How Labour will try to unlock Britain’s planning system
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Rachel Reeves used her first speech as UK chancellor to highlight the new Labour government’s determination to use all the political powers at its disposal to reboot Britain’s deadlocked planning system.
The government’s plan to “get Britain building again” relies not on a single silver bullet but a mixed package of policies that the party hopes can solve one of the most intractable policy challenges of recent decades.
Some are recycled from previous Conservative governments, but others are genuinely novel measures.
Restore mandatory housing targets
When the last Tory government dropped mandatory housing targets for local authorities, some councils rescinded approvals on existing sites, causing a notable slowdown in the pipeline for new houses.
The targets require local authorities to plan for enough houses to meet demand in their area as determined by official calculations. Labour’s reinstatement should reverse the slowdown.
But industry executives noted the targets were often not met even when they were in force under the Tories. They said high mortgage rates had weakened demand.
A senior housebuilding executive said that, for his company, “the reason we aren’t building 1,000 or 2,000 more homes a year is because people aren’t there to buy them”.
Ending a de facto ban on onshore wind farms
Labour has followed through on its pledge to remove planning restrictions that blocked new onshore wind farms in England, introduced by former Tory prime minister David Cameron in 2015.
It also wants the energy secretary, currently Ed Miliband, to decide on large onshore wind projects instead of local authorities. The move would bring wind in line with solar farms and other big infrastructure schemes.
Labour hopes to double onshore wind capacity across the UK by 2030 to meet its target of cutting carbon emissions from electricity generation to net zero by 2030.
Dan McGrail, chief executive of trade group RenewableUK, said the end of the de facto onshore wind ban was “long overdue”.
A task force to accelerate stalled housing sites
In a signal of interventionist intent, Reeves said the government had already stepped in to unblock four big stalled housing schemes since returning to power. A national task force will be set up to identify other developments that need intervention from Westminster.
Reeves listed the four initial projects as being in Liverpool, Worcester, Sutton Coldfield and Northstowe, totalling 14,000 homes
In Liverpool, the government is expected to help fund the decontamination of an industrial site.
In Northstowe, an existing housing development outside Cambridge, the government will accelerate plans for new amenities in the town centre to increase its attractiveness. Bridget Smith, Liberal Democrat leader of the South Cambridgeshire district council, said the move at Northstowe should solve the “massively frustrating” delay in delivering town centre facilities wanted by residents.
Funding for 300 more planning officers
Labour will boost staffing in local authorities that handle most of the day-to-day work in the planning system.
Developers have complained that planning offices have been hollowed out by more than a decade of budget cuts, with many senior professionals leaving for better pay in the private sector.
The Tories tried to tackle this problem with a “super squad” of experienced planners who could be deployed when local offices were hit with big applications.
The government’s pledge of 300 new officers would make up for less than a tenth of the loss of planners from public service under the Tories.
Review of greenbelt boundaries to prioritise brownfield land development
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner will instruct local governments to identify areas that could be built on within the greenbelt collars of land around large cities that are protected from development.
Labour has said “poor quality and ugly areas” of the greenbelt should be open for building.
Iain Jenkinson, executive director in planning at property group CBRE, said the government may have to do more to stop councils dragging their feet but that the policy could have a significant impact.
“The central thesis here is that if we can unlock some of that housing around the engines of growth of the country, that will go a long way,” he said.
Land-value capture
Labour has pledged to reform planning rules so that more of the increased value of land approved for development is funnelled towards infrastructure and social housing.
Consultancy Capital Economics said a hectare of agricultural land was typically worth £25,000, but the same area with residential development approval was worth £1.95mn.
Under plans being actively discussed by Labour, but not yet announced publicly by Reeves, local authorities would be instructed to demand that developers build more social housing and contribute to infrastructure.
This would be paid for by requiring a discount from the landowner on land sales, thereby capturing more of the value for development.
The idea behind such an approach is that landowners would still receive a high enough price to incentivise sales without resorting to time-consuming and legally complex compulsory purchase orders.
“It is imperative that reform allows us to better capture funds for the vital infrastructure that both enables and mitigates development,” said Richard Clewer, planning spokesperson for the County Councils Network.
New towns
Although Reeves did not mention new towns on Monday, they are core to Labour’s attempt to lift housebuilding figures in the long term.
The policy, which could be set out in legislation later this month, will encourage entire new towns but also extensions of existing conurbations to be built.
The bill is expected to hand stronger powers to local and national authorities to compulsorily buy land for housing development.
The government will set up a “new town commission” by the end of the year to decide on suitable sites by next summer.
A previous attempt to build new towns by David Cameron’s coalition of 2010-2015 was largely a failure.
Additional reporting: Jennifer Williams
Letter in response to this article:
Tax on land, not property will help Labour rebuild / From Carol Wilcox, Secretary, Labour Land Campaign, Christchurch, Dorset, UK
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