Housing: Construction – Parliamentary Written Answer

Ms Nusrat Ghani: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will review the five-year plan to assume that homes will be built within five years to remove incentives for developers to delay development and speculate on land.

Christopher Pincher: The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that local planning authorities should identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years' worth of housing against their housing requirement set out in adopted strategic policies. The Government wants to see homes built faster and expects house builders to build out as soon as possible once planning permission is granted. Where build-out is delayed, it is for councils and developers to work closely together to overcome any barriers. To support them, this Government is looking at strengthening the tools available to local authorities to encourage faster build out rates.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2021-09-14/49185 

Hoarding Housebuilders Increase Land Banking During the Pandemic

Research reveals which of the UK’s biggest developers currently own the highest number of land bank plots, land which can, but isn’t being built on. StripeHomes analysed data on the volume of land banking plots and found that they totalled 441,702 plots in 2020, a 4% increase on the previous year. The current level of land bank plots by these housebuilders alone far exceeds the government’s target to build 300,000 new homes a year, a target they consistently fail to reach. Barratt, one of the nation’s biggest housebuilders, also claims the title of Britain’s biggest land banker. As of 2020, Barratt owned 80,324 land bank plots. Second on the list is Taylor Wimpey, owner of 77,000 land bank plots, and third is Persimmon with 67,205 plots. Read more on the Property Notify website.

https://www.propertynotify.co.uk/news/press-releases/britains-hoarding-housebuilders-increase-land-banking-plots-during-the-pandemic/ 

Government Will Act On Build Out Rates

Robert Jenrick has confirmed that the government intends to bring in measures designed to force housebuilders to build out sites more quickly, despite admitting that there was no evidence of “land-banking”. Speaking to the Home Builders’ Federation’s annual policy conference, the housing secretary said he was planning to act because there remained a “public perception” of landbanking, despite two government-commissioned investigations having found no evidence of it happening. The announcement comes in the wake of the confirmation that the government will press ahead with controversial planning reforms in the face of significant backbench disquiet over the measures. Read more on Housing Today.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/government-will-act-on-build-out-rates-jenrick-confirms/5112044.article 

More Affordable Housing 'Should Be Built In National Parks'

More affordable housing should be built in England’s national parks to help communities excluded by spiralling prices driven by second homes, the new chair for the authorities has said. Carl Lis OBE, chair of National Parks England, has warned that young people and national parks staff are being forced out of some of the most scenic parts of the country by high prices, driven in part by exclusive holiday homes. Lis said the government should also take action on “land banking” by developers in protected areas such as the Lake District, the South Downs and the Peak District. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/29/more-affordable-housing-should-be-built-in-national-parks

Developers Hog Land For Record 130,000 Homes

Developers are sitting on land for more than 130,000 homes in England that have never been built – the worst gap on record, according to new analysis. The record gap between planning permissions granted and new homes being built has led to calls for tough new penalties to be enforced against developers that sit on land rather than build. North-west England and London had the worst gaps, with only 50% of new homes being built where planning permission had been obtained between 2012 and 2017. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/25/developers-hog-land-for-record-130000-homes-analysis-reveals

Housing: Construction – Parliamentary Written Answer

Chris Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to prevent land banking in local communities.

Alok Sharma: It is important to recognise that after planning permission for new homes is granted, a variety of factors can slow down delivery. Rather than focusing on a single issue, the Housing White Paper acknowledged that all parties in the development process need to play their part in speeding up the delivery of much-needed new homes. That is why the Housing White Paper set out a wide ranging approach to driving up build out of planning permissions. We have already taken important steps to help unblock sites, such as the introduction of the Housing Infrastructure Fund and we are considering how to take forward other elements of the Housing White Paper. In addition, we have recently consulted on what further action could be taken to increase build rates as part of our consultation on calculating local housing need. This consultation closed on 9 November and analysis of the responses is now underway.

Developers Accused Of Slowing Supply Of New Homes

Housing developers have been accused of exploiting Britain's housing crisis to make profits by deliberately slowing the supply of homes.  It has led experts to call for the Government to start directly building homes to send a signal to the industry that 'landbanking' - profiting from sitting on land while prices rise - is unacceptable.  Nearly half a million homes in England have been granted planning permission but have yet to be built - a new record. And the time it takes to complete new homes has jumped from an average of 24 weeks to 32 weeks.  Despite authorities increasing the rates of planning permission - a rise of 60 per cent since 2010 - the rate of home building has increased by just 48 per cent.  These figures come at the same time as some of Britain's biggest developers have declared record profit margins and coincides with a growing housing crisis in the UK. Read more on the Daily Mail website.

House Builders Deny Land-Banking

House builders have hit back at claims by local authorities that they are ‘land-banking’ and building-out schemes more slowly than in the past. Industry body the Home Builders Federation reacted angrily to research published by the Local Government Association which showed that 475,647 homes in England had been given planning permission but had yet to be built. The research also indicated that developers are taking longer to complete work on site. It now takes 32 months, on average, from sites receiving planning permission to building work being completed, 12 months longer than in 2007/8 according to the LGA. Read more on the Planning Portal.

Revealed: Housebuilders Sitting On 600,000 Plots Of Land

Britain’s biggest housebuilders possess enough land to create more than 600,000 new homes, an analysis by the Guardian has found, raising questions about whether they are doing enough to solve the housing crisis facing Britain. The nine housebuilders in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 hold 615,152 housing plots in their landbank, according to financial disclosures. This is four times the total number of homes built in Britain in the past year. Berkeley, Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey – the four biggest companies in the industry – account for more than 450,000 of the plots. They are also sitting on £947m of cash and declared or issued more than £1.5bn in payouts to shareholders in 2015. Read more on the Guardian website.

C of E ‘Should Sell Off Its £2bn Land Estate for Housing’

The Church of England, one of the country’s biggest landowners, needs to put its house in order and sell off some of its land in response to Britain’s housing crisis, according to a newly released report. The radical move is being proposed by the Centre for Theology & Community, and the Christian campaigning group Housing Justice. They warn that the shortage of affordable housing poses a fundamental threat to the shape of Britain’s communities and cities. When it comes to tackling the housing problem, it needs to lead by example, states the report. Read more on the Independent website.

9,000 Midland House Plots 'Sat On' By HCA

More than one third of land held by the HCA is in the Midlands – meaning it is sitting on almost 9,000 housing plots. The agency has 1,500 acres of public sector land across the country, of which 596 acres are in the Midlands. The data was unveiled on CBRE’s Regional Land Report and a spokesman said there was major pressure on the agency with 80,000 homes needed in Birmingham by 2031. Typically, 15 houses are built to every acre, which means that the HCA in the Midlands is sitting on around 8,940 housing plots. Read more on the Birmingham Post website.

Labour's Plans for Building New Homes

Speaking at the start of his party's annual conference in Manchester, Ed Miliband said that an incoming Labour government would introduce New Homes Corporations (NHCs) in an effort to boost housebuilding to 200,000 homes a year by 2020. The NHCs would work with private companies and housing associations in local authority areas already earmarked for development. Labour believes that, left unchecked, our national shortage of homes will become acute, hitting two million by 2020. Mr Miliband also pledged to tackle the problem of 'land banking' by extending local authorities' powers to withdraw planning permission from uncooperative developers. Read more on the Coalition Watch blog.

UK Housebuilders Counter Miliband's Land-Hoarding Claim

Britain's housebuilders have launched a scathing counter attack against Ed Miliband's claim that they are hoarding land for profit. The industry said plots are built on as soon as planning permission is secured, and argued that the 557% increase in profits among the nation's four biggest housebuilders this year comes from a very low base following the financial crisis. The biggest four developers by turnover – Barratt, Berkeley, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey – have a collective land holding of almost 300,000 plots. A spokesman for the Home Builders' Federation (HBF), the industry's trade body, said: "Developers don't land bank, all the evidence is there. As soon as developers get a planning permission they want to start on site. Developers are not land hoarders." One major housebuilder said companies in the sector would be perceived as hugely risky and lose investment if they did not have sufficiently long land bank holdings of typically more than four years. Read more on the Guardian website.

Labour Vows to Take On Land Hoarders

A Labour Government will target the shadowy world of land hoarders, often hedge funds and investors who have no intention of building homes but instead use the acreage as an asset. "Either use the land or lose the land," warns Ed Miliband.  This is a particularly big issue in London. Roger Harding, head of policy at Shelter, said: "The Greater London Authority estimated 50% of the land with planning permission was owned by someone other than developers. You have hedge funds and banks here". Moving against land hoarders would be controversial – columnist Mary Ann Sieghart tweeted the policy had "shades of Mugabe". But Labour say the numbers are too big to ignore. Sources in Miliband's office say strategic land bought with options, which accounts for 83% of land banks, could if freed "provide enough space for 1.4m homes". Read more on the Guardian website.

Tory MP Calls for Council Tax Charge on Undeveloped Land

A Conservative MP has recommended that developers should be penalised with council tax charges for failing to develop ground that has been granted planning permission.   In a report submitted to the Government, Jake Berry calls attention to the 250,000 homes with planning permission that developers are currently land banking.  Mr Berry believes that developers could be incentivised to build if local authorities were to charge council tax on vacant plots.  Many developers are currently stalling on building work as they wait for values to rise, and simply renew permissions on vacant sites every five years.  Read more on 24dash.

MP Calls for Council Tax Charge on Undeveloped Land

A Conservative MP has recommended that developers should be penalised with council tax charges for failing to develop ground that has been granted planning permission.  In a report submitted to the Government, Jake Berry, MP for Rossendale & Darwen, calls attention to the 250,000 homes with planning permission that developers are currently land banking.  Mr Berry, who has been the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the former housing minister Grant Shapps since 2010, believes that developers could be incentivised to build if local authorities were to charge council tax on vacant plots.  Many developers are currently stalling on building work as they wait for values to rise, and simply renew permissions on vacant sites every five years.  Read more on 24dash.

Councils Will Not Get RDA Land

The government has ruled out transferring regional development agency land assets to local government when the agencies wind up next year. A statement from the department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: ‘It would not be appropriate for RDAs to transfer assets to local authorities or other bodies’ for payment at a later date’. The ‘other bodies’ is likely to include new local enterprise partnerships, many of whom were banking on cut-price sales of assets. Local authorities will be able to purchase land at market value after the RDA transition and closure programme board agreed to the short-term sale of specified land and property assets. A full list of the assets that have been authorised for sale will be publicised shortly and local authorities will be made aware of relevant sales in their area. Read more on Inside Housing.

Developers Could Pay For Land After Homes Are Built

Government departments will be ‘held to account’ for the way they use their land banks to help the delivery of new homes, last week’s Budget revealed. Ministers want departments such as the Communities and Local Government department and the Department of Health to look at handing land to developers and receiving payment only when new homes are built under a ‘buy now, pay later’ model. Departments and councils will be encouraged to sell land with planning permission to developers under a pilot land auction scheme. Academic Tim Leunig, who drew up similar plans in 2007, said that if it was rolled out to include private sector land it could deliver as many as 250,000 new homes - raising £17.5 billion in the process. Dr Leunig said the impact of the scheme as it stands at present would be limited. ‘Why would someone like the NHS want to be involved, if the money will go to councils?’ Read more on Inside Housing.

Social Landlords Eye HCA’s £783m Landbank

Local authorities and housing associations have pledged to work with community groups interested in buying Homes and Communities Agency land. The move comes after the government introduced powers that could see the HCA’s £783 million landbank sold off. The new powers will allow residents to apply to buy public sector land they decide is of community value. Communities wanting to improve their neighbourhoods by developing disused public sector land had been bounced ‘off the walls of bureaucratic indifference’ for too long, Shapps said. In a thinly veiled attack on the HCA, he added that the government was ‘no longer prepared to accept the state-sponsored decline of local communities’. The list of assets is available to download from the HCA website by clicking on the logo below.