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Here’s a summary of the 15 page document agreed by the UK and EU that has come out this morning:

Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

Citizens’ Rights

• The rights of EU citizens will be expressly included into UK law, under the Withdrawal Bill; and UK citizens rights will be similarly included in EU Articles. On particular concern was healthcare for UK citizens living in the EU, and the EHIC card has been agreed to continue for these residents.
• To allow consistent application of rights, both the UK and the EU will have regular information exchange; and both will be able to intervene in the cases before each other’s courts.
• UK Courts will be sovereign, but will have “due regard” to the decisions of the EU Court. UK Courts will be able to ask the EU Court questions of interpretation of EU citizens rights, to enable the UK Court to give a judgement of a case before it.

Northern Ireland

Nothing in this agreement will predetermine the outcome of the next stage of discussions about trade.  The commitments agreed will be upheld irrespective of any future agreement between the EU and the UK.

There is an absolute guarantee of avoiding a “hard border”.

The UK’s intention is to achieve this outcome through the future discussions about trade.  However, if this is not possible, the UK will propose specific solutions to address the issue of the border on the island of Ireland.  Without agreed solutions, the UK will maintain the rules of the Single Market and Customs Union which are currently in the Northern Irish Agreement.

Without an agreed solution, the UK will ensure no new regulatory barriers are erected between the Northern Irish economy and the UK.  Northern Irish businesses will still have the same unfettered access to the UK as they currently have.

The Financial Settlement

Until the end of 2020, the UK’s budget contributions will be identical to the contributions that they would have paid if the UK had not left the EU.  In addition, the UK will get back its rebate, as if it had not left.  The money will be paid in Euro.

The UK will remain liable for decisions taken by the EU before the end of December 2020, and that will be balanced by the UK have a share of corresponding assets.  Liabilities and assets will be demanded or shared as they become due, including for instance the assets of the ECSC and the European Investment Fund.

The UK is interested in continuing an involvement in the EU space programme, and these assets are not part of the financial settlement.  Similarly, the UK may wish to participate in other EU programmes after 2020.

The UK will get back its paid-in capital of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in twelve annual instalments, starting from 2019.  Again, the UK may want a continuing arrangement with the EIB.

The UK has offered to discuss withdrawal costs of EU agencies located in London.

Both parties have agreed:

• separation principles with regard to Euratom.
• the need to provide legal certainty on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

Today’s Cambridge News.  Notice anything unusual?

(As a supplier to clients of print material, we know the importance of proof-reading).

After welcoming a new puppy into his household at the weekend, this week Sadiq Khan has published 524 pages of his new draft of the London Plan. Developers, politicians and Londoners have eagerly awaited the Mayor’s proposals and are all relieved that he has handed it in on time and not told us that the dog ate it.

The headlines from the Draft Plan are probably known to all our readers – an encouragement for greater density, fewer parking places, continued protection of Green Belt land and so on – so we thought that we would get some reaction from councillors across the capital.

We also spoke to to two London council leaders about the plan, one Conservative and one Labour. It’s fair to say the plan received a mixed reception.

In outer London there was concern about the higher targets from both Conservative and Labour councillors. The Labour leader we spoke to told us that the increases were ‘hard to take’ and that there seemed to have been some sort of punishment for boroughs that had exceeded expectations previously by increasing targets still further. The Tory leader said that the targets would not be met: “We’re not going to hit the new figures, because we can’t. Just over 95% of the new housing is being put into the suburbs of London, bypassing central London – that’s just not feasible.”

He continued: “We all agree that densification of big sites is what we need. But this new London Plan effectively wants to rip up suburban streets, and put two houses where just one stood. That’s why, in the run-up to the elections next year, we’re starting a “Save Our Suburbs” campaign.”

A senior Conservative told us that councillors would find it hard to support even denser developments and was particularly scathing about the apparent removal of policies that would help to ensure the delivery of family housing. “We all know that there’s greater value in smaller units in town centres” she told us “and now we will just have applications full of one bed flats. How are we supposed to encourage sustainable long term development with no policy protection for family units?”

Closer to the centre of London, one long-serving planning committee member said that “The London Plan isn’t the main driver of development in London” and predicted that boroughs would continue to make their own minds up. “The GLA talks a great deal” we were told “but are they really going to start intervening at this level? I doubt it”.

Another senior Labour figure supported the densification of areas near transport hubs but sought guarantees that promised improvements to infrastructure would actually take place. “We get the big projects, the Crossrails and the Bakerloo Lines, but we need to know that we can provide the schools and empty the bins and that’s never guaranteed. And if we are going to get more applications on smaller sites then I need to recruit more planning officers, and stop planning consultants taking my best ones!”

Our Conservative leader was realistic about the car-free aspect of the plan: “Completely car-free is inevitable. It won’t be liked by some of my fellow Conservative leaders, but this is just a wake-up call, or a reality check. It’s going to happen, so we may as well embrace it.”

The draft plan’s position on industrial land seemed confusing to some, with one senior Conservative noting a protection for industrial land seemingly combined with a determination to see better use of brown field sites. One long-serving Labour committee member said that they didn’t want their borough to become a dormitory and hoped that they could use planning powers to maintain employment uses in areas of high residential value.

There was support for some parts of the Draft Plan. Both Conservative and Labour councillors told us that they liked the moves to help preserve pubs and noted that there was an awareness on planning committees that applications for flats above pubs – and restaurants – was often storing up trouble for the future. Similarly, there was support for moves to restrict takeaway use near schools.

Equally, other parts of the plan were met with surprise and derision, not least the direction to refuse any fracking applications. “It’s the equivalent of the London boroughs in the 80s declaring themselves Nuclear Free Zones” one Conservative told us. One labour leader focused on the direction to provide public toilets, asking if Khan “really was taking the piss”.

The Tory leader we spoke to reminded us that London Plans are rarely transformational. “What’s radical in the last two weeks is not what’s come out of City Hall, but what’s come from No 11. The Chancellor’s Red Book has sneaked out a policy to greatly expand PD rights on all commercial property. Now that could be massive.”

So it’s fair to say that councillors are not rushing to love the draft plan. We should finish this brief analysis with one councillor’s comment which spoke for all that we talked with. “In the end, if we like a scheme, we’ll approve it, and if we don’t, we won’t. So not much will really change. It’s up to developers to convince us”.

And that’s where we come in. If we can help, get in touch.

Christmas Cards have been passé for some time. But we still like to mark the occasion, and put something back.

So we thought we’d contribute to LandAid’s excellent ‘alternative Christmas Card’ fund, and this year Land Aid have raised a record-breaking £37,500 just from this one initiative.

According to LandAid, this money is enough to provide a safe warm home for two young people who have been homeless, as well as helping to refurbish another empty property to turn it into affordable housing for young people.

These funds are life-changing for young people like Lukas, who had no-one to turn to and ended up on the streets last winter. Thanks to New Horizon Youth Centre, a project LandAid funds, Lukas received the support he needed to become independent and is now settled happily in his own home.

Ever bought a site and realised there were political or stakeholder problems?

Ever thought, ‘ perhaps we should look at this before we buy the site?’

Ever thought, “we’ll do that next time?’

Now you can, with our Black Friday offer, for one day only.

We can offer you a half price Risk Report, for just £250, for today only.

Simply email us the details of your site, and what you’re thinking of putting on it, and we’ll prepare a political and stakeholder risk report.

The report will cover the political issues we expect you to face, the decision makers on the site, and the likely stakeholders that will get involved.

Many of our clients do this as part of their routine process when acquiring a site.  Perhaps you should too?

Email with details of your site.

Housing Minister Gavin Barwell tweeted yesterday “housebuilding now at highest level for a generation. Real progress but more to do.” Hang on – Barwell’s not the housing minister – he was thrown out by his electorate in Croydon.

Barwell is now the PM’s chief of staff, and he was commenting on figures released this week showing that 220,000 homes have been built in the last year. His closeness to the PM, together with the recent barrage of lobbying from Javid over housebuilding plans, is one of the reasons why Mrs May has emphasised her commitment to ‘build the homes the country needs’ and take ‘personal charge’ of the Government’s response.

With the baby-boomers in charge of the property-owning democracy, and millennials looking on enviously, Sajid Javid has called for a ‘giant leap’ in number of new homes built, and that we ‘have to think big’ to tackle the crisis.  Through the White Paper, Sajid has already vowed to shake up the planning system, encourage diversity and increase supply, but little real progress seems to have been made.

Next week’s budget will have already been written – the office of budget responsibility’s need to see it early demands that.  The budget will, according to briefing, focus on housing and planning, and the chancellor hasn’t always restricted himself to fiscal measures in his pronouncements, so what could be in store?

A month ago, Javid called on the chancellor to borrow around £50billion to massively increase the supply of housing, using ‘record low’ interest rates to fund building up to 300,000 houses per year. The Conservatives have a natural reticence to use Keynesian economic methods, and these plans have already been attacked by Philip Hammond and others, but this would be a radical game-changer that might live up to the hype of the early budget briefing.

The chancellor has been looking at freeing up green belt land for the past few months, but this would upset the Conservatives’ support base in the Home Counties.  Releasing green belt land would help to free up more space for housing, increase the housing supply, and would help to bring down housing costs for first-time buyers. It would also allow developers to build high-density low-rise homes in the outer London boroughs like Croydon and Barnet.

Phillip Hammond’s known choice is to remove, or significantly lessen, the stamp duty burden on first-time buyers and some older home owners. This doesn’t go nearly far enough for most of those in the property industry, who believe the significant rise in stamp duty over the past few years is the reason for the fall in the market in central London, the decrease in moves across the market, and is one of the most pernicious taxes.  The Adam Smith Institute has said that this is one of the most damaging taxes that the UK has, arguing that the money to cut stamp duty should come from raising council tax on higher value properties.

At the Conservative Party’s annual conference in October there was an announcement that £2 billion would be invested in affordable housing for a new generation of council houses. The money that has already been promised could be expanded in the coming budget.  This was on top of £10 billion for expanding the ‘help to buy’ project.

There have been calls for PD rights to be expanded.  Despite a near unanimous disapproval from councils in the south east who believe PD rights meant that shoddy offices were just converted to shoddy homes, the government appears to want to expand these rights to allow greater height in schemes.  Under the plans, developers could add more residential floors onto their built-out schemes; up to the same height as neighbouring buildings or the tallest trees, without needing planning permission. Former Architecture and Heritage Minister, John Penrose MP, is running a campaign called ‘Build Up Not Out’ to lobby for this.

We have only a few days to find out what Hammond has in store.  If he fails, Michael Gove has been positioning himself to take over the post.

With thanks to Mark Findell.