Benedikt Straňák
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benediktstranak.bsky.social
Benedikt Straňák
@benediktstranak.bsky.social
Researcher interested in rent, finance and political economy of land. Numerate, immigrant and queer. 🇵🇸🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Views my own.
👨🏻‍💻 Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), previously New Economics Foundation.
Pinned
A new @neweconomics.bsky.social report by me and Emmet Kiberd is out today, showing that in the midst of climate and nature emergencies when we urgently need to prioritise public transport and active travel, new builds lock England into car dependency. 1/3 neweconomics.org/2024/11/trap...
Trapped behind the wheel
How England's new builds lock us into car dependency
neweconomics.org
Reposted by Benedikt Straňák
Good read this, particularly if you are interested in knowing how much public transport investment could be needed to deliver tram networks in more cities (including Bristol), better buses, safer streets for active travel and roads with fewer potholes👇
Rachel Reeves is preparing to announce billions in capital spending outside the south-east. This is good news! But the scale of the challenge is massive: re-sharing here our recent localised estimates of the unmet public investment need. @neweconomics.bsky.social @clesthinkdo.bsky.social 1/5
Solid foundations
Local investment need for a decade of renewal
neweconomics.org
May 30, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Rachel Reeves is preparing to announce billions in capital spending outside the south-east. This is good news! But the scale of the challenge is massive: re-sharing here our recent localised estimates of the unmet public investment need. @neweconomics.bsky.social @clesthinkdo.bsky.social 1/5
Solid foundations
Local investment need for a decade of renewal
neweconomics.org
May 30, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Benedikt Straňák
📘We present to you our first policy brief “Degrowth for cities” writen by R&Di’s dear member Mike Duff. Our series of policy briefs - which will be coming out during this year - challenge conventional growth-centric policies by presenting alternatives.

Read it here:
degrowth.org/blog/2025/05...
May 15, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Reposted by Benedikt Straňák
There is one point on Google Earth at the moment where the map images shift from October 2023 and December 2024 in Gaza. You can clearly see the line between the two, written in destruction
May 4, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Reposted by Benedikt Straňák
We'd urge people not to panic - there will be lots of commentary coming out quickly that is likely to deliberately overstate the impact that this decision is going to have on all trans people's lives. We'll say more as soon as we're able to. Please look out for yourselves and each other today 💗🏳️‍⚧️
April 16, 2025 at 9:00 AM
So BBC News just gave 15min unchallenged time to TERF campaigners celebrating the idiotic Supreme Court ruling without hearing from a single trans person.
April 16, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Benedikt Straňák
🎟️ Tickets now on sale for CWB Summit 2025!
📅 3 July | 📍Manchester

Join changemakers, grassroots leaders and policymakers to explore how local democracy and community wealth building can shape fairer economies.

🎤 Andy Burnham, Grace Blakeley + more
🔗 cles.org.uk/events/cwb-s...
April 7, 2025 at 9:32 AM
@redpeppermag.bsky.social #246 is out and in it my review of 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Who Is Afraid of Degrowth? 🌶️🌶️🌶️ by @celine.bsky.social Can’t wait to read the whole issue!
December 6, 2024 at 8:53 AM
Super excited. I have followed CLES for s while, so this is a (not so) little dream come true.
Welcome, welcome, welcome!

We're very happy to welcome another new member of the CLES team this week - @benediktstranak.bsky.social brings with him a a passion for spatial data and a wealth of thinking work on local government and the national policy context. 😍

🔗 cles.org.uk/about-cles/p...
December 5, 2024 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Benedikt Straňák
New housing developments are locking more and more people into car dependency.

NEF research by Emmet Kiberd and @benediktstranak.bsky.social shows over the last 15 years, homes have increasingly been built in places where people rely on cars.

This is bad for the environment and bad for our health.
November 29, 2024 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Benedikt Straňák
New @neweconomics.bsky.social research out today shows that removing 'hope value' from the price councils have to pay for land could reduce the cost of building the 90,000 new social homes we need each year by a quarter, saving £4.5bn www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/scrappi...
Scrapping hope value would slash cost of building 90,000 social homes a year by £4.5bn, new report finds
A new report has found that scrapping hope value for landowners would slash the cost of building 90,000 social homes a year by £4.5bn.
www.insidehousing.co.uk
November 20, 2024 at 8:49 AM
A short thread on the data used in the NEF report on car dependency by me and Emmet Kiberd, released yesterday. The report looks at the exact locations of all new homes in England, and shows that they are being built in increasingly car dependent areas. 1/4
November 19, 2024 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Benedikt Straňák
Very cool analysis by @benediktstranak.bsky.social and Emmet Kiberd for NEF of changing patterns of car-dependency in new homes, including this historical view. Full report here neweconomics.org/2024/11/trap...
November 18, 2024 at 1:48 PM
Glad to see this published! @citygeographics.bsky.social’s working paper inspired our @neweconomics.bsky.social analysis and report on car dependency, also released today 👏🏼
New open access paper - can we develop London's Green Belt sustainably to tackle the housing crisis? Analysis using EPC and travel sustainability data -
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @casaucl.bsky.social
November 18, 2024 at 12:07 PM
Highlights from the @neweconomics.bsky.social report on car dependency. The report shows that new homes in England are increasingly located in car dependent areas with poor transport infrastructure. The triangle in the figure indicates car dependency of median home from each period. 1/6
November 18, 2024 at 11:13 AM
A new @neweconomics.bsky.social report by me and Emmet Kiberd is out today, showing that in the midst of climate and nature emergencies when we urgently need to prioritise public transport and active travel, new builds lock England into car dependency. 1/3 neweconomics.org/2024/11/trap...
Trapped behind the wheel
How England's new builds lock us into car dependency
neweconomics.org
November 18, 2024 at 10:52 AM