February newsletter note

Author: Liam Booth-Smith   |  

This note from the Chief Executive is from our February newsletter. You can read the newsletter in full here and register to receive it straight to your inbox on our homepage.

I was pleased to see the other day residents of Richmond Park have six golf courses within a two mile radius. Not because I can play, my handicap is golf, but because it highlights the ridiculousness of our land use and in particular green belt policy. We need homes where demand is high, this means in and around big cities. No one sensible wants to concrete the green belt, we just want to take a tiny amount close to train stations so people can have a decent home and commute. The housing white paper didn’t deal with this issue but it did tackle many others, in particular the need to shake up the developer market. I’ll use this opportunity to add my voice to the symphonic clang of those saying “a good start, but…”

On the heels of the industrial strategy green paper our research project The Making of An Industrial Strategy is launching next month. Invites will be going out shortly. This has been a major piece of work and we’ve had over 150 individual submissions from organisations across the country giving us their ideas and opinions. I’d love to share more with you, but for the moment I think a simple thank you is enough.

We’ve also got two other big research projects underway, the first exploring how we tackle mental health issues in young people, and another looking at how we can reboot the health and social care integration agenda. Research events will be scheduled in the coming weeks so do watch out for invites and updates on this work.

Finally, a house notice: we’re hiring a Communications Manager. For details see below or our website.

I’ll leave it there for this month. Busy, busy.

Liam