Housing: building and planning

What’s happening lists bills in the current Parliament from the UK Parliament bills record (Open Parliament Licence). Items that touch your profile come first, then the newest. A label appears only where the source says which: Decision made for a bill that has received Royal Assent or a council result recorded in the minutes as agreed, carried or lost; Proposal for a Government Bill still going through Parliament, which Parliament describes as “a formal proposal for a new law”; Consultation open for a consultation whose closing date has not passed. Bills from individual MPs and peers are folded away under their own heading.

What it means for you uses short lines written from the official pages they link to, and official figures for your council area. We don’t calculate personal figures here.

What each would do: in an election we cover, every candidate in ballot-paper order, with what they published themselves. Where a candidate has published nothing on this, we say so and show their party’s national policy, labelled as such. Outside an election, the parties that stood in your constituency at the 2024 general election, alphabetically, from Democracy Club. Each party’s positions are from its own published documents, the same set used across the site.

How things are filed under housing: by these words only, in a position’s summary or quotation, or a bill’s, agenda item’s or consultation’s title.

build, building, built · housebuilding · construction · new homes, new houses, new towns · homes a year · 1.5 million homes (any number of homes) · affordable homes, affordable housing · more homes · planning, planners · local plan · green belt, grey belt · brownfield, greenfield · overdevelopment, development, developers · infrastructure · houses in multiple occupation · social homes · Housing Bill, Housing Act

A title from Parliament or a council must also contain one of these, so that it is about homes at all: housing · home, homes · house, houses (not “House of”) · dwelling · planning · local plan · rent… · tenan… · landlord · leasehold · freehold · commonhold · mortgage · homeless… · temporary accommodation. The lists are fixed; changing one is a published decision.

Limits. Word lists miss things written differently, and can catch things that only mention a word. Parliament’s bills mostly apply to England; housing is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We read meeting papers and consultations for some councils so far, not all. Housing figures come from the ONS and describe the council area as a whole.

Sources: UK Parliament Bills API (Open Parliament Licence); council papers and consultation sites (each linked); Democracy Club candidates (CC BY 4.0); postcodes.io and the ONS (Open Government Licence); ONS Explore Local Statistics (Open Government Licence); GOV.UK and legislation.gov.uk (Open Government Licence); the Institute for Government (linked).