Solving the UK’s housing crisis was one of the major manifesto promises made by the Conservative Party at the last election in 2019. It pledged to build one million homes over the next parliament. Despite winning the election, this target has never been reached and after yet another government U-turn, this time on housing targets, is all hope now lost?
In August 2020, the government consulted on a number of ways of solving the UK’s housing crisis and boosting housing delivery. One proposed solution was to impose top-down housing targets from central government to local planning authorities. It proposed:
“A new nationally determined, binding housing requirement that local planning authorities would have to deliver through their Local Plans. This would be focused on areas where affordability pressure is highest to stop land supply being a barrier to enough homes being built. We propose that this would factor in land constraints, including the Green Belt, and would be consistent with our aspirations of creating a housing market that is capable of delivering 300,000 homes annually.”
How would the housing targets help in solving the UK’s housing crisis?
Local plans are the bedrock of our democratic planning system. They are supposed to allocate the land necessary to meet the needs of local people. In other words, they should plan for enough homes. All local authorities are supposed to have an up-to-date local plan by December 2023. However, according to Michael Gove’s 6 December 2022 statement, only 40% of local planning authorities have achieved this.
One of the main causes of delay is arguing over housing numbers. Some councils want as small a number as possible so there is less pressure to approve housing development, keeping local “NIMBY” voters happy. They try to push the number down, arguing that they don’t have appropriate sites to build more housing.
However, a top-down housing requirement would have already considered such constraints and councils could still dictate where and in what form the housing would be built. The binding requirement would have just shifted the emphasis to ensuring sufficient land allocation, acknowledging the collective responsibility to provide more homes.
How is a localised housing approach different from what we have now?
Rather than a binding housing target, we currently have a nationalised method of calculating housing need which is a starting point from which local authorities set their own housing requirement. National planning policy sets out a formula called “the standard methodology” which it expects authorities to use to calculate a minimum housing need figure. This figure then sets the basis for the authority’s local plan housing target, which is subject to approval by the secretary of state before the plan is adopted.
In his December 2022 letter to MPs, Michael Gove confirmed that instead of introducing top-down housing targets, a more localised approach would be taken and that planning inspectors will be required to take a “more reasonable approach” to local plans that consider local concerns.
What has angered many people, including some Tory MPs, is the dramatic change of direction by government. The Guardian reported that the Home Builders Federation (HBF) thinks that the U-turn could lead to 100,000 fewer new homes a year.
Neil Jefferson, HBF managing director, said: “If ministers fail to stand up to the anti-business and anti-development section of the Conservative party, it is inevitable that housing supply will fall dramatically, costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, slashing GDP and preventing even more people from accessing decent housing.”
Will it lead to more planning appeals?
I suspect not. A raft of other changes is proposed, which may make it harder for developers to overturn a planning refusal at appeal. Doing away with the requirement to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply for councils with an up-to-date Local Plan is one of the proposed reforms. A council’s failure to meet this requirement is often one of the justifications for granting permission on appeal, as it engages the presumption in favour of sustainable development. This was recently the case in the York Greenbelt where permission for 970 homes was granted.
Is the implication that new housing schemes will be granted only in big towns and cities?
In its 5 December 2022 statement, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities said that “housing targets remain an important part of the planning system and the government will consult on how these can better take account of local density”.
There is certainly still a push for brownfield-focused development but, as the statistics show, this hasn’t achieved the 300,000 target.
A vast array of new proposals has been promised as part of the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill, currently making its way through parliament. Sadly, I have serious doubts that they will generate enough new homes, but the multitude of consultations promised on new planning policy provide some hope that those trying to get on, or further up, the housing ladder haven’t been forgotten.
Kathryn Hampton
Senior expertise lawyer
Ashurst
