“Battle hardened veteran of the polling industry”.
London
Joined April 2009
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Like others, I imagine, we have been bombarded with demands to have a primary prompt for Restore, and have discussed it but we don't think its currently the right thing to do. Completely agree with Damian's thoughts.
This the type of voting intention result you get doing online polling and you’ve chosen to prompt Restore as a fully national (GB) party - in that every constituency in GB sees a Restore option in the first prompt. See the recent @DeltapollUK VI for contrast.
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The power of research when it lands in the right hands. Hats off to @createstreets. More wins like this please!
Approved!
The Mayor of London has greenlit Shoreditch Works, delivering an important symbolic win for urban regeneration, jobs, beauty and new homes.
Huge credit to Linea Properties Ltd for pushing this forward and we dare to hope that we at Create Streets helped with our groundbreaking Visual Preference Survey. This proved that the public overwhelmingly backs beautiful, dense design. Our research with @DeltapollUK showed an undeniable 76% to 78% public approval rating—demonstrating that the public support architecture that is public-friendly.
From features in City A.M. to deep-dives in the Wall Street Journal, the press has highlighted this scheme as the blueprint for how British capital can grow while keeping the public firmly on its side. This is how we build a better London! 🚀🏙️
You can …
Martin Boon retweeted
Our colleague @RobertKwolek has an important article in @WorksInProgMag explaining what our (and others’) Visual Preference Surveys are starting to tell us about what architecture the public does & does not like. Results are remarkably consistent across all demographics. What people like is predictable. You can read more …
Does the public prefer traditional architecture? Half a century of surveys find:
worksinprogress.co/issue/do-…
- Between 60 and 95 percent prefer traditional architecture;
- This pattern holds across gender, class, race, nationality and political views;
- More traditional densification schemes seem to attract remarkably high levels of survey support;
- Laypeople and design professionals respond dramatically differently, with professionals far more favourable to modern styles.
Research is still at an early stage, and many questions remain. Personally, I am particularly interested in how the public would respond to a non-traditional but richer and more decorative style? I think they might like it, but we don’t have hard evidence yet.
But the results are already puzzling. Why do people end up buying buildings that are so different to the buildings they say they prefer? How did we end up in this odd situation? What can we do about it?
Read more in @RobertKwolek's definitive review of architectural visual preference surveying.
Martin Boon retweeted
1/ What do people actually want their streets to look like? We’ve been asking in Pimlico. The answer is not complicated.
Create Streets are publishing our latest visual preference survey. It is a comparison of public preferences for two types of building design on Upper Tachbrook Street in Pimlico, London. Conducted by Create Streets with @DeltapollUK in July 2026. A visual preference survey is an A/B paired-image survey of public design preferences. This survey was conducted with a nationally representative survey of UK adults measuring wider public design preferences.
By almost five to one, the public preferred a traditional terrace based on neighbouring Pimlico houses to the existing contrasting building. People have very clear preferences about building and place design. People prefer buildings that are designed to be familiar, rooted within the place they are built and in keeping with the aesthetics of the surrounding neighbourhood, rather than attempting to contrast to it. Design matters and people know what they like.
Everyone agrees: the preference crossed every demographic group reported. In an age which is pulling us apart, love of place can bring us together. Left wing, right wing, old, young, rich, poor, male, female: all agreed.
The result supports a wider and increasingly international evidence base. This finding corroborates multiple studies across the world in Britain, the Netherlands, America, Norway, Greece and South America. All find that the public strongly prefer buildings and places with some combination of human scale, coherent complexity, ornament, materials texture, ‘biomorphic forms’ (i.e. shapes that echo nature) and buildings that feel more clearly rooted in their surroundings.
The implication is practical: new buildings can add homes and floorspace while responding positively to local character. More traditionally conceived streets and buildings with detail, variety in a pattern and more textured building materials are dramatically more popular with the public. You can read more....
I have banged this drum for so long, even invested in a PhD candidate to investigate it, so I’m thrilled to see this academic vindication in the idea that polls systematically underestimate parties of the Right.
osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/mk…
Sadly, it’s not funny. Every pollster knows what they’re doing with agree/disagree statements.
We all use them, but never as a primary concept and definitely not prior to the real question you want answered.
I hope this slipped through via a junior staff member..,,
Any pollster is reading this, and fancies a laugh?
Ask exactly the same question but with 13 prior questions leading in the opposite direction. I'd wager £10m* I know what happens.
(*not real money)
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The polling chumocracy appears to think an 8-point error on Burnham’s vote share is a champagne moment.
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Your app today @SW_Help is brilliant. Payment failed three times so I gave up. Then I receive three emails confirming payment in one go. So I e paid three times for my ticket.
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Martin Boon retweeted
Nicholas Boys Smith has done as much as any living Englishman to make our towns and cities beautiful. We talked about:
- The importance of local stone to the cities of the future, even those that are offworld or on Antarctica
- The Death Star as the apotheosis of functionalist modernism
- Architecture schools becoming so hostile to traditional tastes that they threw plaster casts, previously used fror sketching, in the skip
- Why the restoration of the Palace of Westminster is to cost £39bn
- NBS' co-chairing of an architectural beauty commission with a dying Roger Scruton
.@boys_nicholas shared a useful number on this week's Anglofuturism.
"If you look at the value per hectare of land in Poundbury compared to comparable normal houses elsewhere — Knight Frank's study, from a few years ago — it's a 55% premium. That's not 5 or 6%."
The market has been telling us, with cash, that beauty pays at scale.
Martin Boon retweeted
Reform UK currently lead by 8 points, but when asking about a hypothetical Burnham leadership, Labour pull ahead of Reform to lead by 1 point.
Lab 28% (+8)
Reform 27% (-1)
Con 15% (-2)
Green 10% (-3)
Lib Dem 9% (-2)
Fieldwork: 15th - 18th May 2026
Sample: 1,921 GB adults
Martin Boon retweeted
Delighted & proud that our work on the Trams Taskforce with @BritainRemade & @CBTransport is bearing fruit & that my marvellous & wise colleague @djjmilner has been appointed the new Mass Transit Taskforce by @Heidi_Labour
Some good news !! 😀 @transportgovuk has launched a new Mass Transit Taskforce to help towns & cities deliver trams, light rail & high-frequency buses more quickly & efficiently. This is VERY welcome.... (🧵1/?)
Hi @ryanair i have to use your verification app as extraordinarily booking on your app via Apple Pay is deemed 2 to be a 3rd party purchase.
Your app does not work - i have taken a photo of my card 50 times and it rejects it for blur etc when none is present. Suggestions?
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Martin Boon retweeted
We’ve had a lot of interest in our pioneering election model last few weeks.
Thank you.
The most important point to stress is that this is based on party support and not candidates.
We will be updating the model on the 15th April with the candidate list, to simulate the election more accurately.
Our model is a powerful machine learning model that updates and is not a static MRP model. It’s powered by our Results Based Prediction by GBRM tech.
We are not claiming it is 100 percent accurate - we know it’s wrong and why it’s wrong in places - but we are confident the model is at least 80 percent accurate against real world by-election results.
If you want more info or to purchase a license to our election service you can do so here:
actionnetwork.org/fundraisin…
Martin Boon retweeted
Very pleased that our pioneering model has been featured in the Guardian today.
EXCL: Senior Labour politicians across London warning govt not to take progressive voters for granted amid concerns they face “political earthquake” in May after surge for Greens.
They have been privately circulating new data that suggests Labour could drop from first to fourth place in London – losing control of all but two of their councils – with the Greens soaring into first place to take nine.
New modelling indicates Labour, which holds 21 boroughs, could lose flagship authorities like Hackney and Lambeth, although the Greens would struggle to field 1800 + candidates across capital.
Reform could take one: Barking and Dagenham. However, Nigel Farage’s party could win 132 seats and be largest party in Havering.
theguardian.com/politics/202…
