Council Wins Landmark Affordable Housing Case

Islington Council has won a landmark case that could stop developers across the country skimping on their affordable housing offering. The Planning Inspectorate, an independent regulator, upheld the town hall’s refusal of planning permission for a site on grounds the project did not provide the “maximum reasonable amount” of affordable homes. First Base Ltd applied to build 96 homes but the bid contained no affordable housing at all. Islington’s target is 50 per cent, but policy dictates developers must build as many as possible. The council rejected the bid twice and now its appeal  has also been dismissed. The decision centred around how the viability of the development was assessed and how the price of the land should be determined. Read more on the Islington Gazette website.

Councils Risk Undersupply of Housing

New research suggests that local councils in England may be underestimating housing need by up to 30% in some cases, due to an overreliance on Government household projection data, according to the Royal Town Planning Institute. The research examined the CLG’s household projection figures and suggests that in some cases the projections are likely to poorly reflect likely local household need. Government’s household projections form the basis for calculating housing need in councils’ Local Plans, which determines how much housing is planned for an area. The key issues are whether councils treat the Government projections as a starting point which can be varied according to robust local evidence, and how practical it is for them to produce a robust evidence base that will be accepted by the Planning Inspectorate when it examines the Local Plan. Read more on the RTPI website.

Miliband Promises Drive to Double Rate of Housebuilding

Profiteering property developers that hoard land and councils that block developments will be swept aside in a "non-stop drive" to more than double the number of homes being built each year in England, Ed Miliband has promised. Attacking "stick-in-the-mud councils", the Labour leader said he would order a national planning inspectorate to give priority to local authorities that want to expand if they are being blocked by neighbouring councils refusing to release land. Under the Labour plans, councils would be empowered to compulsorily purchase land or charge fees if developers fail to build on land for which they have planning permission. Read more on the Guardian website.

Council Forced To Withdraw Local Plan

Coventry Council has been forced to withdraw its local plan after an inspector found it had not ‘engaged constructively’ with neighbouring local authorities on housing numbers and had breached legal requirements.  The Council has published a letter it had received from the government’s Planning Inspectorate which stated that its plan ‘does not meet the legal requirements of the 2004 Act in that council has not engaged constructively with neighbouring local planning authorities on the strategic matter of the number of houses proposed in the plan’. As a result, the Council must look again at evidence for how many homes it thinks it will need before 2028, alongside its neighbouring councils such as Birmingham Council.  Read more on Inside Housing.

The End of Localism?

It is two years since a new prime minister was welcomed by the community secretary, Eric Pickles, to his department. As Pickles chanted: "What do we want?", a crowd of civil servants obligingly chorused: "Localism, localism, localism." That was then. Now, Pickles has effectively signalled the end of an ill-defined localist concept that promised much. Attempting to put a gloss on a volte-face that sees Whitehall gain immense powers over house-building and commercial development, Pickles could only joke about his new-found "muscular localism".  Tied to proposals for the centralisation of local NHS assets in a new, standalone company – the antithesis of localism – the powers represent, in reality, muscular centralism. For "big society", read big government bent on privatising an NHS estate inherited often from local councils and charities.  On the planning front, Pickles has now ruled that councils can be ignored when applications for large developments are tabled. They will be determined by a fast-track process at the already overworked Planning Inspectorate. The last government established an Infrastructure Planning Commission to do just that. Pickles scrapped it.  With the economy tanking, ministers are directing their fire at a planning system they claim is restricting development. Not so, retorts Sir Merrick Cockell, Conservative chairman of the Local Government Association. He insists a record backlog of 400,000 homes that have received planning permission nails the lie that councils are to blame for the shortage of new properties.  Read more on the Guardian website.

Is Localism Dead and Buried?

In the end all the talk of the government ripping up the Green Belt was, if you forgive the colourful mix of metaphors, a red herring.  However, the far-reaching package of housing and planning reforms, which the government claims will deliver 70,000 homes and 140,000 new jobs, may have signalled something far more significant. Because many of the basket of 15 or more separate measures echoed a common - unstated - theme: the re-taking of power from local authorities by a government that just two years ago ripped up the planning system to introduce localism. The reason for the change in direction can be seen clearly in the last Home Builders Federation data, which shows the granting of residential planning permissions in England at a three-year low of just 24,872. Housing starts have also fallen by about 20% in the first half of 2012, according to the latest government data.  The changes which could be seen to fall under a shift away from localism are manifold. Pickles revealed that the government will legislate to allow the planning inspectorate (PINS) to take over planning decisions from local authorities that have “consistently poor performance” in the speed or quality of decisions. It will also allow PINS to penalise councils that turn applications down knowing this will be overturned on appeal - by awarding costs against them. And more types of applications will be diverted to the National Infrastructure Planning branch of PINS, away from local councils. In general the measures outlined start to introduce real penalties if local authorities don’t behave how the centre - the government - wants them to.  Read more on the Building website.

Housing and Growth – Statement by Eric Pickles

The following are quotes from a written statement on Housing and Growth by Eric Pickles.

*Increasing investment in the private rented sector – [Government] will be investing £200 million in housing sites to ensure that the high-quality rented homes that are needed are available to institutional investors quickly. [A] taskforce [will] bring together developers, management bodies and institutional investors to broker deals and deliver more rented homes.

*Affordable Housing Guarantees and tackling empty homes - We will be extending the use of guarantees to cover borrowing needed to deliver more affordable homes.  We also intend to … bring an additional 5,000 existing empty homes back into use. In total we will invest another £300 million.

*Accelerating large housing schemes - Government will work in partnership with local authorities, scheme promoters and communities to accelerate delivery of locally-supported, major housing sites.

*Getting surplus public sector land back into use - Government will accelerate the release of surplus public sector land by strengthening the role of HCA outside London through a targeted programme of transfers from other Government Departments and agencies. We will also work to accelerate disposals by preparing the land for market and providing a single 'shop window' for all surplus public sector land

*Reducing planning delays - We propose to legislate to allow applications to be decided by the Planning Inspectorate, if the local authority has a track record of consistently poor performance in the speed or quality of its decisions. We will be working with the Local Government Association to increase the use of Planning Performance Agreements for major schemes - which commit both applicants and planning authorities to a clear timetable for determining proposals.

*Reducing the cumulative burden of red tape - It is vital that the affordable housing element of Section 106 agreements negotiated during different economic conditions is not allowed to undermine the viability of sites and prevent any construction of new housing. The Government will now introduce legislation…which will allow any developer of sites which are unviable because of the number of affordable homes, to appeal with immediate effect. The Planning Inspectorate will be instructed to assess how many affordable homes would need to be removed from the Section 106 agreement for the site to be viable in current economic conditions.

*Getting empty offices into use - We will introduce permitted development rights to enable change of use from commercial to residential purposes.

Read more on the CLG website