Tory Councillors In Revolt Over Plans To Accelerate Housebuilding

A growing rebellion among Conservative councillors is threatening government plans to accelerate housebuilding in England with six out of 10 believing reforms will make planning less democratic. A survey across Tory heartlands has revealed party representatives are baulking at ministers’ plans to sharply increase housing targets in electoral strongholds like Hampshire and Surrey and are rejecting attempts to cut planning committees out of routine decision-making. Conservative leaders in councils are becoming increasingly vocal in their opposition to the plans which they fear could result in countryside being concreted over for housing and core voters deserting them in disgust. Read more on the Observer website.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/27/tory-councillors-in-revolt-over-plans-to-accelerate-housebuilding 

‘No Green Belt Needed’ For Homes

No green belt land needs to be developed over the next decade in the Black Country despite the huge level of demand for housing, Mayor Andy Street has declared. Street said he believed the thousands of homes needed in the region by 2031 could be provided by “exclusively building” on previously developed sites. Launching his ‘Green Belt Pledge’, the Mayor said he would do everything in his power to ensure the countryside is protected. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/no-green-belt-needed-for-homes-insists-midlands-mayor/

More Than 500 Potential Housing Areas Identified On Green Belt

Researchers have identified more than 500 towns and villages in the South East that have the potential to deliver millions of new “climate-friendly” homes. The report claims the sites, highlighted using satellite imaging, could deliver more than 1.1 million new homes that would all be no more than a 45-minute journey away from central London. The Domesday Book database of sites reveals, in some cases, hundreds of acres of land, mostly currently used for intensive agriculture all within 800 metres of a station. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/more-than-500-potential-housing-areas-identified-on-green-belt/

£2m For Councils To Address ‘Illegal’ Green Belt Development

Housing minister Esther McVey has committed £2 million to aid councils to ‘crack down on illegal developments’ in the green belt. Councils will be able to use the money to hire enforcement officers, use new technology and help to meet the legal costs of bringing rogue local developers to task for illegal developments.  McVey said 37 councils would be receiving a total of up to £50,000 each to help with the clampdown. Read more on the Planning Portal.

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/news/article/661/planning_news_-_18_september_2019?utm_source=PPQ+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8768da9dbc-Newsletter_18042019_HTML_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_734e0b63a9-8768da9dbc-7266185#one

Government Urged To Review Green Belt Rules ‘To Address Housing Crisis’

The government must carry out an urgent review of the rules around green belt land to help address London’s acute housing crisis, a new report has argued. With the capital needing 65,000 new homes a year to cope with demand, business group London First, together with consultancy Community Research, convened a jury of 12 Londoners to discuss the green belt. Both sides of the debate about building on such land gave evidence and a resulting vote found 11 members of the jury agreeing that some form of review of the rules governing the green belt was needed to address what it called “a terrible crisis for housing in London”. Read more on Housing Today.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/government-urged-to-review-green-belt-land-rules-to-address-londons-housing-crisis/5101676.article

Green Belt Earmarked For Homes 'That May Never Be Needed'

Swathes of green belt in the heart of England have been earmarked for new homes for people who may never exist, in a trend fuelled by the drive to double the number built annually nationwide, campaigners have warned. Fields bordering ancient woodlands are among more than a dozen sites, around Coventry, which have been released from anti-sprawl protections. They will be ploughed up to build more than 11,000 new homes based on population growth predictions that demographers warn are likely to be over-inflated. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/09/green-belt-to-be-destroyed-for-homes-which-wont-be-needed

Green Belt: Housing – Parliamentary Written Answer

Mr Jonathan Lord: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent steps his Department has taken to protect the green belt from housing developments. 

Mrs Heather Wheeler: In our National Planning Policy Framework, reissued in February 2019, we ask local authorities to protect their Green Belts, making clear that most types of new buildings are inappropriate there, and should be refused planning permission. The revised Framework now also states that a local authority can propose to alter a Green Belt boundary only in exceptional circumstances and only if it can show that it has examined all other reasonable options for meeting its identified development needs.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2019-07-19/279438

Build On Green Belt And Cut Tax To End Home Crisis, Urges Rees-Mogg

Large sections of the green belt would be declassified and VAT on property restorations slashed as part of a radical package of free-market reforms set out by Jacob Rees-Mogg to urgently tackle the housing crisis. The senior Tory, who is tipped to become Boris Johnson's Chief Secretary to the Treasury, puts Britain's homes shortage down to "distortive taxation" and the "most centralised planning system" in the world. "We must urgently renew a property-owning democracy in Britain once more," he says. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/07/20/build-green-belt-cut-tax-end-home-crisis-urges-jacob-rees-mogg/

Hike Second Homes Tax And Build On Green Belt, Says MP

The government should allow affordable homes to be built on “scrappy” land that has been “wrongly designated” as green belt and hike the stamp duty surcharge on people buying additional homes, one Labour MP has claimed. Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden Siobhain McDonagh railed against ministers for failing to tackle the housing crisis and dubbed their record on creating social homes “diabolical”, before setting out her own radical plan of action. She said: “First, it is time to burst the myth that the green belt is green and start using the non-green sites for homes. There are garage sites, waste plants and deserted scrublands all posing as green-belt land.” Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/hike-second-homes-tax-and-build-on-green-belt-says-mp/

Thousands Of Homes To Be Built In Countryside

Thousands of homes could be built in the Surrey countryside after a council voted to remove 15 villages from the green belt. The new housing policy was backed by Guildford Borough Council in the face of thousands of objections. Opponents believe it permits unnecessary development on rural land. The council said the plan, which allows the building of 10,678 homes by 2034, would meet rising demand that could not be met in urban areas. Some 2,000 homes are earmarked for the former Wisley Airfield site, with a further 1,500 at Blackwell Farm off Hog's Back and 800 in the town centre. Read more on the BBC website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-48066822

Government ‘Heaping Pressure’ On Councils Over Housing Targets

With the HRA borrowing cap lifted, government has to stop “heaping pressure” on councils to deliver unrealistic housing targets that erode Green Belt land, the CPRE has said. CPRE planning campaigner Rebecca Pullinger says analysis of new MHCLG stats shows that for too long housebuilders have been able to use land as a tool to “manipulate and monopolise the market only to serve their own interests”. “Instead, developers should be held more accountable to deliver the homes that they have promised,” Pullinger says. The MHCLG says its stats show the Green Belt is 24,500 hectares bigger than it was in 1997 – taking into account land reclassified as a national park. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/government-heaping-pressure-on-councils-over-housing-targets/

Government £200m Brownfields Building Fund Falls Flat, As Number Of New Homes Declines

A £200million Government fund to pay for more homes on industrial land has resulted in the opposite effect, with fewer homes built on brownfield areas than before it was set up. Official Government’s land use change statistics show that the proportion of new homes registered on previously developed land has fallen by 4 percentage points since 2014, when the fund was set up. Yet over the same period the number of new residential addresses on supposedly heavily protected Green Belt land has increased by the same proportion - 4 per cent. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/19/government-200m-brownfields-building-fund-falls-flat-number/

CPRE Warning As 460,000 Homes To Be Built On Green Belt Land

The green belt remains under severe pressure, despite government commitments to its protection, according to a new report from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). The report highlights that there are currently 460,000 homes being planned to be built on land that will soon be released from the green belt. CPRE add that of these 460,000 homes, the percentage of affordable homes will be just 22%. Last year 72% of homes built on greenfield land within the green belt were unaffordable by the government’s definition. CPRE add that there is currently enough brownfield land to build a million homes and are calling on the government to pursue a “brownfield first” approach to development. Download the report from the CPRE website.

https://www.cpre.org.uk/resources/housing-and-planning/green-belts/item/download/5486

Hammond Rebuffed Over Budget Plan For Green Belt Housing

Theresa May is resisting calls from Philip Hammond to free green belt land for housing as he seeks radical cost-free measures for the budget. The chancellor wants to use next month’s statement to continue to tackle Britain’s poor productivity, and the lack of housing in high-demand areas is regarded as a key factor. Mr Hammond has been arguing within the cabinet for months that some of the protected countryside should be reclassified as part of a housing package that could allow extra borrowing to fund house building.  Read more on The Times website.

Conservative Manifesto Summary: Housing

·         Halve rough sleeping over the course of the next parliament and eliminate it by 2027

·         Meet 2015 commitment to deliver a million homes by the end of 2020 and half a million more by the end of 2022

·         Build better houses to match the quality of previous generations

·         Support for high-quality, high-density housing like mansion blocks, mews houses and terraced streets

·         160,000 houses built on government land

·         Maintain the existing strong protections on designated land like the Green Belt, National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

·         Continue £2.5bn flood defence programme to protect 300,000 existing homes by 2021.

Read more on the BBC website.

Loophole Opens Way For Green Belt Homes

Thousands more homes could be built on the green belt because of loopholes in the government’s plan to accelerate housebuilding, according to a conservation group. Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, told MPs on Tuesday that the green belt was “safe in our hands” and that the government would keep all its “existing strong protections”. However, the housing white paper contains a proposal for councils to review their plans in which they allocate land for housing at least every five years. Read more on the Times website.

The Housing White Paper Revealed

Here is a section by section guide to the document.

·         PRS tenancies - “ensure more longer-term tenancies are available in private rented schemes”.

·         Affordable rent - a reaffirmed commitment to build more affordable homes

·         Planning - councils will be “expected to use land more efficiently” by building homes at higher density

·         Ownership – the aim is for 200,000 more home owners by the end of the parliament and the introduction of the Lifetime ISA will help achieve that

·         Empty Homes - local authorities have the power to tackle empty homes as they earn the same financial reward through the New Homes Bonus as building a new one

·         Leaseholders - The White Paper sets out that there will be a consultation on a range of measures to “tackle all unfair and unreasonable abuses of leasehold.”

·         Green belt back down - no change to the policy which only allows building on the green belt in exceptional circumstances.

Read more on 24housing.

Ministers Shelve Plans To Bulldoze Green Belt

At least half the Cabinet are already facing controversy over plans to allow green fields to be bulldozed for housing. Those affected include Theresa May, Chancellor Philip Hammond, and Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon, who has vowed publicly to ‘fight to protect the Green Belt from inappropriate development’. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid was reported last year to be considering easing the rules that allow councils to build on Green Belt land provided they designate equivalent areas of land for protection. But Tory sources insist his remarks were over-interpreted and believe the idea will be quietly shelved when a White Paper on housing is published later this month. Read more on the Daily Mail website.

Green Belt Set To Get 360,000 New Homes

The number of homes being planned on green belt land in England has increased to more than 360,000, according to countryside campaigners, who fear ministers are poised to weaken protections to meet ambitious building targets. The assessment by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) found that the number of homes planned on sites previously meant to block urban sprawl has risen from 81,000 in 2012 to 362,346, with the largest number slated for development in the north-west and east of England. The threat comes after Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, recently praised Birmingham city council for allowing housebuilding on green belt, but he has also described green belt as “absolutely sacrosanct”. Read more on the Observer website.

May Faces ‘Forceful’ Tory Opposition Over Plans To Build On Greenbelt

Theresa May faces “forceful” opposition from her own benches over plans to build on greenbelt land.  In a Tory split over a planning bill, 15 backbenchers have tabled amendments which seek to protect land around cities and to increase the powers of local people to stop new development. Conservatives rebelling on the Neighbourhood Planning Bill included Andrew Mitchell MP, who told HuffPostUK “I shall be questioning the Government’s commitment to the greenbelt in forceful terms” in the chamber. Read more on the Huffington Post website.