Jenrick Pushed MHCLG Staff To Fast-Track Westferry Decision

Housing secretary Robert Jenrick ignored advice from government officials and was “insistent” on pushing through planning approval for the Westferry Printworks scheme before the council introduced new charges, documents reveal. Correspondence released by the government show Mr Jenrick pressured civil servants into fast-tracking a decision on the controversial 1,500-home development to avoid council charges that would have cost the developer – a Conservative Party donor – around £40m. The planning application was approved – against the planning inspector’s recommendation – on 15 January 2020, one day before Tower Hamlets’ Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) charge was introduced, saving developer Richard Desmond £40m. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/jenrick-pushed-mhclg-staff-to-fast-track-westferry-printworks-decision-to-avoid-council-charges-documents-reveal-66963

UK Housing Review Calls For Increased Grant Levels For Social Housing

In the latest UK Housing Review, there are calls for government to increase the grant levels for social housing. While grants have risen slightly in the last two years, they now cover just 11% of housing association’s development costs, leaving the rest to be met by borrowing and surpluses. One-third of new homes are being built without any grant. The review also shows only 11% of new homes built in England is at genuinely affordable social rents, compared with nearly 70% in Scotland and over 80% in Wales. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/uk-housing-review-calls-for-increased-grant-levels-for-social-housing/

5% Decline In Planning Decisions Made Since Last Year

District-level planning authorities granted 357,700 decisions in the year ending March 2019 – down 5 per cent on the year ending March 2018, according to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Of those 357,700 applications, 46,800 were for residential developments. This was a decline of 3 per cent compared with a year earlier. Of these, 6,300 were major developments and 40,500 were minor developments. These figures show a 2 per cent and 5 per cent decrease respectively on the year ending March 2018. Read more on the Planning Portal website.

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/news

Land Costs Holding Back Development Of Retirement Communities

Access and cost of land was the single largest barrier to dedicated retirement communities being developed. Winckworth Sherwood in a survey of 300 housing, health and social care professions asked: what holds back the retirement living market and why the UK has not yet seen the rise of dedicated retirement communities? 28% of respondents told the firm the availability and costs of land are the single largest barrier, followed by a lack of funding (22%). A further 13% blame the cost of development and construction, with 9% saying the planning regime in England. 36% said that large scale retirement villages are still a decade away, with 40% believing we will have to wait at least 20 years. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/land-costs-holding-back-development-of-retirement-communities/

MHCLG Announces Allocations For £45m Land Release Fund

Ministers have announced the allocations for its £45m Land Release Fund, aimed at building infrastructure and roads to unlock local authority-owned sites for development. The money has been awarded to successful bids for 79 schemes from 41 councils across England. The government estimates the funding could release land for up to 7,280 new homes. It will be spent on a range of remediation measures, including asbestos removal, road alterations and “bat alleviation”, according to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Read more on Inside Housing.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zyV4mpF2SfoJ:https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/mhclg-announces-allocations-for-45m-land-release-fund-54679+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&safe=vss

Associations Pull 85% Of Planned Supported Housing Developments

The National Housing Federation (NHF) said the dramatic drop in development is due to uncertainty over the introduction of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) cap. The government was meant to publish a Green Paper on the future of supported housing during the spring but this has not yet materialised. The NHF’s survey of 69 housing associations which together provide a third of supported housing revealed they had previously planned to build 8,800 units of supported housing but now had a total pipeline of just 1,350. Those who provided additional detail in the survey said 71 schemes representing 2,185 homes have been postponed, 19 have been cancelled outright, and 25 existing schemes are threatened with closure. Read more on Inside Housing.

Government Launches Brownfield Registers

Housing and planning minister Gavin Barwell has announced that local authorities across England will now have to produce and maintain up-to-date registers listing all brownfield sites available for housing. The registers will be available to the public and the aim of them is to help house builders identify suitable brownfield sites for development. They will allow local communities to highlight local derelict or underused building sites that are primed for development. These new registers will give local authorities and developers the tools to do this. Brownfield registers were first piloted in 2016, when 73 local planning authorities across the country pioneered the measures. Read more on the Planner website.

Garden Villages: Locations Of First 14 Announced

England's first garden villages have been proposed for 14 sites spread across the country from Cornwall to Cumbria, the government has announced. Ministers have lent their support to 14 planned developments which will each deliver between 1,500 and 10,000 properties and establish new villages. The new garden villages could provide 48,000 homes, the government says. Larger garden towns in Buckinghamshire, Somerset and the Essex-Hertfordshire border were also approved. The developments will be distinct new places, with their own community facilities, rather than extensions to existing urban areas, the government said. Read more on the CLG website.

LHA Cap: Supported Schemes Remain On Ice

Supported housing providers are keeping development schemes on hold, despite a recent assurance from the government that current levels of funding will be maintained in the future. In September, the government announced that councils would be given control of a ringfenced fund to make up the funding shortfall caused by extending the Local Housing Allowance (LHA)-linked housing benefit cap to supported housing from April 2019. A detailed consultation was published last month. But concerns over how local authorities will administer those funds, as well as the ongoing permanence of the ring fence, mean frozen development plans remain on ice. Read more on Inside Housing.

House Building Land In UK Affected By Developers Post Brexit Sentiment

Greenfield development land prices fell by 0.4% in the third quarter of 2016, meaning they have fallen by 2.6% between April and the end of September and by 3.9% over 12 months. The index data also shows that in prime central London land prices are down by 10.3% on the year, and are now at around the same levels as June 2014. Meanwhile, prices for urban brownfield land values remain unchanged and are up 6% on an annual basis, mirroring the outperformance of housing markets in urban centres where average capital values mean there is a wide pool of demand which is not being matched by supply. The report says that the declines reflect the uncertainty around Brexit and the potential resulting impact on the UK economy. Read more on Property Wire.

Councils Are Granting Enough Planning Permissions – So Why Aren't We Building Housing?

One of the housing objectives of David Cameron’s government was to increase the amount of land that was permissioned for residential development. The number of units given planning permission in England increased from 176,209 in 2011 to 261,644 in 2015. The planning system is now yielding enough permissions to meet the roughly 250,000 new homes many housing economists think we need to keep up with household growth. This doesn’t mean that they are all in a position to be built out the very next day. But the number of plots approved for residential development in a given year has increased, by 48 per cent between 2011 and 2015. However, starts have risen over the same period by just 26 per cent, from 110,820 in 2011 to only 139,680 in 2015. Read more on the City Metric website.

Councils Anger At Barrier To Building Claim

Councils have challenged government over "evidence" that development is delayed by planning conditions. Local authorities rejected the claim by central government that they are slowing up the building of new housing developments across the country.  Cllr Peter Box, planning spokesman at the Local Government Association, said:   “The planning system is not a barrier to housebuilding. Councils approve almost nine out of 10 planning applications and the number of homes being granted planning permission by local authorities during 2015 was 253,000, the highest level since 2007. There is little evidence to suggest development is being delayed by planning conditions which also save developers time and money as they do not need to invest in detailed submissions until the principle of the development is granted. Read more on 24dash.

Experts Warn Of Effects Of Buy-To-Let Tax Changes On Affordable Housing

A government surcharge could lead to unexpected consequences for the affordable housing sector, as developers face a Stamp Duty Land Tax bill around 20% higher than pre-Budget levels. The higher duty for developers is re-focusing sales negotiations and often resulting in lower prices being paid for development land in an effort to spread the transaction costs between buyer and seller. February and March saw a surge in property transactions but, since the controversial three per cent surcharge on second home purchases was implemented in April, activity has slumped and there has been an increased trend of sellers reducing their property prices, or accepting offers up to 10% less than their original asking prices. The average house price in the UK has fallen to £212,321, down £1,624 on the month, and the annual pace of inflation has dropped from 10.1% to 9.2%.  Read more on the CCH website.

Peers Overturn 20 Per Cent Starter Home Requirement

The government’s starter homes policy suffered serious setbacks in the Lords as peers voted through amendments to the housing and planning bill designed to safeguard affordable housing. One amendment would allow councils discretion over how many starter homes are required in new residential developments. The government had wanted the legislation to require that at least 20 per cent of new housing on larger sites would be starter homes. As a result of this change, planning authorities will be able to “grant planning permission for a residential development having had regard to the provision of starter homes based on its own assessment of local housing need and viability”. Read more on the Planning Portal website.

Government Housing Policy Will Not Meet Objectives

The National Policy for the Built Environment Committee asserts the importance of delivering a better built environment and criticises current government policy as unlikely to meet demand for either the quantity or quality of houses we need. The Committee is concerned about the quality of new developments, and about the risk of housing delivery being prioritised at the expense of other elements of the built environment.  Their observations and recommendations are included in the Committee’s report “Building better places” which can be downloaded from the Parliament website.

Council Ends Controversial Agreement

Winchester Council has voted to terminate a development agreement that was called in by the previous secretary of state and led to the resignation of the council leader last year. The controversial 287-home Silver Hill development was frozen by Eric Pickles last year after the council agreed to allow the developer, TH Real Estate, to drop a 40% affordable housing commitment down to zero without running a new procurement exercise. The scheme was subject to a judicial review launched by a local campaign group. The Conservative council leader resigned in February last year following the High Court judgment that found the council had acted unlawfully. TH Real Estate is appealing the judgment and had requested the council delay terminating the agreement until at least nine months after its appeal proceedings had finished. Read more on the Winchester City Council website.

Error Over S106 Agreements Costs Council Nearly £2m

Rutland County Council has approved a settlement with a developer after a planning error cost it nearly £2m. The mistake was made by officers in 2011 and involved the s106 Agreement over a 1,000 dwelling housing development in Oakham. The blunder happened when the developer of the Oakham North scheme, asked to vary a minor condition of the section 106 agreement for the project. The condition related to flooding issues. The variation was agreed under delegated powers by officials. But in the process the developer ended up with a second valid permission but one without a s106 agreement. The developer pointed out the error. Following legal advice and negotiations the developer has now agreed to pay a sum of £4.8m. The council has estimated that if it had not made the mistake it would have expected to receive some £6.68m under the terms of the original s106 agreement. Read more on the Planning Portal.

Public Sector: Land – Parliamentary Written Answer

Emma Reynolds: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local

Government, how many public sector sites have been (a) identified and (b) released for the purpose of new housing developments since 2010.

Brandon Lewis: As of September 2014, land capable of delivering 89,521 homes has been sold, across 647 sites. Our aim is to dispose of surplus public sector land with capacity for 100,000 homes by the end of March 2015. We have so far identified a further 294 surplus sites, some of which will be sold to meet our March 2015 goal, and the remainder which will be sold subsequently and help contribute to our broader goal in the next Parliament to release land with capacity for up to 150,000 homes. As part of that Programme this Department is already working with land holding Departments to help them rationalise and make more effective use of their estates.

Build New Homes in Weeks, Not Months, Minister Warns Housebuilders

Britain’s housebuilders must embrace new technology that could dramatically speed up the development of new homes in order to tackle the country’s crippling housing shortage, the housing minister has warned. Brandon Lewis said organisations risked being left behind if they failed to take notice of advancements in technology such as off-site construction that can build homes in weeks, rather than months. The UK requires 250,000 new homes built each year to meet demand, according to most estimates. Last year just 141,000 homes were built. Read more on the Guardian website.

Planning Reforms Put Power Back In the Hands of Local Residents

The New Year has brought new powers to make it quicker and easier for communities to create their own neighbourhood plan, says Housing Minister Brandon Lewis. More than 5.2 million people live in one of the 1,274 areas across England where the community is working together to create a neighbourhood plan. But agreeing an area for a neighbourhood plan to cover takes an average of 19 weeks. The measures will cut weeks off this process – encouraging even more communities to have a greater say over the future development of their area. Read more on the CLG website.