Lietuvoje antradienį minima Mokslo ir žinių diena, žyminti naujų mokslo metų pradžią.

Latvijos kariuomenė antradienio naktį pranešė apie galimas grėsmes šalies oro erdvėje. Tiesa, kol kas skelbiama, kad papildomų priemonių žmonėms imtis nereikia. Praėjus maždaug pusvalandžiui paskelbta, kad oro grėsmių nėra.

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LONDON — The U.K. reveled in California-style sunshine this summer. Now it wants to try the Golden State’s housebuilding policies.  Faced with a housing crisis successive governments have failed to address, Britain’s new administration under Prime Minister Andy Burnham is desperate to push up building rates and is looking west for answers.  A recent update to planning rules encourages adding homes above existing buildings and in gardens in England. The policy bears similarities to the “accessory dwelling units” (ADUs) that now make up a quarter of all new housing in California. Experts think the tweaks could help the government stretch towards its target of building 1.5 million new homes before the next general election, but note the risk of a political backlash among local residents worried about their neighborhoods losing their character and green spaces and becoming overwhelmed. “It could be significant and it’s certainly creative,” said Simon Creer from the Royal Town Planning Institute. “But it’s hard to say definitively what the increase in housing delivery could be, and whether it will be popular. There’s always a fundamental tension between the need for more homes and the potential local backlash about where those homes are and what they look like, which is why early, meaningful communication with communities matters.” Indeed, planning changes around garden use during the previous Labour government in the 2000s led to public outrage about homes being demolished so speculators could cram properties into available land, as well as fears about destruction of green spaces. Labour was forced to intervene on what was dubbed “garden grabbing” as the 2010 election loomed, then the successor Conservative-Lib Dem administration was quick to change the rules. Now the government has tweaked them again to fuel development on and around existing buildings, instructing planning committees via national guidance to favor upward extensions to homes and commercial buildings and filling gaps around houses. The aim is densification: increasing the number of homes on a designated land mass.  “These changes are in line with our push for urban and suburban intensification, aiming to unlock private land and speed up small-scale construction alongside major transport-hub and grey-belt redevelopment,” said a government official who was granted anonymity to speak about the plans. The official said the rules are designed to encourage “ADU-style” building, but help “safeguard residential gardens from inappropriate development” while retaining local government oversight. The Cali formula When it comes to finding gaps to slot homes into, California is the blueprint. The state that invented suburban sprawl has seen a surge in ADU home construction over the last 10 years to add more housing into already-developed neighborhoods — although it took aggressive government intervention to make it happen. For decades, the state had laws on the books to encourage the building of ADUs, also dubbed casitas and granny flats. But cities implemented barriers including high fees, strict rules on size and lengthy reviews that stymied most new building. Amid a housing shortage driving up home prices, California state lawmakers passed a series of new laws, starting in 2016, to strip away restrictions local governments were using to block construction.  Those behind the effort worked clandestinely at first. They didn’t want to provoke a backlash from residents fearing the plans would upend the suburban development pattern of a single-family home, spacious backyard and two-car garage — putting their property values at risk. Authors of the 2016 legislation changed the terminology for the buildings in state code from “second unit” to “accessory dwelling unit,” helping the new houses appear as part of an existing home’s footprint, rather than a separate development. Over time, the effect of all the new laws not only made it simpler and less expensive for individual homeowners to build on their properties, but it also spurred the growth of a niche construction industry. Without having to wade through individual permitting rules, contractors could work across cities more easily, increasing their opportunities to drum up business.  “The goal here was to standardize the process across the board,” said Muhammad Alameldin, director of growth for California YIMBY, a pro-development organization that has supported the new state laws. “The theme is that if you own a piece of property, you should be able to build on that piece of property.” The state’s effort on backyard homes is considered its most successful policy to increase homebuilding in recent memory. In 2018, fewer than 9,000 backyard homes were permitted in California, making up less than 8 percent of the state’s total production, according to an analysis of state data by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and shared with POLITICO. Last year, backyard home permits topped 32,000, representing a quarter of all homes approved in California, the analysis found. Due to rising interest rates and high labor and materials costs slowing down construction, among other headwinds, it’s possible that housing construction in California would be declining without the boom in backyard homes.  Meanwhile, back across the pond Labour in the U.K. wants a piece of that action as part of wider efforts to fuel building. But opponents are fueling dissent before a single new unit has even been approved.  The Conservatives have already sounded the alarm about “garden grabbing,” arguing the new rules will create a boom in one-bedroom flats to make up building targets, despite high demand for larger houses with sizable gardens for families. “Britain needs more homes,” said Shadow Housing Minister Gareth Bacon. “But Labour’s top-down housing targets and density requirements will result in more blocks of flats being crammed into people’s gardens, rather than communities getting new family homes with gardens and parking spaces.” Recent experience suggests a political war on the issue can be successful. A similar densification plan in the London borough of Croydon was implemented in 2019 and led to a boost in new homes. It was revoked in 2022 amid a public backlash over properties being demolished and replaced with low-rise flat blocks. Government officials insist their policies will not cut across local government power to account for public concern, and will protect gardens via a series of caveats about maintaining the character of areas and ensuring transport routes and services are not overwhelmed. “We have made changes which recognize that in many places, there is potential for more development to support thriving neighborhoods, improve access to jobs and services and make the best use of land within our towns and cities,” said a housing department spokesperson. “Our changes will help more homes be built where they are needed, while stopping unsuitable development.” Other examples in the U.K. suggest a balance can be struck. Upward extension allowances in the London district of South Tottenham in 2013, which included strict rules on maintaining building character, led to a significant increase in residential space in that one small area. “Making it easier for homeowners to build granny flats and loft extensions could make a big dent in England’s housing shortage,” said Sam Dumitru, Head of Policy at pro-building campaign group Britain Remade. “So long as politicians hold their nerve when the inevitable objections from angry neighbors rear their head.”

LONDON — Britain’s Liberal Democrats are dreaming of a return to government. A new think tank wants to help. The Britain Project — a newly formed group offering liberal policy ideas — will officially launch at the party’s conference in Brighton on September 21. It comes as divisions on the right of British politics make the idea of a progressive pact involving the Liberal Democrats at the next election more likely, even as their poll ratings stagnate. The think tank is not formally affiliated to Ed Davey’s party, but at least 50 of his 71 MPs attended a presentation promoting its work during one of their regular parliamentary meetings in July — with many indicating they want to get involved. Tim Leunig, the group’s policy director, who recently became a Liberal Democrat peer in Britain’s unelected House of Lords, said: “We are here to help them.”  “But we’re also here to ask them tough questions because: who knows? They might be a minister one day, and then the civil service will ask them tough questions.”   While in public the Lib Dems refuse to countenance any future deal with Burnham’s Labour, in private their MPs are frank that the opinion polls — which anyone can read — point to the two parties’ combined seat totals being an obvious route to a post-election majority. Luke Tryl, executive director of More in Common, a think tank which tracks public opinion, said the “ever more acrimonious” battle for the right now makes a pact between the Conservatives and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK “less likely.”  “The Burnham bounce and consolidation of the progressive left vote makes a Lib-Lab pact a more likely prospect,” he said.  “If the Lib Dems can demonstrate their traditional staying power and Burnham’s lead remains at the narrow end, the prospect of them holding the balance of power — and almost certainly choosing to favour Labour — becomes very real indeed,” he added. Prepare for government  Talk of a coalition usually sends a shiver down a Lib Dem spine. The party was left with just eight MPs in 2015 after five years in government with the Conservatives. The slow recovery from its 2015 nadir means that the vast majority of the party’s MPs were elected for the first time two years ago, so the party does not have a depth of parliamentary experience.  Britain’s Liberal Democrat party leader Ed Davey addresses supporters during a local election tour in Redhill, Surrey on May 6, 2026. | Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images “We have a lot of people who haven’t spent the years that some people have spent thinking about policy,” Leunig, a civil servant for more than a decade who recently served as a government policy adviser across multiple departments, including under the Tories, said. The Britain Project aims to provide “decent ideas that can be given to the civil service to implement” and ensure parliamentarians “understand what tough choices look like in government,” he added.   The Starmer administration — which collapsed after two years in government — was “caught like rabbits in a headlight” soon after entering Downing Street, he said. Papers please  The Britain Project will also publish regular policy papers with a specific focus on economic growth and public services.  “We don’t want to try and be all things for all people at this stage,” said another person closely involved with the think tank, granted anonymity because they are not currently authorized to speak publicly. “We really want to focus on what are the really key issues for the country at the moment,” they added, citing the cost of living as a priority.  The think tank wants to show “you need a vibrant economy in order to be able to support social justice,” that person said, adding “liberalism endorses a national confidence” alongside being proudly internationalist. Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak attends a virtual press conference inside 10 Downing Street in central London on March 3, 2021. | Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images “What we want is people who are specialists in their area who’ve done a lot of deep thinking,” the person added. “We can support them with research, but [they] will have a lot of experience themselves to draw on.”  Through the scrutiny of the policy process, Leunig says he is optimistic they’ll create ideas that are both acceptable to the public and can be implemented.  “I want us to be publishing things that people say: ‘Hey, that is worth thinking about,’” Leunig said, pointing out that he proposed the furlough scheme to stop mass unemployment when he was economic adviser to then Chancellor Rishi Sunak during the Covid-19 pandemic. “What I don’t want to be doing is just saying exactly what everybody else has said.”  Shoestring affair  The Britain Project is funded by individual donors. Though the group would not disclose names, it will not have a physical office to save money.  The Britain Project will be set up as a charity with an advisory board and a corporate board. While the advisory board won’t only have Lib Dem members, there will be a clear crossover with the party. “We want to work with a range of people because it’s about the ideas. It’s not necessarily about the party membership,” the anonymous person quoted above said.  Tempting fate  Lib Dem parliamentarians have welcomed the Britain Project.  One peer, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said it should “help flesh out policies to fill the big gap between ‘worked out enough to do a press release and survive a question from POLITICO’ and ‘ready to put into action.’”  However, some MPs are nervous about giving the impression the party is already thinking about joining a governing coalition.  One Lib Dem MP warned it would be “absurd” to “think about what we would want to do and how we would work with coalition partners” as “any kind of preparation actually makes it less likely because we aren’t likely to attract Tory switchers if they think we’ll keep Labour in power.” Ultimately, Leunig wants the new organization to offer “some degree of novelty” and have its ideas adopted by all parties.  “Just because you’re a party in the center, whatever that means, doesn’t mean you should be a soggy consensus,” he said. Dan Bloom contributed reporting.

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