All pieces
Counted Before It's Built
Cotswold District Council says it is in a housing emergency, and that emergency is the reason 150 homes may be built on a sensitive field in Lechlade. The same Council has already written this growth into its own forward plan, before the application to build it has been decided. This is an account of what the developer's own documents say, and what the Council has done with them, as the application file stood in late June 2026.
The Tilted Balance Is Not a Verdict
When the Wern was lost on appeal, it read like proof that a town council fighting speculative housing is wasting its breath. The law says otherwise, and so do councils that have won. But only on particular ground. A guide for town and parish councils in districts with no five-year housing land supply.
How land gets its value, and who keeps it.
The arithmetic underneath the English housing crisis.
A unanimous refusal, overturned by the tilted balance.
Refused by the councillors, the officers and the council's own evidence, then granted outline permission for up to 54 homes at appeal, where the tilted balance set the local plan aside.
The neighbourhood plan, and what it can actually do.
The most democratic tool in the planning system, and the one with the least power when the system is under pressure.
The infrastructure that doesn't exist yet.
How water, roads, schools, and GP surgeries are supposed to arrive alongside new housing, and why they don't.
Section 106 and the Community Infrastructure Levy.
Two mechanisms for making developers pay for what development needs, and why both are under strain.
The Local Plan, and why most of England does not have one.
The document that decides where houses go, how it gets made, what happens when it fails, and what happens without it.
Viability, density, and why every estate looks the same.
The product range, the economics behind it, and a planning system that cannot demand anything better.
What "affordable" actually means, and what it costs.
The gap between what the planning system calls affordable and what a local worker can pay.
The five-year supply, the tilted balance, and why your council can't say no.
The mechanism that hands control to developers when a council falls behind.
What the standard method is, and what it is not.
A formula, a set of inputs, and a missing cap. Three things, in order.
The Housing Algorithm.
How a government formula is overriding local democracy, ignoring physical reality, and reshaping rural England.