According to the Centre for Cities' annual economic index, the recession has widened the gap between UK city economies even further.  Cities that were already suffering before the recession, such as Barnsley and Stoke-on-Trent, have been hit hardest.  Over the last couple of years the difference between the two cities with the highest and lowest shares of residents claiming Jobseeker's Allowance - Cambridge and Hull - has nearly doubled.

A new Conservative Green Paper will set out proposals to replace regional housing and economic development targets with a more localised-planning system, according to a report in Local Government Chronicle.

A process called Local Development Orders can now be used by local authority planning officers to allow developments to go ahead without the need for a planning application if it means they will kick-start local regeneration programmes and the proposals have met previously agreed criteria.

Nine Local Carbon Frameworks pilots have been announced , as part of a £3 million programme to explore ways to reduce carbon emissions. The pilots are: Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford and Plymouth city councils, Haringey London Borough Council, Northumberland Council, Bournemouth and Poole borough councils and Dorset County Council Multiple Area Agreement.

The Housing and Planning Minister, John Healey, has announced new powers for councils to deter the unplanned spread of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) in towns and cities. The rationale: that the cluster of too many shared houses can cause problems, and unsafe, substandard accommodation run by bad landlords needs to be tackled.

A comprehensive report by the National Equality Panel, An Anatomy of Inequality in the UK, shows that inequalities that grew in the 1980s remain, despite the government's policies to reverse this. The richest 10% of the population are now 100 times wealthier than the poorest 10% of society.