Sir Brandon Lewis is the Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth, and was Housing Minister from 2014 to 2016.
Housing, specifically our lack of it, has increasingly become one of our most salient political issues. According to polling commissioned by the Adam Smith Institute, over half of the general population believe that there is a housing crisis in their local area – a sentiment shared in almost every part of the country.
It’s hardly a surprise that so many are feeling the consequences of sluggish housebuilding rates. A report by the Home Builders Federation highlights that housing project approvals and “starts” (when development officially begins) are now back at 2006 levels. They have dropped by 22 per cent this financial year, whilst full completions are down by 8.7 per cent.
Meanwhile, the repeated failure to hit the annual target of 300,000 new homes has exacerbated the backlog, which is now said to be at 4.3 million.
The core culprit is our sclerotic, expensive, and unstable planning system. Developers and housebuilders are having to wait years for approvals, while good councillors have an equally difficult battle to ensure their communities can grow sustainably and logically with good quality homes where they are needed.
The average planning approval period for large sites (those which deliver over 500 dwellings) is five years, rising to just over six for schemes with over 2,000. Anecdotally, it is common to hear of almost ten-year waits. This is bad for developers and too for communities under pressure.
Considering the economic and moral issues at stake here – homelessness, the inability of our children and grandchildren to own their own homes, and the barriers facing workers who want to move to the most productive parts of the UK, and more – any movement to address this fundamental problem is to be welcomed.
That’s why Michael Gove was right to make planning reform front and centre of his recent speech to the Royal Institute for British Architects, during which he launched the updated National Planning Policy Framework alongside a raft of new reviews, and hired the excellent Sam Richards from Britain Remade to spearhead a review into the planning system for infrastructure projects.
Meanwhile a new development corporation which will deliver 150,000 new homes in Cambridge, one of our most economically important cities, which will help to boost that all important economic growth, while ensuring that all councils have an up to date local plan will inject some much needed stability into the planning system.
Incentives matter. Mandating an action plan for improvement for councils where delivery of new housing falls below 95 per cent of need, and subjecting them to presumption in favour of sustainable development if it falls below 75 per cent, coupled with holding the worst-performing councils to account, is a step in the right direction.
But whilst incentives have been strengthened in some areas, they have been weakened in others. Most notably, the housing targets now seem to have become advisory starting points, rather than a target calculated through a central formula and which could only be departed from for very specific reasons.
Centrally planned targets may seem to be an anathema to Conservatives. But due to the state of our planning system, they have become necessary.
One way to deliver the housing we need, with locally-led system, without central targets would be for any area without a local plan delivering on properly-assessed housing needs to have a legal presumption for development, both locally and via planning inspectorate. That would ensure local plans get made, as would be in the local council’s interest, plus it would deliver the housing we need, where we need it.
We must go further in encouraging local councils to approve more development plans. We could, for example, draw inspiration from Pierre Poilievre, the leader of our sister party in Canada, who has proposed to withdraw federal funds from state governments who fail to meet their housing targets.
We should be careful too not merely to introduce silver-bullet policies which are, by themselves, unlikely to solve our housing crisis.
Under these new plans, for example, councils are being encouraged to make greater use of industrial sites – but they will no longer have to set aside green belt land to meet housing targets. Moreover, they will be able to prevent development taking place if it would take place on the green belt.
The discretionary nature of our planning system has already contributed to the housing crisis; making it even more discretionary could exacerbate the difficulties we have building homes in the places people most want to live.
Wishing to focus on previously-developed land is entirely understandable, and building on brownfield is an important part of the solution.
But it cannot make up its entirety. There is considerably less brownfield land available in London and the South East, where excessively high housing prices are concentrated – and much of what there is is already being developed. It can also be far more difficult to build on, for either environmental or cost reasons.
Building on the green belt often lead to claims that it would result in the eviction of Thumper from his burrow. In fact, some of it is not what you might call green at all. Moreover, we would only need a mere 1.8 per cent of green belt land to build more homes than we have completed in the last ten years.
Of course this does not mean we should be simply bulldozing through green belt land without taking local residents into account. To do so would only increase hostility to new development, the very opposite of what we should be seeking to achieve. Instead, we should be garnering support from local communities by letting them directly share in the benefits of new homes in their area.
Under a Homes for All scheme, the government could use compulsory purchase orders to buy metropolitan green belt land, which would be developed by a new development corporation. This would be divided into shares to be given to the original landowners, central and local government, and local residents.
It is estimated that the value of these shares would multiply by over 14 times by the time the development was completed, directly linking increasing household wealth to the building of new homes in the local area, completing almost four million homes, and raising nearly a trillion pounds for the Exchequer in the process.
Contrary to the gloom surrounding our electoral prospects were we to build on green belt land, this would be a popular proposal. The ASI’s recent Rooms for Debate report found that there is net support for new homes on green belt land if a proportion of the profits were given local residents.
When we take the time to show how local development benefits local people and our commitnuties, support for it grows exponentially.
Gove made the important point that many of those who object to new developments have valid concerns about the impact on their roads, GP appointments, and school places for their children. With that in mind, we should look to make developers themselves directly responsible for fulfilling the legal obligation to provide certain infrastructure targets, as currently mandated under Section 106.
This would enable them to tailor public infrastructure packages to the needs of the local community, boosting support for new homes in the process.
I have heard too often of examples where developers are only too happy to provide what the community wants, only to be told by council officers that their S106 has to provide for things elsewhere, rather than what the community actually wants – and which would deliver support for development.
Gove and Lee Rowley, the housing minister, are to be commended for making some important first steps to improving our planning system. However, until the Conservative party can offer a truly bold housing offer, we risk passing over something which could boost both our electoral chances and our sluggish economic growth.
We should not run scared of planning. We should instead shape it to deliver for the communities we serve and for our economy, as well as our future electoral chances. There is still time left to seize this chance.
Sir Brandon Lewis is the Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth, and was Housing Minister from 2014 to 2016.
Housing, specifically our lack of it, has increasingly become one of our most salient political issues. According to polling commissioned by the Adam Smith Institute, over half of the general population believe that there is a housing crisis in their local area – a sentiment shared in almost every part of the country.
It’s hardly a surprise that so many are feeling the consequences of sluggish housebuilding rates. A report by the Home Builders Federation highlights that housing project approvals and “starts” (when development officially begins) are now back at 2006 levels. They have dropped by 22 per cent this financial year, whilst full completions are down by 8.7 per cent.
Meanwhile, the repeated failure to hit the annual target of 300,000 new homes has exacerbated the backlog, which is now said to be at 4.3 million.
The core culprit is our sclerotic, expensive, and unstable planning system. Developers and housebuilders are having to wait years for approvals, while good councillors have an equally difficult battle to ensure their communities can grow sustainably and logically with good quality homes where they are needed.
The average planning approval period for large sites (those which deliver over 500 dwellings) is five years, rising to just over six for schemes with over 2,000. Anecdotally, it is common to hear of almost ten-year waits. This is bad for developers and too for communities under pressure.
Considering the economic and moral issues at stake here – homelessness, the inability of our children and grandchildren to own their own homes, and the barriers facing workers who want to move to the most productive parts of the UK, and more – any movement to address this fundamental problem is to be welcomed.
That’s why Michael Gove was right to make planning reform front and centre of his recent speech to the Royal Institute for British Architects, during which he launched the updated National Planning Policy Framework alongside a raft of new reviews, and hired the excellent Sam Richards from Britain Remade to spearhead a review into the planning system for infrastructure projects.
Meanwhile a new development corporation which will deliver 150,000 new homes in Cambridge, one of our most economically important cities, which will help to boost that all important economic growth, while ensuring that all councils have an up to date local plan will inject some much needed stability into the planning system.
Incentives matter. Mandating an action plan for improvement for councils where delivery of new housing falls below 95 per cent of need, and subjecting them to presumption in favour of sustainable development if it falls below 75 per cent, coupled with holding the worst-performing councils to account, is a step in the right direction.
But whilst incentives have been strengthened in some areas, they have been weakened in others. Most notably, the housing targets now seem to have become advisory starting points, rather than a target calculated through a central formula and which could only be departed from for very specific reasons.
Centrally planned targets may seem to be an anathema to Conservatives. But due to the state of our planning system, they have become necessary.
One way to deliver the housing we need, with locally-led system, without central targets would be for any area without a local plan delivering on properly-assessed housing needs to have a legal presumption for development, both locally and via planning inspectorate. That would ensure local plans get made, as would be in the local council’s interest, plus it would deliver the housing we need, where we need it.
We must go further in encouraging local councils to approve more development plans. We could, for example, draw inspiration from Pierre Poilievre, the leader of our sister party in Canada, who has proposed to withdraw federal funds from state governments who fail to meet their housing targets.
We should be careful too not merely to introduce silver-bullet policies which are, by themselves, unlikely to solve our housing crisis.
Under these new plans, for example, councils are being encouraged to make greater use of industrial sites – but they will no longer have to set aside green belt land to meet housing targets. Moreover, they will be able to prevent development taking place if it would take place on the green belt.
The discretionary nature of our planning system has already contributed to the housing crisis; making it even more discretionary could exacerbate the difficulties we have building homes in the places people most want to live.
Wishing to focus on previously-developed land is entirely understandable, and building on brownfield is an important part of the solution.
But it cannot make up its entirety. There is considerably less brownfield land available in London and the South East, where excessively high housing prices are concentrated – and much of what there is is already being developed. It can also be far more difficult to build on, for either environmental or cost reasons.
Building on the green belt often lead to claims that it would result in the eviction of Thumper from his burrow. In fact, some of it is not what you might call green at all. Moreover, we would only need a mere 1.8 per cent of green belt land to build more homes than we have completed in the last ten years.
Of course this does not mean we should be simply bulldozing through green belt land without taking local residents into account. To do so would only increase hostility to new development, the very opposite of what we should be seeking to achieve. Instead, we should be garnering support from local communities by letting them directly share in the benefits of new homes in their area.
Under a Homes for All scheme, the government could use compulsory purchase orders to buy metropolitan green belt land, which would be developed by a new development corporation. This would be divided into shares to be given to the original landowners, central and local government, and local residents.
It is estimated that the value of these shares would multiply by over 14 times by the time the development was completed, directly linking increasing household wealth to the building of new homes in the local area, completing almost four million homes, and raising nearly a trillion pounds for the Exchequer in the process.
Contrary to the gloom surrounding our electoral prospects were we to build on green belt land, this would be a popular proposal. The ASI’s recent Rooms for Debate report found that there is net support for new homes on green belt land if a proportion of the profits were given local residents.
When we take the time to show how local development benefits local people and our commitnuties, support for it grows exponentially.
Gove made the important point that many of those who object to new developments have valid concerns about the impact on their roads, GP appointments, and school places for their children. With that in mind, we should look to make developers themselves directly responsible for fulfilling the legal obligation to provide certain infrastructure targets, as currently mandated under Section 106.
This would enable them to tailor public infrastructure packages to the needs of the local community, boosting support for new homes in the process.
I have heard too often of examples where developers are only too happy to provide what the community wants, only to be told by council officers that their S106 has to provide for things elsewhere, rather than what the community actually wants – and which would deliver support for development.
Gove and Lee Rowley, the housing minister, are to be commended for making some important first steps to improving our planning system. However, until the Conservative party can offer a truly bold housing offer, we risk passing over something which could boost both our electoral chances and our sluggish economic growth.
We should not run scared of planning. We should instead shape it to deliver for the communities we serve and for our economy, as well as our future electoral chances. There is still time left to seize this chance.