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Parliament's recess, the normally quiet months of August and September, have this year seen a flurry of activity. Kicking this off, just four days before the final Parliamentary session at the end of July, housing minister Yvette Copper unveiled what is already being referred to as an historic housing green paper.

Headlines from this include a £3bn spending boost for affordable homes (now a total of £8bn in the Housing Corporation's 2008-2011 spending round), a government-led initiative for five new eco-towns, providing 5,000 to 20,000 new homes each by 2016, as well as a £300m boost for infrastructure to support new homes.

The summer saw a host of consultation launches, most with deadlines for submissions next month. Here’s the main ones:

The future of the Code for Sustainable Homes – Making a rating mandatory

(Deadline 23 October)

This consultation seeks views on, among other things, making a rating against the code mandatory for new homes and using home information packs as the mechanism for making the code rating available to prospective buyers.

Clarifying the Right to Buy rules

(Deadline 31 October)

The proposals would not affect the terms under which social tenants can buy their homes but are designed to widen the range of options that landlords can offer to the leaseholders and clarify interpretation of the right to buy rules.

Transfer of Planning Appeals to Inspectors

(Deadline 5 November)

The government proposes here to extend the range of cases that can be transferred to inspectors and, in fact, allow most types of planning appeals to be determined by them, to speed the process up. Exceptions to this are where individual cases justify secretary of state intervention.