Four stories today with no single thread linking them on the surface, which is itself worth noting after a summer dominated by one Act. Angela Rayner has ruled out rent controls again, this time against a new Joseph Rowntree Foundation study modelling how they might actually work; mayors outside London are being handed the power to call in and grant planning permission on large schemes without the local committee in the room; a first-of-its-kind survey of residential surveyors finds nearly half expect to leave the profession within a decade; and Ofgem has raised the price cap again, which lands harder on some housing stock than others. Read together, it is a day about who gets to decide — a minister overruling her own backbenchers, a mayor overruling a planning committee, and a profession quietly running short of people to make the decisions at all.
Rayner says no to rent controls again, against her own MPs’ numbers
A study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by the Autonomy Institute, reported by AOL, models three rent-control pathways from 2027/28 — a CPI-linked cap, a nominal freeze, and a moderate approach capping in-tenancy rises at CPI and between-tenancy rises at CPI plus two per cent — and suggests tenants could be up to £1,418 a year better off by 2031 under the moderate option. Labour MP Chris Hinchliff organised a letter backing the study, signed by 26 MPs, noting rent now takes 36 per cent of a renter’s salary on average, rising to almost half in some areas. Rayner’s answer was unchanged: “I don’t think that rent freezes, rent controls, is a way forward at the moment,” citing the Renters’ Rights Act and noting controls elsewhere in the UK “had not necessarily brought rents down.”
Property Industry Eye canvassed legal opinion the same day: Kristine Ng of Morr & Co warned that restricted returns discourage investment in a sector already short of supply, and Paul Rooke of Mayo Wynne Baxter flagged the two-tier market and reduced maintenance spend that badly designed caps tend to produce, echoing IFS economists’ view that “there is clear evidence from a range of housing markets that, in practice, rent controls reduce supply.”
My read is that this argument keeps recurring because both sides are citing real evidence for different failure modes, and the one that should worry a surveyor most is Rooke’s: a landlord facing a capped rent does not stop paying the mortgage first, they stop reinvesting in the property first. A cap without a carve-out for compliance costs — EPC upgrades, damp remediation, the works Awaab’s Law will eventually require — shows up in worse building condition before it shows up anywhere else, because deferred maintenance is always the first cost a squeezed landlord cuts. Nothing changes today, but any landlord watching this debate should be tracking compliance spend against rent income now, so there is a clean answer if it is ever asked for with force behind it.
Planning committees just got a boss: what mayors can now do to your scheme
MHCLG has launched a six-week consultation, open until 5 October 2026, on giving mayors of strategic authorities outside London three tools: power to call in and determine planning applications of “potential strategic importance” — schemes over 150 homes, 15,000 square metres of commercial space, or 30 metres tall — power to grant permission directly through Mayoral Development Orders (though not for Schedule 1 EIA or minerals development), and a Mayoral Community Infrastructure Levy, currently unique to London. Ten mayors from different parties have backed the move, and housing minister Matthew Pennycook wants call-in and MDO powers “in place” by early 2027.
This does not touch the single-dwelling extensions and conversions that make up most of my own work, but for anyone assembling a larger site — several plots that together clear the 150-home threshold, say — the local plan and committee history just became a weaker predictor of what gets built. A scheme a committee might reject on design or infrastructure grounds can now be called in and approved directly by a mayor whose growth targets point the other way, or bypassed via an MDO before an application is even lodged.
If you are a small developer or landowner working toward a scheme near those thresholds in a mayoral combined-authority area, read the consultation and respond before 5 October, and treat the mayor’s stated growth priorities as part of your planning strategy rather than an afterthought to the local committee.
Half the surveyors writing your survey plan to be gone within a decade
Skyline’s first annual Survey of Surveyors, reported by Property Industry Eye, finds 46 per cent of residential surveyors expect to leave the profession within the next ten years; 62 per cent of respondents were over 50 and fewer than 16 per cent under 40. Two-thirds ranked report quality as their top priority, most still prefer a camera and paper over an app on site, and 54 per cent do not want greater AI integration in their work. Skyline director and RPSA chair Alan Milstein put it plainly: “As an industry surveying lacks reliable data about the demographics and structure of our community.”
I can vouch for the demographic without needing the survey to tell me — most rooms I am in for CPD are not full of thirty-year-olds. What makes this worth flagging beyond the general skills-shortage story the profession has been telling for a couple of years is the timing: government is still working through proposals for mandatory upfront condition reports as part of the wider house-buying reform programme, and that policy only works if enough qualified people exist to write the reports at the volume it would demand. Landing that requirement just as nearly half the workforce eyes the door is a capacity problem hiding in plain sight. On the tech-resistance finding, I would not call it a straightforward failing either — a survey report is a legal document I sign my name to, not a chatbot output. But a profession that still looks much as it did twenty years ago will not solve its recruitment gap with a careers-fair stand.
If you are buying a property, ask your prospective surveyor about their specific experience rather than assuming the profession is interchangeable — capacity is tightening. If you are weighing surveying as a second career from a construction or trades background, this is a better moment to start than the one five years from now when the shortage has actually bitten.
The price cap rose again — and old housing stock will feel it first
Ofgem confirmed on 26 August that the price cap will rise 4 per cent from 1 October, to £1,723 a year for a typical dual-fuel household paying by direct debit, up from £1,663. The rise is driven by higher wholesale gas prices linked to the Middle East conflict: gas is up 8 per cent while electricity is broadly flat, helped by the VAT removal. Around 11 million households on fixed tariffs, roughly 35 per cent of the market, are unaffected for now. Ofgem also noted households are using around 7 per cent less electricity and 17 per cent less gas than at the last review — consumption is falling, but the unit price keeps rising regardless.
That efficiency-versus-unit-price gap is the whole case for fabric-first retrofit in one regulator’s press release. When gas gets specifically more expensive rather than energy in general, the saving from using fewer kilowatt-hours of gas is worth more this winter than last, which means insulation and airtightness measures pay back faster than a heating-system swap alone right now, not less. Nor does the rise land evenly: it hits gas-heavy, poorly insulated, off-gas-grid stock hardest — the older cottages and solid-wall properties common around Hartfield and the wider South East, rather than the newer, better-sealed homes the average dual-fuel figure describes.
If you are commissioning retrofit work, prioritise the fabric measures — insulation, draught-proofing, airtightness — ahead of a heating-system-only upgrade, because they save more per pound spent while gas specifically keeps rising. Landlords sitting on EPC E or F stock should treat this rise as one more reason to get ahead of MEES upgrades before the next assessment cycle rather than waiting for the deadline to force it.
What I’d actually do
- Letting a property? Start tracking compliance and maintenance spend separately from rent income now, in case any future rent limit is ever asked to account for it.
- Assembling a site near 150 homes, 15,000 sq m or 30 metres in a mayoral area? Read the MHCLG consultation and respond before 5 October — the local committee is no longer the only audience.
- Buying a property? Ask your surveyor directly about their experience and specialism rather than assuming the profession is uniform.
- Planning retrofit work? Prioritise fabric measures over a heating-system-only upgrade while gas specifically keeps outpacing electricity on price.
If today’s notes have you rethinking a development strategy, a retrofit priority list, or simply wanting a properly qualified pair of eyes on a property before you commit to it, the practice covers full building surveys and PAS 2035 retrofit assessments across the South East. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 27 August 2026.