Neil Murphy

‘No shops, no schools’: homes in England built without basic amenities Thousands of properties going up without access to playgrounds, community infrastructure and even doctors

This is absolutely grim, condemning whole communities to isolation and car reliance – we can do so much better than this: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Yes it’s terrible. In my neck of the woods a remarkable number of “charities” (nonprofit of course but with 3 employees and a CEO on £300k p.a.) do very well out of providing ‘sheltered housing’ along these lines, scraping the Local Housing Allowance barrel.

That would be funny if it wasn’t so appalling.

Honestly it’s a total lottery isn’t it.

Imagine if financial services were regulated like land use is.

Ooh, some of us are here. Overbearing, out of character, looming? (Obvs it’s none of those things)

I go to lengths to avoid them. From Newcastle it’s only really Sheffield/Derby/Birmingham where there isn’t an OK route via London or alternative operators.

Really awful trains too. Smelly, uncomfortable and Faraday cages so tethering to your phone doesn’t work 👎

I don’t use it much and that page reminds me why

Link please

On the former Agora site on Church Street. New build but strongly informed by the character of the Victorian surroundings.

This is a lovely cohousing project, Angel Yard, in Norwich which should be under construction in Spring/Summer 2025. 34 dual-aspect homes on a 0.2 hectare site with no private parking.

I will post more stuff on TOWN projects coming soon in the next few days.

This is a project in Wolverton, Milton Keynes, which we are developing with the City Council and will hopefully be on site early next year after a *lot* of technical and other challenges have been overcome.

Right then, first post after signing up ages ago and lurking for a bit. So much nicer here than twitter. So this is Marmalade Lane, which my company TOWN (and many collaborators) finished about five years ago. More on this and other projects to come, as well as general urbanism and politics snark.