Getting to grips with housing delivery – or more hot air?

Monday felt like “Planning Groundhog Day”. With much anticipation and excitement across the development industry, Michael Gove outlined how the Government would seek to meet its manifesto pledge of creating one million new homes by 2024.  DHA’s Matthew Garvey delves a little deeper and ask, do the headlines really deliver?

 

This week the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities, unveiled the Government's strategy on how it would seek to deliver on its manifesto pledge of one million new homes by 2024.  The cynic in me considers that the statements made on Monday were aimed more at Tory heartland voters than anything new, or previously unheard of in terms of how the planning system will unlock housing delivery.

 

The key focus of the Government's plan seems, unsurprisingly, to revolve around regenerating city centres and prioritising brownfield land for housing development, ‘rather than concreting over the countryside’, as Mr Gove put it.  While this is in line with existing policy, some sceptics, including me, will question the lack of innovative ideas to tackle the housing shortage effectively.

 

The Tories promised that it would deliver 300,000 new homes a year, which would meet its target to deliver one million new homes by the mid-2020’s. The government claims that the target remains, but they have altered the responsibility of local councils to deliver on it. This change has raised concerns about reduced housing delivery across the board due to the absence of specific targets for local councils.

 

Proposals now include investments in various regions, particularly highlighting Cambridge, with a focus on transforming it into the science capital of Europe. However, such plans have already faced opposition from affected areas.

 

Additionally, the government announced plans for "Docklands 2.0" in East London, the regeneration of central Leeds, investment in Barrow-in-Furness, and the release of funds for 56,000 new homes across England. These all sound familiar?  Well, they are, and we’ve seen numerous similar suggestions from both blue and red governments over the last 20 years.

 

Mr Gove also confirmed his intension to consult on new and extended Permitted Development Rights, providing more flexibility for certain types of development. This includes converting large department stores, spaces above shops, office spaces and betting shops. Hot off the back of his speech, the Government has announced a consultation into extending Permitted Development Rights.  Among the highlights are the following:

 

• Doubling the floorspace limit for conversion of commercial premises to residential use;
• Doubling the allowance for agricultural buildings to be converted to residential use, from 5 to 10;
• Allowance of a rear extension to be provided while undertaking some Class Q prior approvals;
• More flexibility for rural buildings, other than solely agricultural buildings, to be converted to residential use;
• A doubling of the floorspace allowance for agricultural buildings to be converted to ‘flexible’ uses;
• Relaxation of many Permitted Development Rights in the AONB.

 

For someone who’s personally secured over 200 new homes via barn conversions in the countryside, for me tweaking these rights seems like an easy win, further reinvigorating the rural economy, and providing a steady stream of new homes.  Clearly, there are nuances to these rights and the question remains whether we are deregulating the planning process too much.  However, the rights have, since their introduction delivered about 6% of the total housing numbers for England and are, therefore, an important, albeit still small, part of the delivery stream.

 

To address continued planning challenges, the government will establish a £24 million planning skills delivery fund. Mr Gove’s aim is to create a "super-squad" team of leading planners and experts to work across the planning system and unblock major housing developments. While this investment may alleviate some pressures on local authorities, this won’t address the more nuanced issues that require more significant government intervention such as general funding of LPAs and interventions at committees by Councillors overturning their officers’ recommendations.

 

Regarding funding, the Government plans to incentivise brownfield development by charging developers more for greenfield sites, thereby allowing further reinvestment in local infrastructure or brownfield sites.  They also aim to eliminate the Hope Value from land sales and increase planning fees to better resource planning departments.

 

Despite the bold statements made by Mr Gove, I’d argue that there are no groundbreaking commitments or innovative solutions to address the housing crisis coming from his speech. Labour’s shadow housing secretary unsurprisingly seemed to agree calling for “action rather than empty promises”.

 

As with all these things the devils in the detail!