Allow me to introduce you to... Paradise Regained: The conservative case for restoring English nature 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🌳 This new paper is the first step towards a distinctly conservative approach to restoring our green and pleasant land, rooted in our philosophical tradition. 🧵👇

Coventry is rethinking how Britain builds tram infrastructure. Its new track system is faster to install, cheaper to construct and designed to avoid costly utility diversions. Coventry’s light rail innovation could provide a practical blueprint for delivering better public transport across English cities. Footage credit: @coventrycc Music: Documentary Music by AKTASOK #timefortrams #coventry #tram

It's happening

Passenger trains aren't running on the new East West Rail line between Oxford and Milton Keynes because of a union dispute over who opens and closes doors. Freight and test trains have been running safely on the line for over a year. railmagazine.com/comment-lan…

Anyone want to make a Lunch Break AI Gothic fan club?

My latest for @spectator on the avoidable mistakes and unlearnt lessons that explain how it can take three years and cost £237m to upgrade a single railway bridge. spectator.com/article/why-do…

People have more complex, consistent and coherent views about how to improve their streets than just fixing potholes, writes @kittyraethomp. thecritic.co.uk/beyond-the-p…

Potholes have become the symbol of declining state capacity. But Britain’s public realm has plenty of other problems: broken pavements, litter, unsafe crossings and buses that don't turn up. @kittyraethomp on what voters actually want fixed. thecritic.co.uk/beyond-the-p…

In this world nothing is for certain, except death, taxes and a politician pointing mournfully at a pothole for a social media post. When it comes to the public realm, ubiquitous potholes have become the totemic symbol of declining state capacity. They signal to the public that their streets, and by implication they themselves, do not matter. Our new polling confirms this. But our research finds that the politics of the public realm rarely goes beyond potholes. This is a mistake. People have more complex, consistent and coherent views about how to improve their streets. Addressing more of them should be crucial for @andyburnham to show that he is not only listening but is taking real steps to deliver “good growth in every postcode” and that he is putting “places before party”. Read Beyond Potholes, the latest @createstreets report, to find out more 🚧🚦👇

Potholes have become the symbol of our failing streets. But the public’s concerns go much further. Politicians’ priorities should too. 🧵

Earlier this year, I did one of the most adult things possible within my financial grasp: I renewed my passport. Murderous-looking photo aside, the renewal was notable because I did not really feel the £102 when it left my bank account. And for that, I have Vinted to thank. This is a technology that has turned the contents of our wardrobes into a vast, national marketplace: we can sell things we no longer want, buy things we do, haggle with strangers, find bargains that would never have existed on our local high street and turn a pile of unwanted clothes into cold hard cash. No wonder we are flocking to it. An estimated 17.4 million Britons use Vinted, making it the country's third-largest fashion retailer, behind only Primark and Next. ✍️ Kitty Thompson Article | spectator.com/article/dont-f…

£237 million and they couldn't even get matching railings. Another example of how, even in the most gold-plated expensive projects, beauty is not part of the equation, despite the massive impact it has on our wellbeing.

Always a delight to welcome @shepherdmg & the @CreateStreetsFN Dare To Draw course on architectural drawing into our offices of a Saturday morning !

According to the RIBA, these are the four best new buildings in the world. With choices like this, architects have only themselves to blame for their diminished standing in the world. They’ve become a consciously anti-beauty, anti-people organisation. architectsjournal.co.uk/news…

Since the 11th century, the city of Bologna has allowed property owners to build over the public pavement provided that they maintain the ground level as an open 'portico'. Bologna now has 62km of porticoes, the longest network in the world. The result is a win-win-win: pedestrians gain welcome shade, homeowners gain space, and the city gains density and compactness. It isn't clear that this would work in the pale sunlight of England, but there are lots of other cities in sunny countries that might benefit from this. Other interesting features of this view: 1. The tramline is new: trams have not yet started running, but will do so imminently. Italy is having a light rail revival like France and Germany. In the historic centre of Bologna the trams will run on batteries, so no overhead clutter is required. 2. This particular street is a nineteenth-century cutting, a reminder that vigorous planning positively shaped Europe's urbanism far beyond the famous examples in Paris. 3. Bologna is one of Europe's great cities for exposed brick. Note the proliferation of terracotta ornament, all of which is cast in moulds and can be reproduced cheaply at scale without much skilled craftmanship. 4. The windows on the left are covered by *external* blinds. Italians make extensive use of these, and they are phenomenally effective. They are a fairly radical solution since they reduce visibility to zero, but we will surely start using more awnings and external shutters in England in the years to come.

Really exciting news from the Cheshire Beaver Project at Hatchmere! 🦫 The latest research shows just how much of a difference beavers can make to our precious peatlands, helping to hold water in the landscape, support wildlife and make these habitats more resilient to drought.

@Matthew__Bowles @kittyraethomp we urgently need to arrange a binfluencer trip to the bin factory I'm being deadly serious.

Does the public prefer traditional architecture? Half a century of surveys find: worksinprogress.co/issue/do-… - Between 60 and 95 percent prefer traditional architecture; - This pattern holds across gender, class, race, nationality and political views; - More traditional densification schemes seem to attract remarkably high levels of survey support; - Laypeople and design professionals respond dramatically differently, with professionals far more favourable to modern styles. Research is still at an early stage, and many questions remain. Personally, I am particularly interested in how the public would respond to a non-traditional but richer and more decorative style? I think they might like it, but we don’t have hard evidence yet. But the results are already puzzling. Why do people end up buying buildings that are so different to the buildings they say they prefer? How did we end up in this odd situation? What can we do about it? Read more in @RobertKwolek's definitive review of architectural visual preference surveying.

They're everywhere. No advanced country should tolerate this.

…. a complete refresh of public sector decision-making so that we can once again be stewards shepherding our inheritance into a better future, not just letting it slip lovelessly through our fingers.