Planning overhaul and apparent good news for affordable housing
The new Labour Government recently announced its intended overhaul of the planning system in a bid to solve the current housing crisis and stimulate the wider economy.
The multi-pronged approach will see mandatory house building targets for local councils and new ‘golden rules’ for the release of low-quality green belt land requiring a 50% delivery of affordable homes, significantly more than the currently typical 10% requirement.
The targets for councils will require housebuilding in areas deemed to be most in need and will reverse the decision taken in 2023 to make the targets explicitly advisory. The Government intends the targets to transpose into local development plans, allowing communities to have a say in the types of homes and infrastructure needed, but vitally not the numbers to be delivered. Justifying its position the government stated:
“Currently just a third of councils have a plan that is under five years old, which is why government will take the tough decisions and step in where needed to drive progress, ensuring local areas get a say on how, but not if, homes are built”.
Complementing such targets, the government has also announced its intention to enshrine the five new ‘golden rules’ into planning legislation and policy, which are designed to protect natural green spaces and not to put undue pressure on public services and infrastructure. Succinctly the rules will see:
- A priority to develop brownfield sites first. A logical first rule given The Countryside Charity’s estimates that there are currently enough ‘shovel-ready’ brownfield sites in the UK for 1.2 million new homes, a significant contribution to the government’s goal of 1.5 million homes over the next 5 years.
- Secondary to the development of brownfield sites, the development of greyfield sites. This is intended to capture poor quality and ugly areas of the green belt first, such as former car parks and waste grounds. Previous green belt policy contained no such sub category of green belt land.
- A 50% affordable housing requirement for any development on green belt land.
- A requirement to boost public services and local infrastructure, including but not limited to more school and nursery places along with new health centres and GP appointments.
- A prohibition against building on genuine nature spots but a requirement for developments to include improvements to existing green spaces, making them accessible to the public, with new woodland, parks and playing fields.
Whether the government’s approach will be the silver bullet required remains up for debate, however, the moves are likely to be welcomed by housing charities and social housing providers who have repeatedly stressed that without bold reform of the planning system private developers will not deliver the government’s target of 1.5 million new homes (including 450,0000 affordable homes) this parliament.
Overt optimism will undoubtedly remain muted until further detail is published as to (1) the definitions of ‘greyfield’, ‘poor quality’ and ‘ugly areas’ (2) the mechanisms and procedures to be implemented by local planning authorities to ensure clear, consistent and timely classification of development land and (3) the further resources that will be given to local planning authorities to effectively apply any new definitions, mechanisms and procedures.
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