Ronan Donohoe

@OS_Architects linkedin.com/posts/samuel-h…

We are developing some proposals for a modern mansion block with taller ceilings, more windows, better communal areas and a private garden. We’ve been researching Albert Hall Mansions and Richard Norman Shaw who is credited with making flats desirable to the aspiring Victorian middle classes @archi_tradition @Aesthetic_City @createstreets

@Peston Why imho they are fighting tooth and nail to get housing moving. One of the few remaining economic growth levers they can actually influence.

The story of next week’s spring statement will be simple: there will be lower economic growth in 2025, and probably in 2026 too; and as a consequence, there will be less money available for public services for the spending review period 2026-2030. Here are the bald numbers. The Office for Budget Responsibility back in October was forecasting growth this year of 2%. Even at the time this looked optimistic, or toppy, especially given the shock to business’s costs and confidence caused by Rachel Reeves’s big rise in employers’ national insurance. Since then there has been a bigger global shock: Trump, and his tariffs. The consequence is that every professional forecaster, from the OECD to the US Federal Reserve, is downgrading growth forecasts. So on Wednesday the OBR’s 2% will become circa 1%. I assume the following year’s 1.8% will also be revised down. And lower growth means lower tax revenues. There’s a double whammy that the government’s expected interest costs are also rising, by multiple billions of pounds per year. So everything else being equal, the chancellor is set to miss both of her fiscal targets, the primary one that says there should be no borrowing to finance day-to-day expenditure and the other one that says debt must be falling as a share of GDP or national income. Her fiscal headroom has evaporated, which is not something she says she will tolerate. For better or worse, her self-defining precept is that her fiscal rules must never be breached or softened. So what to do? She will not put up taxes. The widely circulated notion that she will extend the freeze on income tax allowances till 2030 as a stealth tax will not be deployed. There will be zero tax changes next week. It will be a borrowing and spending event. What will give? We already know, as of yesterday, that spending on disability benefits will be cut by £5bn. But she needs more than that to balance the books. So the forecast annual rise in public service spending from 2026-2030 of 1.3% will be reduced to nearer 1%. To be clear, this is still not austerity. These are real rises. But for many government services it will feel like austerity. Why? Because certain departments - defence, health, education - are guaranteed increases greater than 1%, more or less forever. So the spending review that will distribute this 1% between competing departments in June is a deeply fraught process. Will it all be gloom from Reeves on hairshirt Wednesday? No. As I have been saying, Starmer’s re-armament pledge is being fleshed out into a defence-centred industrial investment and growth plan, the kernel of which you can see in Reeves’s new “steer” to the Labour’s newly created National Wealth Fund. So all hope of economic recovery is not lost, though it is a bit delayed.

@peterproperty Shame articles like this are paywalled.

S Tel (£) “Shapeless masses of bright orange bricks, pockmarked by tiny windows. Little boxes that sandwich neat squares of lawn, often artificial, permeated by flimsy fencing.” telegraph.co.uk/money/property…

@NatureMetrics Hi. I’m trying to order some GCN kits but one can’t do it online, your phone number diverts to a mobile voice messaging and nobody is reply to my emails?

This World Wetlands Day, we're resharing an iconic project, supporting Scotland's goal to become Nature Positive by 2030 and restore biodiversity by 2045. Learn more! 🌍 naturemetrics.com/case-study/sco… #WorldWetlandsDay

@euanmills <10 units if minor

This is one way around #greenbelt golden rules:

@SustainableTall Hi Philip, have just started following you. Could you educate me on “rammed earth floor slab” please?

Inter generational house in Altendorf by Jomini Zimmermann Timber frame with rammed earth floor slab. 82% lower embodied carbon than a concrete floor. And it looks wonderful!

@euanmills x.com/civixplorer/st…

Only 47% of new homes are built within a 20-minute walk of a town centre, according to the Royal Town Planning Institute. This is neither viable, desirable, nor sustainable. Whilst we have the knowledge and expertise to build great human habitats, we repeatedly fail to do so.

@Paul_SLG @HomeBuildersFed Have a look through OCC Statement of Accounts and see if you can find any references to S106 monies at all………… I wonder what would happen if 5 years + 1 day money was demanded tomorrow!? Pretty sure the answer would be pretty obvious…..

According to @HomeBuildersFed, local authorities are holding a combined £6bn in unspent Section 106 contributions (the payments developers make to fund infrastructure improvements). Oxfordshire CC are holding the most - £287m. Here's the research: hbf.co.uk/policy/unspent…

@peterproperty Allowing 16 year olds to vote at planning committee apparently.

What catches the eye in the briefing notes on what will be called the Planning AND (tellingly) Infrastructure Bill is the snippet on improving delivery by “modernising planning committees.” Go for it….

@euanmills Flip side of that coin is that you should be applauding LA’s whom know what one is let alone have one in place. Whatever about it being digitised!!

Every week, I receive a request from a Local Authority or their consultant asking for advice on how to digitize their Design Codes. The low level of digital literacy in the planning and built environment sector is alarming! We need to do better.

Tesco profits up 159% to £2.3bn. In other words, Britain's biggest supermarket chain used the cost of living crisis as a pretext for blatant profiteering.

@MerlinFDC4 theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

@RonEire You'll have to explain that one to me Ronan. Sorry.

Normally it's me, sorry, but today it was others. Word on the street is, we'd like, nay, need a #GeneralElection please. And thank you. And it's OK, don't worry mate, it'll be alright. Cup of tea? @RishiSunak @Conservatives

@johnnyxbrown Any similar analysis on steam rooms and relative benefits?

Saunas were used to heal your ancestors for centuries. Here are 6 reasons you should start using it today:

@JaMussSein Or build an Ark!?

Tough one. 🤔 Should I go for the first class option at 9:34 or opt for a holiday in the Seychelles?

@CllrPhilKing @GreatGlenParish @NeilDotObrien By spending more money regrettably. Private sector very much waking up to the new normal. ft.com/content/f117cc…

Wholly support this call by @NeilDotObrien for a county-led district wide look at how excess surface water and river/stream/canal flooding can be further mitigated, especially in known hotspots.

@conorniland1 Only ever been one unprecedented sell out for a tennis match Conor and that was in SW London many years back. Hope you’re well.

🇮🇪🇮🇪 Unprecedented sell-out for Ireland’s Davis Cup match against Austria irishtimes.com/sport/tennis/2…

@JonWalters19 @talkSPORT @TSBreakfast

Garnacho’s overhead kick was exceptional but does it beat Ronnie Whelan’s for Ireland in Euro 88 🚀

@JaMussSein Not on headed Conservative paper!?

What’s this? Oh, that would be my local Tory MP petitioning his constituents against Tory-imposed housing targets. He’s right, the targets are moronic but he’s doing this without any sense of irony.

@twinklresources hi, I can’t find the form for twinkl.co.uk/giveaway/send-… . Is it not available till October 24th?