A recent decision by Rushcliffe borough council to refuse planning permission for a 1,200 home development on green belt land has been overturned by communities secretary John Denham. The local authority had thrown out the scheme on the grounds that it would have created traffic and resulted in a loss of green belt land, however,
The government is considering widening the choice-based lettings scheme. The government wants all local authorities to set up choice-based letting schemes by 2010, but a spokesperson for the department for Communities and Local Government said it was interested in hearing if any areas had obstacles in the way of the scheme being extended.
Councils across England are forecast to increase council tax by an average of 3 per cent – the lowest rise for ten years, but still higher than the inflation rate. Councils have predicted their incomes will fall by £2.5 billion because of lower returns from investments and from selling off land while the house market
Meanwhile, local government minister John Healey has announced that councils in England will be forced to publish information on how much their chief executives earn. The minister said that the ‘spiralling’ pay of some council chiefs needed to be countered and the government has decided to legislate. Across the country, around 20 council leaders are
Half of all councils across England have axed jobs in the past few months, and seven in 10 expect further redundancies because of the recession. A survey by the Local Government Association found that councils in the south of England were most likely to have to cut back on jobs as authorities were having to
The government is in talks with property developers about the introduction of a local authority backed bond scheme aimed to finance stalled regeneration projects. Under the proposals a bond would be underwritten by the government and sold to investors. The borrowed money would be used to pay for basic infrastructure on mothballed sites which will
The government has announced more than 40 new and refurbished Gypsy and Traveller sites across England. Iain Wright, communities minister, announced six new sites and 37 extended or refurbished ones to help create homes for up to 25,000 Gypsies and Travellers. The sites are part of a £21 million scheme aimed at tackling the housing
The government’s spending watchdog the Audit Commission warned that the recession and rising unemployment will cause a wave of social problems in the coming year. The commission found the recession is already causing more homelessness in one-third of local authorities, while two-thirds predict the problem to worsen next year. The report said that the slowdown
Councils across the UK have been urged to pool their cash reserves in a nationwide ‘mutual bank’ worth up to £3 billion, to support local infrastructure projects and avoid a repeat of the chaos caused by the collapse of Iceland’s banks, when hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was frozen. The New Local
Council bosses are drawing up plans on how public services can be delivered if the government makes cuts to council budgets because of the recession. The Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy are joining forces to analyse the implications of a ‘full range of possible economic