Planning

A major new scheme has just been given the thumbs up in Covent Garden, involving the complete demolition of a giant 80s office building.

The government has announced two new "garden towns", which will get £1.1m in new funding to help deliver up to 50,000 new homes between them.

A developer has been ordered to pay £4k in fines and costs for cracking on with a basement extension after being served up with a stop notice.

Strutt & Parker has bought AKA Planning, an independent planning consultancy based in Leatherhead.

Plans to turn a grotty Mayfair car park into a 296,000 square foot neo-classical scheme worth an estimated £2bn have received the initial thumbs up from Westminster planners.

If you missed out on the unexcavated basement beneath this Bloomsbury mansion block last month, you can now snap up the empty air space above it.

Westminster has announced a new Executive Director of Growth, Planning and Housing. Ed Watson, who's been in local government for a good 25 years, will take on the role from January.

Council planners in Holland Park have been coming down hard on appearances in recent months, forcing 12 owners of houses on Royal Crescent alone to get sprucing or face the consequences.

Urban developer Londonewcastle has been given the go-ahead for a prominent resi-led scheme smack bang in the middle of Shoreditch.

The new look Planning Portal is, after a bit of delay, shaping up ahead of an early 2016 launch after its services were outsourced to land referencing agency TerraQuest by the government in January.

Chelsea's Seymour Walk hit the headlines over the weekend after it emerged that six simultaneous basement extensions are planned for the quiet cul de sac

Mayor Boris Johnson has OK-ed the revised Greenwich Peninsula masterplan, paving the way for London's biggest single regen project.