Home improvement applications dwindle, but extensions hold up

London has seen "a normalisation of single-storey basements as the 21st-century version of the loft conversion," says Professor Burrows in a new study of the capital's "luxified troglodytism".

30-40,000 custom and self-build (CSB) homes could and should be built in the UK each year, says Richard Bacon, in a report that rails against "houses designed by accountants".

'In some cases, the scale of flooding or coastal change may be so significant [that it] may mean potentially moving communities out of harm’s way in the longer term'