“UK planners are choking land supply, housebuilders claim” 11 December 2006
“The supply of new housing is falling short of needs by some 50,000 each year. But he agreed that Kate Barker sets out a strategic vision of a simpler and more efficient planning framework to bring forward new development.”
The United Kingdom’s housebuilders have welcomed Kate Barker’s final report on the land use planning system in England, saying it is a balanced and positive approach to achieving sustainable development.
But speaking of the difficulties facing the builders in delivering the increased number of new homes demanded by government policy, Home Builders Federation executive chairman Stewart Baseley said that the amount of land coming through the planning system annually for residential development has fallen by some 10 per cent in recent years.
As a result, he said, the supply of new housing is falling short of needs by some 50,000 each year. But he agreed that Kate Barker sets out a strategic vision of a simpler and more efficient planning framework to bring forward new development.
The report has also been welcomed by the British Property Federation, which endorsed the government’s plan to establish a new planning commission to deal with major infrastructure projects such as Crossrail.
Faraz Baber, the property federation’s director of planning and regeneration, said the federation was delighted about recognition of the need to rethink how the planning system can deliver major projects in a timely manner.
According to Kate Barker, the key elements in this reform will be Ministerial engagement and public consultation at the start of the planning process, resulting in a clearer national policy framework within which the new independent planning commission can take the final decisions on major projects.
The home builders have also welcomed Gordon Brown’s statement that he will allow more time for consultation over the planning gain supplement (PGS) to assist with funding the development infrastructure.
As Mr. Baseley put it, the jury is still out on whether PGS will help or hinder meeting the target of 200,000 homes annually by 2015. So far, the industry, with the support of the property federation and the RICS, has expressed strong doubts about the potential of the land tax in providing the reliable stream of revenue required to accelerate the rate of house building.
Kate Barker herself makes no further comment on her planning gain supplement ideas, whose implementation is now in the hands of the Treasury. What she has suggested in the new report is enhancing ‘fiscal incentives’ to ensure efficient use of urban land, in particular reforming business rate relief for empty property.
That implies charges on unoccupied property to encourage owners to find new tenants, a proposal that has been strenuously resisted in the past but would help improve local government funding. As things stand, owners have no fiscal incentive to let vacant property at times when its value can be relied upon to rise.
She has also proposed exploring the options for a charge on vacant and derelict land
Chancellor Gordon Brown however said little about these ideas in his pre-Budget report. Some of them may indeed prove controversial, as has the planning gain supplement.
The British Property Federation indicated some reservations about them when it said that it accepted almost Kate Barker’s entire interesting cocktail of recommendations’.
The Chancellor’s statement acknowledged that Kate Barker’s report on land use planning sets out a range of recommendations for improving the speed, responsiveness and efficiency of the planning system and the fiscal incentives holding and developing brownfield land and commercial property.
The Government will in a White Paper in Spring 2007 set out its proposals in response to these recommendations and for taking forward Kate Barker’s and Rod Eddington’s ideas for reform of major infrastructure planning.