iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Good to chat to Literary Listings London about Homesick. Nice write up here: literarylistingslondon.substack.com/p/10-questio...

030

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Overheating in blocks of flats is a problem, but it's worse if you're banned from opening the windows. Blocks undergoing cladding works need some bespoke guidance urgently: peteapps.substack.com/p/what-does-...

062

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Safe to say that Grenfell survivor Ed Daffarn is not overwhelmingly impressed with the current housing secretary:<img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HKmpFgUWgAAjHYI?format=jpg&name=small" alt="Image"/>

“And nine years on from the fire, we’re still in the same situation as we were. The present secretary of state [Steve Reed] is probably the worst that we’ve ever had, worse even than [Robert] Jenrick. It’s a low, low bar but it’s the truth,”

130

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

This is a quote about building safety, but I think it is reflective of how big industry-wide scandals often manifest, not just in construction and housing but across the board: peteapps.substack.com/p/nothing-ne...

1112

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Hello! I'm chairing a session at the forthcoming London Housing Summit where we will be discussing the distribution and demand for housing in the capital. Lots of great speakers across the day - register to attend here: forms.office.com/pages/respon...

020

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Always a pleasure to provide Reassuringly Boring content, which we could actually all do with a dose of sometimes (and also, generally, just love good high concept commissioned art for policy features, having been in so many design meetings of this sort down the years)

041

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

A nice thing this. The GP in this article who has written Gloria Don't Speak a "challenging but tender" book about a young woman with learning difficulties is... my sister! So pleased to see her amazing writing getting the recognition it deserves observer.co.uk/culture/book...

180

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

There are far, far too many deaths in bar and club fires caused by pyrotechnics. These incidents are utterly horrifying, far too frequent and should be prevented. To this list (from Ed Galea) you can now add Switzerland and Goa:

163

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Question and answer special in the Substack today, where I tackle the following questions from readers: peteapps.substack.com/p/question-a...

010

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

"I would make those people stand in front of the tower. I would make them stand and look at it" Building Safety Regulator chair, Andy Roe, asked to respond to commentators who call for the regulator to be axed:

“It is really straightforward,” he says. “I would make those people stand in front of the tower. I would make them stand and look at it, because it is the most profound manifestation of system failure. We can’t repeat that, and that is something people are too quick to forget.

“I think one of the great advantages of our background is that it’s not hypothetical for us. I have stood next to Charlie in too many awful spaces over the years, on too many streets in London thinking, ‘How do we get to this?’ ‘How did people end up living like this?’

“And while the Building Safety Regulator wasn’t working as it should, that should not be a reason in the short term to just step away and abandon it. The moral imperative is too great.”

This afternoon, he says, he is going to a boxing club with his son. Mr Roe has boxed and coached boxing his whole life. When he attended Grenfell, he knew where he was immediately because of the Dale Youth Boxing Club at the base of the tower – a gem in Britain’s feted amateur boxing circuit that has produced multiple world champions from the streets of west London.

“When I go into that space this afternoon, I’m going to be with people in an environment I’ve known since I was a kid,” says Mr Roe. “The warmth, the humour, the banter, the energy. And I know there’s estates and blocks all over this country that are exactly the same. And when I think about what motivates me, it’s that, it’s those spaces. It’s protecting them, and making sure they are safe.”

2106

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Latest Substack, looks into plans to let builders sell 'affordable' homes on the open market - and asks whether there is an 'idolatory to victimhood' in UK politics: peteapps.substack.com/p/sweeties-f...

131

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Build baby build is not a housing strategy Bit by me for the Spectator: www.spectator.co.uk/article/buil...

Text extract reading:

Working out the way forward isn’t easy, but it is the job of serious politicians to at least try. That requires strategy, trade-offs, imperfect answers, compromise and a willingness to at least hear dissenting voices – not branding everyone who questions you a ‘blocker’ or NIMBY, and hiding behind a slogan that is as childish as it is facile.

For Reed, the buzz of his cosplay populism will soon fade. He has had his fun being cheered by delegates and surrounded by sycophantic think tank wonks who share his taste for silly hats. But the reality of the state of the economy and the size of the mess he has inherited will soon dawn on him.

In the coming weeks, he is likely to meet with leaseholders whose lives have been turned upside down by the building crisis, as well as survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire. When he attends these meetings, he would be well advised to leave his new baseball cap at home

095

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Jess and I will be sharing a platform to discuss both books on October 23 at Pages of Hackney, if anyone can make it along!

011

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

... a boost. Thamesmead, south London - already a housing zone. Inner city densification in Manchester, hardly a new idea. Milton Keynes city centre, which was a new town originally but can't be again!

A list of developments which will likely become 'new towns', but in fact represent a series of existing areas of private sector development which will now receive enhanced government support

232

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

A shame this isn't going to be made retrospective. There's a few council press officers I could get banged up www.prweek.co.uk/article/1932...

030

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

And with Vicky Spratt and Jessica Field at Pages of Hackney on October 25 pagesofhackney.co.uk/events-calen...

111

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

The Conduit in Covent Garden with the amazing @Victoria_Spratt and @Kwajotweneboa - two really powerful voices on what's going wrong with housing and what needs to change theconduit.com/upcoming-eve...

110

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

In Edinburgh on October 7 with @lighthousebks.bsky.social for anyone up there. There is a lot of commonality between Edinburgh's housing crisis and London's, so I'm looking forward to a good discussion lighthousebookshop.com/events/homes...

163

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

On September 25 (publication day) at The Wanstead Tap in east London, with the institution that is the @newhambookshop.bsky.social (where I first went when I was about three months old, probably) newhambooks.co.uk/displaybook....

211

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

I have a few events coming up surrounding the release of my new book Homesick (out next Thursday). Really looking forward to discussing how we got into this mess and how we can get out with some great people (thread):

271

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

I know about the fiscal situation. But a heavily indebted economy post World War II still managed to push forward policies which engendered this kind of hope. We need some of that politics again, somehow.

There was criticism - it was uniform and monotonous in its architecture - but there was also a lot of hope. In its first years, the town was exclusively social rented housing, mostly houses, with private gardens. To those who were escaping the bombed out slums of east London, it was a paradise. “Some who read these pages at this time may feel almost as if they had wandered into fairyland, that it is too good to be true, that such things can have no relation to the present bleak and troubled days,” wrote the first chair of the development corporation of the first masterplan.

042

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Finished copies of Homesick arrived! Out on September 25, pre-order here uk.bookshop.org/p/books/home...

040

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

My new book, which tracks the impact the housing crisis has had on London since the 1980s and where the city is going in the future, is out on September 25. You can get 25% off if you pre-order with Waterstones here: www.waterstones.com/book/homesic...

072

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Around the country - and London in particular - developers are reducing their affordable housing contributions. Do we need a new model for building out large sites? Bit by me for The Developer thedeveloper.live/opinion/a-br...

1175

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Then - just six weeks later - she and other senior directors got a business update from the French arm of the business, boasting about a big sale of 3,000 sqm of PE to "Grenfell Towers". Not one of them asked about safety

131

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

New: US bosses at cladding firm which sold material for use on Grenfell knew it was unsafe and knew it was being sold for use on the tower, newly released emails reveal www.thetimes.com/uk/london/ar...

24533

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Some thoughts on Reeves' big affordable housing announcements. Tl;dr - yes it is good news (and a pleasent surprise), but let's not get carried away: peteapps.substack.com/p/yes-it-act...

265

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Sneak peak of the contents page:

151

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

I was born into a city where housing was affordable. But I've grown up into one where it was not. What has gone wrong in London over the last 35 years? And where is it going in the future? My new book, Homesick, tells that story. Out Sept 25 www.amazon.co.uk/Homesick-How...

17720

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

For me, one of the problems with the implementation of the Building Safety Regulator is that industry is not used to having to work out compliance at the start. Changing that was always going to be a big disruption. But it absolutely needed to happen www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/assu...

182

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

This week's Substack somehow started with the fall out from a prolific fire engineer being suspended, and ended with my anxieties about AI destroying the scaffolding which supports creative careers: peteapps.substack.com/p/lessons-fr...

010

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

I have my first foray into broadcast journalism coming out next week, with Anatomy of a Firetrap - a dive into the building safety crisis and how we got here for Radio 4's File on 4. It's a Radio Times "pick of the week", which is nice!

1167

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

If Labour really wants to build 1.5m homes, it needs to bring back public house building in a big way. An extra £2bn is better than a cut, but it also isn't going to change the picture: unherd.com/newsroom/rac...

1205

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

A fair few examples of this comms strategy in action in the government media rounds yesterday and this morning

041

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Horrible scenes from Macedonia. A night club fire poses a very well-established risk of high fatalities. Posting below from the Linkedin of Professor Ed Galea. Owners and regulators have no excuse for allowing these risks to persist

032

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Government officials received these warnings about Tri-Fire's Adam Kiziak from 2023 onwards. He remained on an official list of contractors approved to assess high rise buildings until January, when he was struck off by the Institute of Fire Engineers insidehousing.co.uk/news/exclusi...

A screenshot of text which show leaseholders raising concerns that Mr Kiziak was copy and pasting between reports and that his assessments were "not worth the paper they were written on"

064

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

At One Hyde Park, where individual apartments can sell for £175m. The construction sector is very sick www.ft.com/content/5cb6...

A clip of text from an article in the FT which lists construction defects with One Hyde Park - one of the most prestiguous addresses in the UK - which may require residents to move out

171

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Snap response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommendations response. A flurry of consultations and reviews which somehow feel both lightweight and overwhelming. Some good in there. But lots missing. We have travelled since Grenfell - but not nearly far enough:

2139

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Southwark Council - London's largest council landlord - has 50% of its homes without smoke alarms and 2,000 fire remedial issues outstanding. Utterly damning anywhere, but especially in the borough which lost six residents to the Lakanal House fire in 2009

22912

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

NHBC in particular get the stuffing kicked out of them by the panel (deservedly so) for many failures - including their role in the adoption of desktop studies (where untested cladding systems were installed on the basis of how they *might* have performed in a test)

A passage of text including quotes from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report about the NHBC. It concludes with the panels' view that the firm deserves criticism "in the strongest possible terms"

021

Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

As I get started on BSKY (is that what we're supposed to call it?), here's a typically upbeat article about the policy decisions which led to so many kids are dying in temporary accommodation - and what we could do about it open.substack.com/pub/peteapps...

717240