Insights & Reports

Wellbeing is now firmly on the national agenda and as the UK’s elderly population is projected to reach 15.1 million with 22% over 65 by 2030, alongside this edition of Local Plan Watch, Harriet Wooler and Steven Butler look at how senior living is being planned for across our patch.

The Environment Act 2021 mandates all new developments in England to provide a 10% uplift in biodiversity, to be maintained for a 30-year period. DEFRA’s biodiversity metric uses habitat type as a proxy, placing a value on the biodiversity a habitat is likely to support by allocating ‘biodiversity units’.

Across the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, East and South-Eastern region, Bidwells continues to see strong demand and increased competition for residential development sites. The unceasing demand for development land has driven strong growth in land values and high activity levels, with annual growth in greenfield land values at 8.8% for 2021.

Following Bidwells’ spring update of the Local Plan Watch, we take a closer look at how local authorities are approaching health impact assessments (HIA).