Last winter, we published our white paper, ‘Solving the UK’s Housing Shortage’, examining the issues contributing to the UK’s estimated deficit of 4.75mn homes.
We analysed the government’s housing policies and examined key barriers to housebuilding, including planning, land supply, funding, development incentives, supply chain, environmental demands and affordability.
Following input from industry leaders, such as Knight Frank and PwC, we published a series of recommendations to help politicians address the housing crisis.
These include: more planning department funding, clarity on household projections, the introduction of a public sector land database, development of a robust energy and water infrastructure strategy and measures to help buyer affordability.
Sadly, most of our recommendations were overlooked by Jeremy Hunt in his Autumn Statement.
Initiatives to boost housing development will do little to overcome the impact of multiple failed policies, chronic austerity-driven underfunding of planning departments, NIMBY backbench pressure, see-sawing housing targets and a merry-go-round of housing ministers.
Planning
Some £32mn was committed to clear the planning backlog and develop new housing quarters in Cambridge, London, and Leeds.
A further £450mn was allocated to local authority housing funds to deliver 2,400 new homes across the UK.
To incentivise Local Planning Authorities to speed up the system, the government will allow them to keep the planning fees from major applications in return for meeting faster timelines.
Any council failing to do so would be forced to refund fees automatically and process the application free of charge, creating ‘a prompt service or your money back'.
Financially incentivising councils to meet targets for processing planning applications fails to address why applications are taking so long – the severe shortage of planning officers and lack of investment in technology.
Penalising councils who simply don’t have the manpower to process applications on time exacerbates the problems and leads to councils potentially rejecting applications to meet timelines.
Hunt also announced:
- £5mn for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ Planning Skills Delivery Fund – enabling LPAs to target development application backlogs
- £5mn to incentivise greater use of local development orders in England, securing commercial project planning permission faster
- £3bn extension to the existing Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme to help deliver 20,000 new homes and improve the quality and efficiency of thousands more
- £3mn to improve the home-buying and selling process. In our white paper, we advocate digitising the buying and selling of homes, and removing the archaic paper-based conveyancing process to speed up the buying and selling process, releasing more properties to market.
The planning system needs systemic reform, rather than sporadic funding.
While funding can help alleviate staff shortages and upskilling, chronic underfunding since 2009 means £32mn is unlikely to have much impact.
As we state in our white paper, a national framework is needed to eliminate decisions based on ulterior motives/opinion.
For example, where a local MP’s seat is marginal, evidence suggests developers are more likely to have their plans rejected.
Devolving mayoral powers will equally have little effect on housebuilding and property development – we need a central government policy that mandates local plans and dictates clear, long-term housing goals.
The problems can’t be solved at a local level, as evidenced by the number of councils ditching local plans.
Nutrient neutrality and planning
Hunt committed £110mn to help LPAs ‘deliver high-quality nutrient mitigation schemes’ unlocking 40,000 homes that are otherwise stalled.
Earlier this year, the government attempted to scrap laws on nutrient neutrality which stop new developments being built if they lead to higher levels of phosphates and nitrates in waterways.
