Future Cities Forum housing discussion this September

Image: Nuala Gallagher - courtesy of Liverpool City Council

Future Cities Forum is welcoming back Nuala Gallagher, Corporate Director City Development, Liverpool City Council, to our housing and infrastructure discussion this September.

Nuala's role focuses on driving Liverpool’s economic growth and delivering sustainable development across the city centre and communities, including overseeing major schemes such as Anfield Square, Kings Dock, Paddington Village, Festival Gardens and the Littlewoods site.

She leads a team of 300 staff and is responsible for a budget of £86 million, helping to create jobs and opportunities that are accessible to all. She is also be responsible for overseeing planning, property and asset management, an investment strategy, as well as skills, adult learning and environmental and sustainability policies.

Her previous roles include Head of Regeneration for the London Borough of Newham, Director for Economy of Place at Bristol City Council and Director of City Centre Development at Belfast City Council.

Nuala has also spent time working in New York, leading on sustainable urban development and teaching at Columbia University. She is a registered architect and a graduate of Columbia University with a Masters in Urban Design.

In UK government news, Mayors across England are to be given new powers to overrule local councils on some planning decisions which apply to more than 150 homes, more than 15,000 square metres of commercial space or buildings over 30 metres.

Those areas which already have a Mayor, include cities such as Manchester and Liverpool, and also regions such as the West of England and West Midlands. They will also be able to 'call in' planning decisions.

The Government has also announced that allocations worth £10bn in total will go to 33 partners comprising of councils, housing associations and others with 60% of the homes built for social rent. Three councils including Cambridge have been named as strategic partners so far to deliver the first wave of a social homes programme as the government announced a “reinvigoration of council housebuilding”.

In addition, housebuilding near well-connected train stations will receive a default “yes” in future if they meet certain rules, ensuring more high-quality, affordable homes are built in and around our key towns and cities, saving commuters time and boosting access to housing. 

It states:

'Thousands more working families and commuters will be able to live and work near train stations thanks to this drive to speed up housebuilding, which will help connect people to towns and cities, and open the door to new job and education opportunities. 

'Housebuilders will be encouraged to build more homes near these transport links, and councils in England will also now be required to tell the government when they intend to reject new housing developments over a certain size, with the Housing Secretary able to have the final say on whether they should go ahead. 

'These changes will be introduced alongside proposals to streamline the statutory consultee process, further saving developers time and money, ensuring spades can get in the ground quicker to meet the government’s 1.5 million homes target. 

'It also builds on work already underway following the launch of Platform4, a new property company set to unlock 40,000 homes on brownfield land near railway stations, with four sites already earmarked, including Newcastle Forth Goods Yard and Manchester Mayfield - supporting the governments wider plan for boosting productivity, growth and living standards across the north'

In a further announcement, it added::

'Under the leadership of the new Prime Minister, the government is more focused than ever on building the homes our country needs and delivering good growth in every postcode. Following extensive engagement with a wide range of stakeholders and detailed analysis of the large number of responses to the consultation undertaken between 16 December 2025 and 10 March 2026, we are today publishing a new NPPF and the government response to that consultation.  

'Alongside the publication of a new Framework, we are also progressing complementary reforms to further improve the functioning of the planning system. This includes publishing the response to the recent government consultation on reforms to the statutory consultee system and publishing Housing Delivery Test (HDT) results for 2024 and 2025.  

'To reduce delays in the planning process and lower costs for developers and local planning authorities, we remain committed to progressing work on producing model planning obligations. We will shortly consult on a standard s106 template for medium sites which would be expected to become the default for applications in the future.

'This government has acted with ambition and urgency to tackle the acute and entrenched housing crisis in England, including by means of a bold overhaul of the planning system. In December 2024, we revised the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), reversing the previous government’s anti-supply changes; implementing a new standard method aligned to our more ambitious national housing target; and releasing more land into the system through a modernised, strategic approach to Green Belt land designation and release.  

'In December 2025, our landmark Planning and Infrastructure Act received Royal Assent, enabling us to speed up and streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure. Once we have switched on the Act in its entirety, we estimate that this single piece of legislation could boost GDP by up to £7.5 billion over the next decade. 

'In the same month the Act received Royal Assent, we launched a consultation on a fuller and more definitive overhaul of the NPPF. The wholly restructured Framework that was proposed maintained and built upon the initial revisions we made in December 2024, included a range of new measures to support key economic sectors, and incorporated new clear and rules-based national policies for the making of both plans and decisions. 

'The new Framework sets out national planning policy in a clearer and more comprehensive manner and incorporates a number of substantive reforms designed to boost housing supply and unlock economic growth in the years ahead.  

The new decision-making policies in the Framework, which have been separated from those relating to plan-making, will:

• make development management more certain, consistent and streamlined

• standardise policies that apply across the whole of England

• reduce duplication and avoid unjustified local deviation from national policy in local plans

At Future Cities Forum's discussion event in April this year, there was a discussion about the potential boost to housing growth prompted by the opening of the Cowley Branch Line in Oxford to passenger traffic. Some critics of the Government have said that overlooking the importance of connected infrastructure to housing is still continuing and it is not just enough to ensure housing targets are met.

Carolyn Ploszynski, Director of Regeneration, Economy and Sustainability, at Oxford City Council, told Future Cities Forum that in addition to transforming journeys, reopening the Cowley Branch Line to passengers will support the sustainable development of new homes and commercial employment spaces already proposed near the stations.'

'I guess it is always the balance that Oxford has to strike, but this part - the southern part of the city - has the biggest growth potential of the whole place and so that is why the Cowley branch line is so important, to unlock it. Every site in the city is difficult. Part of the problem is that the city has not been able to grow for such a long time. Government re-organisation will help unlock opportunity and significant growth in the city.

'Outside the city there is a massive anti-growth lobby about the city expanding its bounds. That has been going on for a long time but I think recent research showing that Oxford has been left behind significantly on the global stage is evidence that the policy is not working. Unless the city is able to start delivering infrastructure and release more of its green belt, the city is just going to continue to flounder and will not stay competitive.

'It is why we believe that the three unitary councils is the way forward for Oxford and that we should release a further green belt to deliver 40,000 additional homes for Oxford in addition for further science and employment space for the city. There is always a fine line between regeneration and gentrification and that's the line we have to walk with the Cowley Branch Line. We have the benefit at the city council of being the main housing developer and housing stock owner in the city, so we can control that to a degree. I absolutely think we can win out against anti-growth. We need to start to deliver to show that growth isn't necessarily bad.'