Chelgate keeps you up to date with Planning this month… Slough in green belt land grab Slough Council has announced an audacious bid to meet its housing numbers by proposing a new settlement of 10,000 homes in South Bucks District Council. Needless to say, South Bucks has opposed the plan. Like a number of other urban unitary authorities with tightly drawn boundaries (think Stevenage, Luton etc) Slough has struggled to meet its housing need within its own borders. This was not a particular problem when Regional Spatial Strategies existed but since their removal these urban authorities have struggled. In […]

Our ‘man on the ground’ in Brussels, Chris Morris, has had the honour of posting this week’s ‘A Week in Brussels’ report for PubAffairs. You can read his article below or access it via the PubAffairs website here:   Forget Article 50, Brussels was far more interested in Article 155 this week. The now infamous weapon in Madrid’s arsenal to withdraw the powers of autonomous areas. Whilst Brussels is at strains to not discuss Catalan’s ambiguous declaration of independence in public, it has certainly been the hot topic that people are talking about in the Brussels bars this week. Quite […]

This week party conference season drew to a close and things have certainly been eventful. The Lib Dems managed to unintentionally provide a few laughs as new leader Vince Cable claimed he could be the next Prime Minister. At Labour Party conference, Jeremy Corbyn cemented his grip on the party and is now looking stronger than ever. And who could forget Theresa May’s disaster-ridden speech to Tory Party conference as even the stage began to fall apart? Chelgate Public Affairs brings you all the essential highlights from each of the party conferences this autumn.   Liberal Democrats – Misguided Optimism? […]

Against a backdrop of a downbeat party, an opposition riding high in the polls, Boris, and a nasty cough, this was never going to be an easy speech for Theresa May. And it wasn’t. In the run up to the conference, when the Tories are traditionally rallying around demonstrating why people voted for them and poking fun at Labour factionalism, the Tories were facing their own bout of the Bojos and wondering who would be delivering the Leader’s speech next year. Never one of politics natural orators Theresa May took to the stage looking fragile, and indeed, she delivered a […]