again, something that's come up quite often in the podcast is around that confidence. We we've been talking ourselves down so badly, and that's another you know, sign of that. We've just been we've been sort of heads and hands telling everybody how bad things are.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

I think one of the themes definitely of burnhamism, and I agree with everything Rose has said, I just thought there would be more of a focus on cost of living writ large rather than rough stuff. I agree with that. But I think one of the themes of burnamism and sharing Rose's frustration is that we desperately need to move away from incrementalism and we need to be much more ambitious and take two or three steps forward rather than one.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Brilliant, absolutely running. No, I I think we could interview you two all afternoon. I have to say to you, of course, classic, we are now running out of time, and I've now got six or seven questions. We've got to cover off a couple of things. Yeah. Um, first of all, NPPF has been delayed.

SPEAKER_04 41:22

Yeah, no surprise there, really. I know there was a lot of um a lot of devastated planners. I mean, we're only talking a few weeks, um, but it was mainly, I have to say, it was all the KCs that have got appeals coming up that they're desperate to have it. So I I don't think it's a big deal. I hope they don't change what's in it, because I think matt has spent a lot of time getting it right, um, and I think it is probably in a good place. So I hope it's a case of just that the that Vernum wants to have a quick look at it and then it will get published in in September without too many changes. I hope he just doesn't open it all up again because we haven't got time for that.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

And it's a solid piece of work, isn't it? And Matt has written to the planning inspectors, is that right?

SPEAKER_04 42:05

Yeah, Rose, let's talk viability, yeah. So I think this is really interesting. Um I've been having a bit of a battle on the spatial development strategies around viability, and a lot of this has come from the London plan. You know, the the London plan, the current market is not good, as we all know, and therefore the argument in terms of the new draft London plan is they're not gonna be able to deliver a lot because it's just not viable. Um, and my concern is if you apply that right across the board to spatial development strategies, especially some of the big urban areas, you know, you are ending up in A, you're not gonna deliver the housing, but B, you're gonna end up for not delivering the good Brainfield sites because the argument will be they're unviable. And we have seen massive changes in, and I've said it before, you know, Newcastle and places like that, where Mayor funding, Homes England funding, all of and pension funding is going into making very big, really good sites viable. So making decisions on plan making, which are long term on the basis of current policy, current market, current funding, it's just stupid. Um and he has written to um planning inspector saying, you know, have a I think it's if you read it, it's basically have a a a dollop of common sense when you're looking at viability of local plans. They are there to deliver over a 10-15 year period. So look at it in that that light, you know, look at it. Will these sites get delivered over the the term of the plan? Not are they viable right now? Um so I think it's a really sensible, pragmatic letter. Rose?

SPEAKER_00 43:37

I'd completely agree with everything that Katrina has said there. I think one thing that's brilliant about this is that it's happened before the bad thing has happened. These local plans are still in development. Um, so Matt has intervened at the point when you can still do something about this. The viability system was never supposed to deal with normal market risk on a scheme by scheme basis. On a plan level, as Katrina says, it's supposed to. give you a policy that reflects the needs in that place and how the market is going to be able to deliver them over a 10 plus period. And you know there's always going to be a back and forth. There's always going to be an attempt to say, well look at conditions right now. Well conditions right now are affected by geopolitical conditions that are completely out of our control and that aren't going to last forever. Interest rates aren't going to be here forever. Inflation isn't going to be here forever. There are things that government can do to bring build costs down for example and I hope that we will do them. We shouldn't take this point in the cycle where I think we're in a particularly negative place and read it ten plus years into the future.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

Oh well said. Okay well it behoves me because of course I belong to the PadPod team that I have to come round and ask you what your favourite karaoke song is which absolutely I've just got more apple we've got Rachel so we've got Steve Reed out, David Lamy out, Rachel out, Peter Cale out.

SPEAKER_04 44:52

Well have you got anybody in? No. Oh right well it's not many for seconds yet.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

It's not one in one out any seconds yet. All out all out and then all in. So it won't be really for at least another 24 hours we'll really know anything at all our time is we don't even know yet if we've got um fashion watch it with um Angbach very much looking forward to that oh oh oh my head is in my hands my head is in my hands I'd like to see you try fashion watch with the very sober dress style of Shabana Mahmoud. I think that's going to be that's going to be very interesting. It's not quite the same as that big Ange is it? I've got to ask both of you your favourite karaoke song but just before I do that can I ask you the more serious question is if you were going to do one thing over the next couple of years in our field housing and planning what would it be? And then what's your favourite karaoke song? Rose let's start with you.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

So for me it is get the engagement right this is something that Katrina and I talked about before um the election and I think it's gone really badly wrong. There's a lot of talk about communications getting the communications right but other than the public comms get your partners in a room get them contributing to policy development and that's councils in the case of planning reform but I think it's investors delivery bodies housing associations as well when you're talking about housing delivery. So develop your policy with them and also tell them what you're going to do and exactly what it means. We should not have a situation where we're putting in new building safety regulations and nobody knows what they actually need to do. That's a waste of everybody's time it's such an easy quick win and we don't have tons of time. Karaoke song? I'm going to cheat and I've got two button two right so if I'm if I'm feeling kind of negative about the world then it's killing in the name of my rage against the machine. Ooh which is good because it's a shouty one she's like who's rage against the machine it's a very shouty one. It's a very shouty one very angry one. I'd probably quite like it if it's shouty I'd probably quite like it but I've never heard of a you don't need to be a good singer that's the that's the great it's very shouty. It's got a lot of swear words in it okay and what's the other one the other one is Belinda Carl Heaven is a place on earth. Oh excellent feeling hopeful and that's the days when you're feeling optimistic that's the day which is clearly today one of those days is today. Heaven can be a place on earth.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

Well Rose whatever whatever happens in the next few weeks I do hope to God we see you back in and around Whitehall because clearly we need very very bad the kiss of death so Jack come on what would what would be the what would be the thing that you would you would try to grapple with over the next couple of years I would think much more broadly about the role of place in regeneration and unlocking housing I'm particularly interested in the phenomenon of development corporations. They are very attractive at the moment I feel strongly that they can add value but I'm also interested in what I call the kind of zonification of growth where our theory of change we don't kind of know whether we trust places yet do we want to give mayors development corporations does government want to create their own zones which they have been doing and not including mayors and local authorities but I do think there is an opportunity there. My plea is that actually lots of these development corporations industrial strategy zones etc have very very weak powers and there's an opportunity to strengthen embolden them and get some political capital out of them. Most places in in Europe drawing on the kind of Thomas Aubrey approach you know could get them off balance sheet for example so be much more serious about them and in a forthcoming report we're talking about high street investment zones.

SPEAKER_04 48:33

I think the model of regeneration on high streets relies on building units homes uh building homes and that and that's great and that's fantastic but I think we need to be a bit more creative around high streets as well and how we finance it's about the tools in the box it it amazes me how few people and it's about the collaboration again there's loads of tools in the box development corporations and loads of different things that we have especially since the Devolution Act came and and actually in planning infrastructure there's loads that we could use but finding the people that actually know how to use them is is really challenging.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

So I want more tools in the box and I want a pick a mix approach where combined authorities can decide which tools in that box they get to use.

SPEAKER_02 49:17

That's what I'd like to excellent and more sharing of best practice.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

More sharing of my bugbear that is genuinely a bugbear of mine and I've been saying to quite a lot of organisations we need to do strategic mapping exercises because I have no idea what the sector is doing. London does not know what London is doing on homelessness which is a real shame because that's where it's most acute. There's some good work happening now with the London Prevention Accelerator, the London's uh moving into a sub-regional approach where they're thinking about homelessness but there isn't a kind of really strong consistent view and I think that undermines good policy.

SPEAKER_04 49:53

That that's sort of what we've been encouraging the strategic planning authorities to do is that mapping understand your place first before you even venture down the road of preparing this understand who's doing what everybody around the sector the the including all the infrastructure providers what the local authorities are doing get a really good append portrait of your place and what you're doing right now. It's amazing how little information I mean it's all there but getting people to gather that and having that really clear picture is really quite challenging.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

Karaoke song I'll I'll give two as well then since Rose uh did. If I'm being quite lazy I'd pick Oasis Wonder Ball because you can't really go there. But but my preference would be Earth Wind and Fire September. Oh good those high notes you know uh try and hit them I'm a couple of drinks deep so I'm not too bothered if if the food yeah you know if the voice crows no you've started her off I'm sorry right and you and I were getting on the thing I'm not you and I were getting on so well and now you've started I didn't think Belinda Carl I could easily have gone down that road thank goodness that we were spent that is all I can say yeah you never you've never said what yours is you've sort of skirted around it's I'm I will continue to skirt.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

You don't seem very impressed by any of our suggestions.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

I I look I didn't understand half and and and and I have to say again so we I will do I will do uh just just in order to keep up but uh I mean what what happens on fashion watch and um and karaoke is I just glaze over and Alex and Katrina run with it. But anyway guys can I say we couldn't have asked for any more from you two proper gurus in your field. Katrina said we'd have a lively discussion and so it proved so much more to talk about absolutely we could have done we could have gone on for hours but we've actually overrun already um super grateful to both of you um thank you very much indeed in coming on to planning after dark my thanks also to my my my fellow uh conspirator Katrina Riddell and we will see you next time thank you very much indeed thank you thanks so much for having us