British Prime Minister Theresa has announced the Government’s most comprehensive plans to date with regard to tackling the UK housing crisis and will tell developers to speed up house building.
Planning rules will be re-written to streamline the process and cut red tape with councils that continually fail to build adequate homes finding themselves having to meet minimum housing targets. Some 15 councils have failed to conclude their Local Development Plans and will, as a consequence, run the risk of the Government intervening operationally.
There will be strong protection for the green belt, ancient woodlands and historic coastlines. Developers and local authorities must only allocate green belt sites for development for exceptional reasons. Should development have to go ahead it must first make use of brown field sites, and where land is removed, they must create new spaces.
There will be up to five new towns built between Oxford and Cambridge to create what is being called the UK’s Silicon Corridor. Supporting transport infrastructure has been promised, including an expressway and enhanced rail services between the two cities.
There will be encouragement for developers to build upwards in cities and a use it or lose it policy on land owned by developers with planning permission. May said that developers who are too slow to build houses will find that their past record could count against them when they bid for new planning permissions.
In a speech at a national planning conference in London the Prime Minister highlighted the ‘perverse incentive’ in the bonus structure of some house builders which does not encourage them to build homes that are affordable. While progress has been made in building more homes with over 217,000 new homes built last year, May said that for decades there has been a failure to build enough of the right homes in the right places.
‘In much of the country, housing is so unaffordable that millions of people who would reasonably expect to buy their own home are unable to do. The failure to match demand with supply really began to push prices upwards,’ she said, adding that higher prices mean higher rents.
‘The result is a vicious circle from which most people can only escape with help from the Bank of Mum and Dad. If you’re not lucky enough to have such support, the door to home ownership is all too often locked and barred,’ May pointed out.
She spoke about her own experience. ‘I still vividly remember the first home I shared with my husband, Philip. Not only our pictures on the walls and our books on the shelves, but the security that came from knowing we couldn’t be asked to move on at short notice.
‘And because we had that security, because we had a place to go back to, it was that much easier to play an active role in our community. To share in the common purpose of a free society. That is what this country should be about, not just having a roof over your head but having a stake in your community and its future,’ she added.
When it comes to planning May says that around 80 of the proposals set out in the Housing White Paper will be implemented, including using land more efficiently, fast tracking planning permissions into homes, giving greater certainty to local authorities and putting local plans in place to give communities more control.
‘I want to see planning permissions going to people who are actually going to build houses, not just sit on land and watch its value rise. Where councils are allocating sufficient land for the homes people need, our new planning rulebook will stop developers building on large sites that aren’t allocated in the plan, something that’s not fair on residents who agree to a plan only to see it ignored,’ May said.
The Prime Minister urged councils to do all they can to find sites, grant planning permissions and build homes including through adopting a new nationwide standard that shows how many homes authorities need to plan for in their area.
May promised that the right infrastructure will be put in place to support developments and the planning changes will also allow more affordable homes prioritised for key workers, including nurses, teachers, and firefighters. Councils will be allowed to prioritise these workers.
There will be an eight week consultation on the first major overhaul to the National Planning Policy Framework for six years. May said she wants a comprehensive approach for planners, developers and councils so they can build the homes the country needs. A final version is expected to be published in the summer.
But not everyone is convinced that the bold promises will be carried through. ‘For too long the developers charged with building our homes have held us to ransom by land banking,’ said Russel Quirk, chief executive officer of hybrid estate agent eMoov.
‘At the same time, local councillors under pressure from NIMBYs across the nation would rather protect their own seat then take steps to solve the crisis on a local level. While no one wants to be put on the naughty step, it is about time we take the democracy out of the home building process and penalise those who don’t take the necessary action required to help solve it,’ he added.
A former housing minister Gary Porter, now head of the Local Government Association, believes that the plans are too weak to change anything. He believes that the only solution is for the Treasury to lift harsh restrictions on borrowing to allow local authorities to build the homes themselves.
‘If we want more houses, we have to build them, not plan them. If we want cheaper homes, we have to build them, not plan them. The nonsense will go on and nothing will change. The truth is that councils are currently approving nine in 10 planning applications, which shows that the planning system is working well and is not a barrier to building,’ he said.
‘It is completely wrong, therefore, to suggest the country’s failure to build the housing it desperately needs is down to councils. The threat of stripping councils of their rights to decide where homes are built is unhelpful and misguided,’ he pointed out.
‘Ultimately, the private sector will never build enough of the homes the country needs on its own. The Government must back the widespread calls, including from the Treasury Select Committee, for council borrowing and investment freedoms to spark a renaissance in house building by local government,’ he added.
