New Government Sets Targets for Home Provision
Local authorities will be expected to plan for 370,000 homes a year under new proposals from Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner…
The new Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has announced a number of planning system reforms, among them a recalculation of the required number of new homes needed to meet demand and the targeting of ‘grey belt’ land in the Green Belt.
The new homes target has increased to 370,000 per annum, an average increase for local authorities of 20 per cent on the current 306,500.
The increase is part of a system shake-up, which sees the new Labour Government aim to provide a total of 1.5 million homes over the next five years. It said this would boost homebuilding in areas that are most in need of new homes.
However, the figure could be markedly different for some urban planning authorities, as Labour has decided to do away with the ‘urban uplift’, which saw some cities required to plan for 35 per cent more urban homes. For example, in London, the need has dropped from 99,000 to 80,000 homes.
Planning System Reforms
Other proposals include changes to local plan intervention criteria; the release of ‘grey belt’ sites situated in green belt land in a bid to spark homebuilding; and the introduction of ‘comprehensive’ coverage of strategic plans across England.
If put into action, these proposals could see local authorities that can’t meet housing need be forced to review land in the green belt to see if sites can be released. They should first look at brownfield sites but turn their attention to ‘grey belt’ sites if needed. Councils with local plans that are out of date, or that have particularly poor track records on delivering housing, will be expected to approve grey belt applications.
It’s not a free-for-all on grey belt sites though. Applications will have to follow ‘golden rules’ – delivering 50% affordable homes, increasing access to green spaces and supplying the necessary infrastructure such as schools and GP surgeries.
The government also proposes to remove references to ‘beauty’ within the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and add a wider range of developments under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Planning (NSIP) system, to increase renewables and digital infrastructure projects.
Housing targets will be mandatory under changes to the NPPF. However, councils will be able to cite constraints through local plans as a reason not to comply with targets.
Angela Rayner said: “Today [30 July 2024] marks a significant step to getting Britain building again.
“Our decisive reforms to the planning system correct the errors of the past and set us on our way to tackling the housing crisis, delivering 1.5 million homes for those who really need them.”
Sector’s Response
Responding to the proposals, Victoria Hills, chief executive of the Royal Town Planning Institute, said that they “have the potential to rebuild trust in our planning system. We believe that the government’s goals for housing, energy, and transport can be accomplished through collaboration with planners in both the public and private sectors.”
Justin Young, chief executive of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said: “Securing the homes the UK requires needs more than one solution, and it is encouraging to see many of them addressed today.
“Setting localised housing targets to ensure that what is needed is built in the right places and with the right infrastructure, and working with local authorities that know their areas better than anyone, will help secure the bold ambitions of government as well as providing jobs and opportunities.”
Planning Resource reported that Nigel Hugill, chief executive of developer Urban&Civic, said: “Recent experience is that setting clear targets for each local planning authority is absolutely fundamental to lifting housing numbers’’, while Councillor Claire Holland, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, commented: “While national government can provide useful guidance, it is local councils and communities who know their areas best, so changes to national planning policy should be suitably flexible to allow authorities to make judgement decisions on managing competing demands for uses in their local areas. We will look carefully at the changes proposed to planning policy and housing targets.’’
She added that councils need the power to support the faster build of schemes, and suggested a ‘stalled sites’ council tax premium, along with a streamlined compulsory purchase process to acquire stalled sites or sites where developers do not build out to agreed rates.
Paul Brocklehurst, chairman of the Land, Planning and Development Federation, concluded: ‘’The measures that the government is announcing are the first giant stride in the long walk to achieving that goal.”
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