Appetite for construction
Originally published in the Municipal Journal – 29/07/24
If Sir Keir Starmer’s domestic economic strategy is to succeed there will have to be evidence that the flagship housebuilding strategy is working and seen to work. As a headline target this means 1.5 million homes built over the parliament averaging at 300,000 new developments a year being hit.
Among the 40 pieces of legislation outlined in a very assured if overladen King’s Speech, the planning and infrastructure bill was unveiled as a means of ‘unlocking more housing and infrastructure’ and as an ‘enabler of growth – enabling democratic engagement with how, not if, homes and infrastructure are built’.
This begs the big and obvious question – will there be enough time, political and economic capital, resources, skills and energy in the system to deliver on this ambition? This isn’t our first rodeo. In the last parliament, and despite a more than workable majority, Boris Johnson’s much vaunted ‘Planning for change’ agenda which would have driven a stake through the heart of the post war direction set by the Town and Country Planning Act was instead sacrificed on the altar of NIMBYist backbench Conservative opposition after the Chesham and Amersham by election. This time around, Labour’s far greater majority, mandate and ruthless mien suggests the planning reform will translate onto statute as originally proposed.
So, what are the enemies of planning promise this time around? From a place-policy perspective, the return to strategic planning would appear as singularly the one change in direction that could dramatically achieve the bill’s aim to ‘speed up and streamline the planning process to build more homes of all tenure’
A more regional and sub-regional approach to planning could be a gamechanger for housing supply and ultimately help ‘take the brakes off Britain’. In essence, it would mean reversing the impetus of the direction from 2010 to now and restoring the status quo ante in the previous half century. As Catriona Riddell outlined in Localis’s essay collection ‘Building consent – housing by popular demand’ a more formal mandatory and comprehensive approach to strategic planning had ensured that development decisions were integrated with wider socio-economic and environmental objectives, and fully aligned with national, regional and sub-regional infrastructure priorities.
In the context of the Labour growth plan as a national mission, strategic plans have the potential to once more act as ‘the essential pivot’ between national and local priorities, reflecting local circumstances and context for delivery and a larger spatial canvas to give greater choice in local growth. This could be particularly the case, as Riddell argues, around larger towns and cities that are constrained by their administrative areas and Green Belt boundaries by directing development to the most ideal places, and not as is often the case, merely the least worst.
So far, so good. What’s not to like? Well, it is in this context that what may well become a dominant narrative of the parliament, the more intriguing relationship dynamic might well be more local/regional than the time-honoured central/local focus. The speech further confirms that Combined Authorities (CAs) will be among local leaders given new powers to design and implement strategic spatial plans. On the face of it our CAs are ideally placed to ensure housebuilding plans align with the incoming statutory local growth plans as well as wider infrastructure and transport strategies and making calls about where development should be sited. However, if this isn’t to descend into another bizarre social experiment (LEPs anyone?), ministers and their legislation will need to make crystal clear what the division of responsibilities between CAs and local planning authorities should be.
Boosting planning capacity at local level will, the bill recognises speed up both decision-making and the future pipeline of housing delivery. The legislation promises to redress an estimated £262 million funding shortfall in local planning services. Why should an already hard-pressed local state subsidise often speculative development? As a measure this can’t come soon enough and should deliver swift improvements.
Time will tell whether the other legislative proposals, of which we are currently light on detail, to among other things streamline the delivery for critical infrastructure, further reform compulsory purchase compensation rules or ‘modernise planning committees’ can shift the dial. Given the government emphasis on the ‘how, not if’ of its building agenda, understanding how its idea for ‘modernisation’ will translate to the local democratic side of development, and the community involvement in decisions since the 1968 Town and Planning Act, might well prove controversial. For the sake of community harmony, it would be advisable for housebuilding to have popular local support. We would argue for the engagement process to be avowedly democratic and educative in making the positive case for new dwellings through skilful community consultation that balances differing needs and viewpoints. But time and the exigencies of housing delivery might not be fully on the side of this hope.