Concerns about whether new planning reforms go far enough to address the country’s housing shortage have been raised by estate agents.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which has just had its Second Reading, aims to unlock economic growth and accelerate delivery of homes and critical infrastructure.
Reforms would speed up planning decisions, remove unnecessary blockers and challenges to housing development.
A new structure would streamline decisions by setting out which types of applications should be determined by planning officers, and which should go to council committee, along with a ban on large and unwieldy committees, and mandatory training for committee members.
Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said the legislation is needed to speed up its ambition to deliver the 1.5 million homes in its Plan for Change and bring the inherited housing crisis to an end, not only for those struggling to get onto the housing ladder but for families and young children stuck in temporary accommodation.
However, Propertymark believes issues remain over the ability to deliver the scale of homes needed and the current capacity of planning officers within local authorities to accelerate planning proposals.
Nathan Emerson, of Propertymark, explained that it has concerns around incentivising landowners to release land, difficulties in hiring planning officers and how developments which have received planning permission can be accelerated.
“While the Bill is a step in the right direction, we hope that further efforts can be made by the UK Government to address many more of the issues that have impacted the number of homes built every year,” he said.
Other key measures in the Bill include strengthening the compulsory purchase process to acquire land for projects that are in the public interest and ensure compensation paid to landowners is not excessive and giving additional powers to development corporations to make it easier when delivering large-scale developments, including the next generation of new towns.
Tags:
Comments