Insights & Reports

Lockdown has led us to look more closely at our local environment and in April and May, we were all rather more bound to making our way on foot or bicycle. We explain what this rare attention to our surroundings means for the heritage world, particularly relating to two normally exceptional areas of planning: spotlisting and its nemesis, Certificates of Immunity (COI).

The biggest surprises in the Government’s Path to Sustainable Farming were the scale and speed of cuts to the Basic Payment Scheme, or Direct Payments as they are commonly referred to in the Agricultural Transition Plan (ATP). Ian Ashbridge shares his insight on what these cuts mean for farming businesses and sustainability.

Oxford, Cambridge, and Milton Keynes have taken a central role in the fight against Covid-19, with science and tech a key driver of this continued activity. Read our blog discussing business activity across the Arc, the future science and tech hotspots, and the importance of collaboration in our knowledge economies.

Another announcement from the Government on new Class E uses, deals another blow to the hospitality, retail and leisure sector. Jonathan Phillips explains the latest permitted development right and what that means to town centres as we know it.

Despite the challenging and distressing times in which we now live, the housing market appears to be shrugging off the uncertainty and moving ahead at pace. But homebuyers have new aspirations - can the housing market meet them?

The High Court has handed its ruling in the recent legal challenge against the changes to the Use Class Order and General Permitted Development Order. We explain the key reasons for the ruling and what it means for the Government's regulation changes.

Following the High Court's ruling of a legal challenge against the changes to the Use Class Order and General Permitted Development Order, Jonathan Phillips gives his view on the impact of the regulation changes on one of the hardest hit industries during the pandemic and how these are already demonstrating a change in the high street landscape.

As an environmental scientist, a forester and parent, I applaud this week’s announcement by the Prime Minister for a renewed tree planting commitment of 30,000 hectares of trees every year in his 10 point plan for a green industrial revolution.

We discuss how the radical new use class planning reforms are changing the landscape of our high streets, using a recent client success example.

As the tech sector and associated businesses rise to the pressures and opportunity presented by the new reality of Covid-19, there was, inevitably, going to be a real world impact of the virtual change. This has been exemplified in the Milton Keynes office market. Read our blog to find out more.

The current local government structure in Hertfordshire comprising the county council and 10 district and borough councils, which has been in place since local government reorganisation in 1974, is set for change.

According to a recent Boston Consulting Group report, the total value of the world’s forests is estimated to be $150tn - double the value of the global stock markets – with tree’s carbon storage ability amounting to 90% of this value.