Richard Greenwood, director at EN:Build, believes that while Labour’s pledges are bringing a well-needed surge in optimism to the construction industry, the danger of a promise without a plan cannot be overstated
Since securing a victory at the recent general election, Labour has come out of the gate swinging- promising transformative pledges for the construction industry.
From building 1.5m homes utilising grey belt, to creating a new generation of towns, Labour’s ambitions only spell good news for the construction, housing and social housing industries.
However, the devil is in the detail – something which is noticeably lacking, especially with Starmer’s flagship planning overhaul.
Overall, Labour’s construction pledges are heading in the right direction
Firstly, it’s undeniably a good thing that there’s so much focus on the property and construction sector in the national agenda. It’s about time that the challenges we’re facing are at the forefront of conversations with all the right people and I’m impressed to see the vigour at which Labour has approached this.
One of the prominent decisions was appointing Angela Rayner as secretary of state for housing, communities and local government. Having someone who has experienced first-hand social housing and really cares about making the stock available and of high-quality for those families that need it, is essential to the radical social housing changes that are needed. How can you convincingly drive forward such drastic change that is required in this sector without having at least some compassion and insight into the challenges? Starmer has got this right.
Furthermore, Labour’s manifesto promises are full of optimism. In particular, an immediate revision of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is welcomed alongside reintroducing housing targets for local authorities and funding recruitment of much needed planning officers. But, I am sceptical of how all of these ambitions will be delivered.
Recruitment and funding could pose significant obstacles
I’m not the first to say that since the new government has stepped up there has been a distinct lack of detail added to the manifesto pledges. While on the surface most people would agree that a housing and planning revolution is needed, how we’re going to achieve it and with what money is troubling me at the moment.
For example, Labour has said it will fund the recruitment of 300 extra planning officers hoping these extra resources will combat some of the planning delays. However, we can’t hire people that don’t exist. By that I mean the industry doesn’t have a pot of excess planners just waiting for roles, the issue goes right back to education and making it a viable and enticing route for young people, but this takes time. We need to know how the government is planning to do this and the timeframe.
According to the Royal Town Planning Institute, there are currently only 11 accredited apprenticeships in planning worldwide – we’re going to have to do better than that to solve the recruitment crisis.
We also can’t ignore the big question currently clouding Labour’s pledges – money. We’ve yet to see any financial support to back up these promises made and without clear routes to funding there will be people that struggle to get behind him as we’ve been down this road before. I anticipate Starmer will reveal more on the funding in the Autumn Statement but unfortunately, that’s just not soon enough. Delaying the details will be very damaging to the support Labour receives from the industry and acting now would go far in strengthening its position against doubters.
Housing is focal- but cannot be the only focus point
To slightly contradict myself, while we do need details for delivering these pledges, we also can’t lose sight of the big picture.
Planning reform and housing targets are top priorities but what about highways and drainage? We can say we want to build 1.5m new homes and we’re going to revolutionise the planning system to deliver this, but all these homes will need infrastructure and utilities. We’ll need new roads to connect these houses to communities and it’s not planners that look after that, it’s the local authority highways departments. By putting so much emphasis on one aspect of the process, we’re losing sight of all the cogs in the machine.
Likewise, the skills gap isn’t isolated to planning. There’s a well-documented skills shortage across the entire property and construction sector, which is only going to be exacerbated by new technologies being introduced such as air source heat pumps. We’ll need the expertise and manpower to introduce these sustainable solutions at pace and that comes from training and education.
Our approach needs to be joined up to see any of these plans succeed and we’re all eager for a building boom but the supply chain has to be ready for one, otherwise it’ll be a disaster before it’s even started.
It’s fantastic to hear everyone talking about house building positively for the first time in years, and I truly hope we can achieve what has been set out but until we have the plans to back the pledges I’ll remain reserved about the realities we can expect.
