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I've updated the Land Registry data on the website. The annual change is still in positive territory but prices look to be starting to head downwards. Taking into account inflation and wage increases, house prices are falling, but given the increases in mortgage costs, affordability is probably not

Before this summer, climate change had always seemed a rather abstract concept. I knew it was happening and I knew we had to do something about it, but it appeared to be a gradual process that would take decades to play out.

Then large parts of the world started burning. And other places were suffering from catastrophic flooding. As I read about these disasters, the algorithms decided to show me even more related stuff, like the graphs of sea and land temperatures and the climate records being broken on a daily basis and the future started to look increasingly dark.

I went in search of positive climate news and the increasing use of EVs along with the increasing use of renewables to generate electricity gave me some hope for the future. This post gave me the idea of automating the calculation of the equivalent MPG of an EV. I liked this comparison since we are all familiar with the MPG for a fossil fuel car. So here you can calculate the equivalent MPG in terms of emissions and also cost.

Plugging in some numbers for the UK suggested owning an EV is a good thing for the environment and for your pocket. Even for the dirtiest countries (I'm looking at you Poland), running an EV is probably equivalent to running a fossil fuel car and will only get better as we transition to cleaner sources of energy. Of course, not using a car for journeys is an even better option 

Another month goes by and the world may be on fire but house prices keep going up

I've uploaded the latest UK postcode data to the website. Sanity checks suggest everything is OK, but let me know if something looks wrong

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Based on some useful feedback some time ago (thanks Denis!), I've added a new feature to the segment explorer to help you grab more KOMs or QOMs. You can now view and filter on the upcoming wind direction for the area you are viewing. I don't really chase KOMs these days (too old and slow) so I can't vouch for its usefulness, but I think it could be quite useful for those that do

I've uploaded the latest Land Registry data for England and Wales to the website. House prices keep going up and seem remarkably resilient given the increase in mortgage costs

I am very slowly working my way through the currently available 2021 Census data and adding it to the site. I've recently added data at the constituency level for England and Wales so I thought I'd take a look at the constituencies with the biggest change in population since the 2011 Census. First, here are the ones with the biggest increases in population

These are all in London and the South East. There have been a lot of flats built in the two London constituencies, which probably explains the increase in population. I'm not familiar with the other areas, although I guess they may be considered as within commuting distance of London, which may explain their appeal

And now the ones with the biggest decreases

These are split between central London and Wales. I guess the London ones are an indication that a lot of people buy properties as an investment and don't actually live there. I'm not convinced that is a healthy thing to be happening to our capital city.

I've uploaded the latest Land Registry data to the site. Rising interest rates still don't seem to be having much of an impact

I've uploaded the latest ONS postcode data to the website. There have been quite a few changes in administrative areas which caused a few issues, but hopefully everything is fixed up correctly, let me know if you see any problems