The countryside charity CPRE claims big housebuilders are maximising profits by hoarding planning permission for up to a million new homes while releasing poor-quality properties to market.
In a briefing paper released this week, the charity has rejected government claims that planning committees are responsible for the slow delivery of new homes and says the committees decide just 4% of applications. Instead, CPRE says, the problem lies with housebuilders.
The charity commented:
“The real problem lies with big housebuilders, which maximise their profits by hoarding planning permissions while drip-feeding unaffordable, poor-quality properties onto the market. There are currently more than a million potential new homes in the UK that have been granted planning permission but have not yet been built.”
Rather than speeding up housebuilding, CPRE claims that the proposed reforms will ‘undermine democracy without addressing the underlying causes of the housing crisis’. As a result, it warns, decisions regarding local heritage or transport networks could be made by a single unelected planning officer.
The charity added:
“In most cases planning committees only handle significant applications with major impacts that go beyond established local plans or which are made by councils themselves.
“Local planning committees give members of the public a right to speak directly to local politicians about the potential impact of proposed developments. The new Planning & Infrastructure Bill seeks to reduce the already tiny proportion of planning applications that these committees consider.”
The charity says it also has ‘major concerns’ that legal restrictions on the role of committees could make it easier for developers to renege on promises of affordable housing or good design in new developments, and is calling on the government not to curtail the role of the committees.
Instead, it argues the government should ‘address the real barriers to housing delivery by compelling developers to build homes for which planning permission has already been given’.
CPRE head of policy and planning Paul Miner said:
“Local planning committees play a vital role in our democracy. They give ordinary people a say in major changes to their local area, hold elected representatives to account and push for high-quality housing built in the right locations.
“If the government goes ahead with its plans to curtail the role of these committees it will undermine democratic oversight while encouraging developers to continue with business as usual – in other words, maximising profit for themselves and misery for everyone else. Committees can work more effectively, but the best councils expect the committee chair and chief planning officer to work together.
‘The government is wrong to blame the housing crisis on the planning system and environmental protections. The true ‘blockers’ are the big housebuilders that have a stranglehold on our housing supply.
‘The solution to the housing crisis lies as much in transforming the market as it does in planning reform. Without it we will see yet more unaffordable, car-dependent developments built across our countryside.”
One Response
I’ve been writing responses to this stuff for six years;
Time limit option agreements with a public register of them. Encourage competition among developers. Including the smaller developers.
Time limit planning approvals. Time limit to start, time limit to 50%, and time limit to finish. With powers to CPO land, or portions of land not finished.
Incentivise all house builders. Tax breaks for building ‘X’ percent more homes than the year before.
We’ve had supply of labour, and skills reduce over twenty years as completed build numbers have reduced. Now we don’t have the supply chain to repaidly upscale. There will have to be some incentive now to promote higher buildouts.
So, tax breaks on the uplift. Target something like 20% increase per annum. Applying to all developers. Even those who can show they only built 4 last year. BIG tax break on each year’s uplift. We’ll need the house builders to pay for the training of the tradespeople we will need.
Every PP granted for sites over 500 units (including where the original plot is later modified to become over 500….) to have 1 home that will be handed back to council ownership. For council rent. Councils banned from selling these properties for at least twenty years. Slowly adding to council stocks once more.
No stimulus to mortgage lending. No artificial intervention. Mortgage lending multiples and terms to be fixed. Set by BOE, reviewed every five years. All other facets open to competition.
Transfer Stamp to either 50/50 liability, with the calculations remaining the same. Or frankly seller pays the stamp duty. Including new builds. Which would level out some of the bonkers gains of the last ten years. Yes, it’s be a shock to the market, but in a market that is as slow as right now. With big ticket properties falling already, it’ll quickly find it’s level. We have a lack of liquidity. Wheels need greasing, however the UK needs the revenue. Stamp can’t be scrapped, but those going up the ladder can’t afford it. Those coming down, can.
No mortgage or stamp stimulus. Let the free market set the prices.
Next, reservation agreements. And a proper structure with sure timeframes for conveyancing. Simple mandated timescales for the stressful end. Ensuring gazundering is wiped out, and last minute fall-throughs are reduced to a thing of the past. Possibly more importantly bring the prospect of moving back as something to enjoy, rather than dread. Which is what it is right now. Many won’t move, because they dread how stressful it would be.
Bring back a HIPS equivalent. Have sellers become far more sale ready, at the outset. Properties to be far more proceed-able, far more quickly than now.
Oh, and where is Atomic Settlement BOE? Moving day woes have caused catastrophic damage to moving companies over decades. You’ll need movers in a better market. You don’t have them, and won’t have them unless the employment conditions improve.
The only improvement needed in order to recruit is atomic settlement. Conveyancers have proven over decades they can’t be trusted to complete and have keys released timely. These chickens are coming home to roost. Don’t let it become a huge problem, quickly.
We are, right now in a rebalancing market. Now is the time to make major changes.