Don't Dilute Planning Reforms, Jenrick Urges PM

Recently sacked Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has urged the prime minister not to water down planning reforms to enable more house building. Sources have told the BBC the changes - which would help meet a pledge to build 300,000 new homes - are being paused amid a backlash among Conservative MPs. Mr Jenrick's successor Michael Gove is said to want to address the concerns. But Mr Jenrick told the BBC's Newscast a government with a big majority must tackle difficult issues. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said it remained "committed" to meeting its housing targets. Read more on the BBC website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58837621

Gove Set To Pause Contentious Planning Shake-Up

 Michael Gove is expected to pause the government’s planning changes and review them before deciding how to proceed, sources say. Proposals widely seen as tipping the balance of power away from local objectors and towards developers have caused uproar among grassroots Conservatives, though advocates say they are vital for boosting housebuilding. Instead of individual planning applications being decided through a democratic process, councils would be asked to draw up multi-year plans that divides land into zones for development and protection. Outline approval would be automatic in growth zones and there would be a statutory presumption in favour of development in renewal zones. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/17/michael-gove-set-to-pause-contentious-planning-shake-up

New Lords Committee To Take On Growing Housing Demand

New Built Environment Lords Committee will look at the government’s housing target, the impact of reforms to the planning system and how barriers to meeting housing demand can be overcome. The House of Lords has created a new select committee to look at the built environment. We have been appointed to look at housing, planning, transport and infrastructure. The built environment shapes all our lives:  how and where we all live, how we get to work and travel for leisure, the health and sustainability of our communities, and how we live in our older age and protect the most vulnerable in society. Read more on the Politics Home website.

New Lords committee to take on growing housing demand (politicshome.com)

Johnson Under Growing Tory Pressure Over Planning Reforms

Boris Johnson faces a fresh headache over planning reforms, with Conservative MPs urging the prime minister to change course in the wake of the party’s shock defeat in the Chesham and Amersham by-election. Conservative MPs, including the former prime minister Theresa May, have criticised the proposed measures, which include stripping elected planning committees of development decisions and making it easier to obtain automatic consent, intended to significantly boost housebuilding. Read more on the Guardian website.

Boris Johnson under growing Tory pressure over planning reforms | Planning policy | The Guardian

MPs Slam Government’s Planning Reforms

An influential group of MPs has attacked the government’s proposed reforms of the planning system, calling on ministers to think again about the proposed new “zonal” approach and make sure that the public has a right to influence all individual applications. The report by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee also called on the government to speed build-out of permissions by allowing councils to levy council tax on unbuilt developments – something ministers have already said they are considering. The MPs added that the government’s ambition to have new-style local plans put in place within 30 months was “impractical”. Read more on the Housing Today website.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/mps-slam-governments-planning-reforms/5112215.article

Government Slips Out U-Turn On Affordable Housing Planning Reforms

Robert Jenrick’s vast overhaul of the planning system has hit a further setback after the Government quietly u-turned on plans to scrap the duty on developers to build affordable housing on small sites. Last summer, the Housing Secretary announced a string of reforms to the current planning system including proposals to abolish the requirement for housebuilders to deliver affordable housing on sites of up to 50 homes. Mr Jenrick believed the move, along with a raft of other changes to the planning rules, would dramatically speed up housebuilding in England by “cutting red tape but not standards”. Read more on the inews website.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/government-slips-out-u-turn-affordable-housing-planning-reforms-robert-jenrick-960077 

Formula For Locating New Homes Revised After Tory Backlash

Proposals for controversial planning reforms in England have been revised, after new housing targets prompted a backlash amongst many Conservative MPs. A computer-based formula used to decide where houses should be located has been "updated" to focus more on cities and urban areas in the North and Midlands. Ministers said cash for brownfield sites would be distributed more fairly outside London and the South East. Some MPs in southern England said their areas risked being "concreted over". The government wants to 300,000 new homes to be built across England each year by the mid-2020s. Read more on the BBC website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55322993

New Homes Plan Revised After Tory Backlash

The government is set to revise its proposals for controversial planning reforms in England, after new housing targets prompted a backlash amongst some senior Conservative MPs. Ministers have proposed updating the formula for where to build houses to meet its aim of delivering more homes. But some said the "mutant algorithm" would fail to "level up" the North and see the South "concreted over". Critics of the proposal include former Prime Minister Theresa May. Read more on the BBC website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54950012

Thousands Of Affordable Home Would Have Been Lost Under Planning Reforms

The LGA is warning that some councils could see an almost 50% reduction in affordable housing delivery. Under current rules, only sites of 10 homes or fewer are exempt from providing affordable housing through Section 106 agreements. However, in August the government announced plans to increase this threshold to 40 or 50 homes. Analysis by Glenigan found that between 2015/16 and 2019/20, 119,505 homes were delivered on sites between 10 and 49 units. This would have included 29,876 affordable homes through Section 106 agreements, based on current rules that require developers to deliver 25% affordable housing on sites of this size. Read more on the LGA website.

https://www.local.gov.uk/lga-thousands-affordable-home-would-have-been-lost-under-planning-reforms 

Tory MP Breaks Cover To Criticise Planning Reforms

Tory MP Neil O’Brien has become one of the first to break ranks with the government’s planning reforms by criticising the proposed formula for determining housing need in local authorities. The Conservative MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston said that the “strange” proposal risked seeing the housing requirement for some cities “stagnate” while the volume of new homes in shires and suburbs rose steeply. His comments refer to the new proposed “standard method” for determining local housing need, laid out by the government at the start of this month alongside its wider reforms to the system, which will limit democratic involvement in individual planning application decisions. Read more on the Housing Today website.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/tory-mp-breaks-cover-to-criticise-planning-reforms/5107634.article 

Tory Planning Reforms ‘Could Kill Off Affordable Housing’

 Government reforms of the planning system have been branded a “property developers’ charter” that will benefit Tory donors and could spell the end of affordable housing. The proposed reforms, announced last week, would see an end to section 106 agreements under which developers deliver affordable homes in exchange for permission to build. The government intends to replace the agreements – and another revenue generator, the community infrastructure levy – with a new levy it claims will increase revenue levels collected nationally when compared to the current system and ensure the delivery of more affordable housing. Read more on the Observer website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/09/tory-planning-reforms-could-kill-off-affordable-housing

Johnson Announces 'Most Radical Planning Reforms Since WW2'

Boris Johnson has announced a new package of measures to build thousands of new homes as part of the government's Covid-19 recovery plan. New regulations will give greater freedom for buildings and land in town centres to change use without planning permission and create new homes from the regeneration of vacant and redundant buildings. Builders will no longer need a normal planning application to demolish and rebuild vacant and redundant residential and commercial buildings if they are rebuilt as homes. Included in the affordable homes programme will be a 1,500 unit pilot of ‘First Homes’: houses that will be sold to first time buyers at a 30% discount. Read more on the Financial Reporter website.

https://www.financialreporter.co.uk/finance-news/boris-johnson-announces-most-radical-planning-reforms-since-ww2.html

Government Announces New Housing Measures

The government has announced:

·         a New Homes Ombudsman to support homebuyers facing problems with their newly built home

·         plans to help provide the homes the country needs through planning reform

·         plans to create a lasting legacy from the 2022 Commonwealth Games

·         measures to improve the safety of high-rise buildings

Measures to champion the rights of homebuyers and help ensure that when they buy a new home they get the quality of build they rightly expect. The New Homes Ombudsman will protect the interests of homebuyers and hold developers to account when things go wrong. Read more on the MHCLG website.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-new-housing-measures

RTPI: Planning Reforms Are Hampering Housebuilding

More than half of planners surveyed by the Royal Town Planning Institute believe planning reforms have hindered the building of new homes. A report published today by the RTPI called Delivering the value of planning is heavily critical of what it calls the “almost continual changes in planning policy” over the last 30 years.  The report reveals 53% of 420 RTPI members to respond to an online survey think planning changes have hindered housing development, while 73% said they have “hindered their ability to deliver good places”. It said changes to policy, along with local government budget cuts, have limited the ability of planning authorities to ensure more and better development. Download the report from the RTPI website.

Tories Have Made 'Affordable Housing' A Meaningless Term

For decades “affordable housing” meant exactly that  – homes that were affordable, even to those on low incomes. Prior to 2010 traditional affordable homes, whether council housing or housing association properties, stayed true to the adage that their purpose was to provide an affordable place to live for even the less well off. Affordable housing was, in short, affordable. No more. One of the most worrying proposals in the government’s planning reforms is a fundamental redefinition of affordable housing. After last year’s election they introduced starter homes, which will cost up to £450,000 in Greater London and be affordable only to households earning at least £77,000 a year. In effect, they are redefining “affordable housing” into a term so broad as to be almost meaningless. Read more on the Guardian website.

Osborne Calls For More Rural Starter Homes

George Osborne has said he wants to reform planning laws to make it easier for villages in England to build new starter homes. Mr Osborne said the changes would allow councils to allocate more sites for building homes specifically for people who already live or work in the area. He said he also wanted to improve transport, schools and broadband in rural areas to boost the rural economy.

But Labour said the plans were ignoring the need for more affordable homes. The chancellor wants to extend the government's "starter homes" scheme, announced before the election for brownfield sites, to some villages. Read more on the BBC website.

Planning Law Change 'Catastrophic' For Rural Areas

Proposed changes to planning policy would be "catastrophic" for rural areas, rural housing and planning authorities are warning. The government wants to scrap the requirement for developers to provide affordable housing on smaller developments. Campaign groups say that supplies of affordable housing would "dry up". The government argues that the change would remove red tape and encourage more house building. Read more on the BBC website.

Ministers Warned Of Decrease In House Building

The government is exploring emergency measures to kick-start house-building, amid an expected decrease in new build this year, BBC Newsnight has learned. In leaked documents, officials warn the last set of figures before the 2015 general election will reveal house building to have decreased by 4%. That figure will be released in February 2015, three months ahead of the general election. The government said pressure would be brought to bear on "slow-coach councils" to deliver on new build. The decrease is worrying the government after it expended quite considerable political capital on planning reform and other measures to boost house building. Read more on the BBC website.

UK Needs To Build 300,000 New Homes a Year

Britain needs to build 300,000 houses a year, more than double the current number and including some on green belt land, or risk pushing house price inflation up to dangerous levels, the business secretary has said.  Vince Cable said difficult decisions needed to be made about building garden cities on green belt land, and that proposals to reduce demand by paring back government's Help to Buy scheme missed the bigger problem of a lack of supply. Cable has long warned about house price inflation, but his latest remarks are his most serious yet, and reflect frustration at the way in which David Cameron's reforms to planning laws have done little to unleash supply. Read more on the Guardian website.

Gove Comments At Odds With Bedroom Tax

Michael Gove appeared to set himself at odds with the "bedroom tax" when he said children from less affluent backgrounds suffer at school because they do not have their own bedroom for homework.  Speaking in support of planning changes allowing larger homes, Gove said: "My colleague Nick Boles has been making changes to the planning regime. These are changes which are social justice changes. There are children, poor children, who do not have rooms of their own in which to do their homework, in which to achieve their full potential. [The] planning reforms will make it easier for more homes of a larger size to be built. That's why when people oppose these planning reforms I think they are actually standing in the way of helping our children."  Read more on the Guardian website.