Cutting red tape on planning?

Planning has again been criticized and will again be the subject of tinkering and even more procedural changes 

Unveiling the White Paper, communities secretary, Sajid Javid said

“The housing market in this country is broken and the solution means building many more houses in the places that people want to live.

“Today we are setting out ambitious proposals to help fix the housing market so that more ordinary working people from across the country can have the security of a decent place to live. The only way to halt the decline in affordability and help more people onto the housing ladder is to build more homes. Let’s get Britain building.”

The White Paper hopes to “tackle the high cost of renting at the heart of its plan to fix the broken housing market”.

There are also plans to give councils more powers to build homes as well as introducing a Lifetime ISA from April 2017.

The document is now out for consultation and will be closed on the 2nd May 2017.

with regard to the role of planning Government have reiterated that the lack of up to date Local Plans is harming the rate of housebuilding. The White Paper will look to force local areas to produce a “realistic” plan and review it every five years.

Interestingly, councils will be “expected to use land more efficiently” by building homes at higher density where there is a shortage of land and where there are good transport links.

There will be powers to help councils build more homes too, although the detail is yet to emerge as to how this will be done.

The White Paper will look to make it easier for councils to issue completion notices, slashing the timescales required by developers to build after planning permission is granted to within two years, instead of the current three.

The document also looks amending planning rules to allow councils to plan for more long-term Build to Rent schemes.

The government is also looking for “greater transparency and information from developers” in relation to the pace of new home delivery, so councils can consider this in their local plans. This is hoped to cut the discrepancy between planning permissions granted and new homes completed.

New players entering the building game

The government are hoping to help more SME builders and others into the housebuilding market by utilising the £3bn Home Building Fund introduced at the Conservative Party Conference.

The fund will also be used to provide loans to custom builders, offsite construction and essential infrastructure.

The government are looking to diversify the market after pointing out that currently 10 companies build around 60% of new homes.

The Government wants to build the ‘right homes in the right places’. To do that, they’ve told local authorities in England (where they have jurisdiction to control housing policy – Scotland, Wales, London and Northern Ireland have their own) to come up with a plan by April 2018.

These plans will have to be based on meeting local demand for housing – including making sure that enough houses are built for older people and disabled people.

Then local authorities will have to stick to the plan and meet their target number of homes every year – unless, they don’t. In which case, the Government will get involved and ask them why they haven’t.

The Government is also proposing to cut the time local authorities have to approve planning applications from three years to two  – although those of us in the planning system really dont recognise these figures.

 

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