Michael Gove has announced a £24m package including ‘super squads’ and relaxing planning rules, including developing more brownfield and retail units to deliver new homes
The plan to relax planning rules follows the Government’s assertion that they will meet the target of building one million homes between 2019-24, despite a recent report from the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee stating that the government would not deliver 300,000 net new homes per year by the mid-2020s.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak reiterated over the weekend that the government would deliver the much-needed housing and housing secretary Micahel Gove added to this in his speech on Monday(24 July 2023), where he outlined the scheme.
Relaxing planning rules is intended to speed up the housebuilding process
In a statement released ahead of his speech, the Housing Secretary said: “Most people agree that we need to build more homes — the question is how we go about it.”
Citing regeneration in east London in the 1980s by the Docklands Development Corporation, the housing secretary said his plans would kick-start a “21st century renaissance for our great cities”.
The proposals included:
- a £24m training fund to develop skills needed to increase housebuilding
- a renewed effort on developing and building homes in cities rather than “concreting over the countryside”; with an increased focus on brownfield
- creating an Office for Place, which would aim to ensure new homes are delivered to both high aesthetic and functional quality
- Reviewing and relaxing planning rules such as permitted development rights, which would allow retail units, takeaways and betting shops to be converted into housing without needing planning permission
Questions have been raised about the standard of conversions
Councillor Shaun Davies, chairman of the LGA, said: “Premises such as offices, barns and shops are not always suitable for housing.
“Further expanding permitted development rights risks creating poor quality residential environments that negatively impact people’s health and wellbeing, as well as a lack of affordable housing or suitable infrastructure.
“It is disappointing that the Government have ignored their own commissioned research that concluded that homes converted through a planning application process deliver higher quality homes than those converted via permitted development rights.”
The first of these projects, a new “urban quarter” in Cambridge, has already met with criticism
Gove also announced that he was appointing Peter Freeman, chair of Homes England, to lead a “Cambridge delivery group”, aiming to build on the strong research and innovation market in the area by providing housing for more professionals.
But local responses have ranged from angry to vehemently angry.
Cambridgeshire County Council leader, Cllr Lucy Nethsingha said she was “deeply angry and frustrated”, and Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire Anthony Browne condemned the plans in light of the fact that natural resources in Cambridge were already overstretched.
I will do everything I can to stop the Government’s nonsense plans to impose mass housebuilding on Cambridge, where all major developments are now blocked by the Environment Agency because we have quite literally run out of water. Our streams, rivers and ponds already run dry.
— Anthony Browne MP (@AnthonyBrowneMP) July 24, 2023
He later described the plans as “dead on arrival”.
The opposition decried the announcement as more ‘empty promises’
Referring to the new speech and recent news that housing targets were rolled back to be advisory rather than mandatory, Lisa Nandy, Labour’s shadow housing secretary, said: “It takes some serious brass neck for the Tories to make yet more promises when the housing crisis has gone from bad to worse on their watch, and when housebuilding is on course to hit its lowest rate since the Second World War because Rishi Sunak rolled over to his own MPs.
“We don’t need more reviews, press releases or empty promises, we need bold action to get Britain building.”
Industry responses were slightly more optimistic- but clear that there is still a long way to go
Victoria Hills, chief executive of the Royal Town Planning Institute, said they would “make a significant contribution to alleviating the pressure placed on England’s planning services.”
The CEOs and chief executives of Mace, Kier and Persimmon all welcomed the proposed reforms of planning to decrease delays, and Verity Davidge of Make UK Modular said:
“Today’s announcement to manage the housing planning backlog through a planning skills delivery fund is a step in the right direction. Part of the fund should be dedicated towards ensuring planners have the knowledge and expertise of modular housebuilding too, which can help tackle the housing crisis we face in the UK.
“That said, these policies only begin to scratch the surface and we need to see more ambitious reforms to housing. Lowering stamp duty for EPC A rated homes and allocating a higher proportion of the affordable housing programme to modular housing would unleash the potential of a dynamic and innovative sector able to provide homes greener, faster and better.”
