Since coming into power in July, new Labour prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has made it clear that ‘getting Britain building’ is going to be a cornerstone policy for the party.
Headed up by the likes of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner – the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities – and housing minister Matthew Pennycook, a big aim of the document is to open up more space on which to build much-needed homes for the country.
Rachel Reeves has vowed to ‘rip out the blockages’ in the planning system in her first party conference speech as chancellor.
Reeves claimed the Government has done more to overhaul the planning system in the 72 hours that it took office than what the Tory’s achieved in 14 years.
She highlighted the end of a “senseless ban” on onshore win as an example of this.
Highlighting the “Britain that we are building” throughout her speech, Reeves said the Government would provide the “decent home that everybody deserves” but gave very few clues on further housing policies.
Commenting on the speech, Fergus Charlton, planning partner at national law firm Michelmores said: “Understandably the Chancellor has dipped lightly into the world of planning in her speech to conference.
“’Ripping out the blockages’ of a system that places great value on community consultation and which turns on both local and national level political decision taking, suggests that the Chancellor is inclined to extend permitted development rights. Such rights typically avoid consultation and constrain the ability of a politically driven decision maker to say ‘no’.
This would be consistent with the direction of travel signalled over the weekend by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government’s planning reform working paper that is proposing ‘brownfield passports’ akin to permissions in principle, and which also extols the use of Local Development Orders.”
Alun Williams, partner at London law firm Spector Constant & Williams, added “the chancellor is another in a long line of politicians who appears pretty adept at identifying the illness plaguing the planning system. The question is whether Labour will be the first to successfully administer a cure.”
Timothy Douglas, head of policy and campaigns at Propertymark, said “the property sector has a key role to play in boosting the economy, so the Chancellors’ continued focus on planning reform and infrastructure is welcome. We look forward to working with the UK Government on its housing strategy in order to help build the growth the country needs.”
Labour prepares to limit landowners’ gains from sale of green belt land amid push for new homes
The government is preparing to limit the amount landowners can receive from selling green belt land, handing councils the power to cheaply buy up land that previously would have been ineligible for development as part of its plan to tackle the housing crisis.
In areas with the greatest housing need, landowners could also find themselves penalised for refusing to sell land. Councils would be able to force them to sell land at a “benchmark” value – which would be lower than the market value of similar sites outside the green belt.
The measures come during concern that in areas of high property prices, such as around London and the South East, landowners could cash in on sites which previously had low development value.
To address this, ministers are consulting on plans to set a “benchmark” value for the land that would put a limit on the amount that landowners could charge.
Such plans would form part of the government’s intention to overhaul the planning system and build 1.5 million new homes by 2030 to tackle the housing crisis.
Mandatory housing targets, scrapped by the previous Conservative government, would also be restored, while some local authorities will be required to allow the building of homes on green belt land to meet the targets.
If landowners and local councils fail to agree on a price, sources told The Times, ministers are looking at how local authorities, along with Homes England, could use compulsory purchase powers to acquire the land.
Announcing a major overhaul of the planning system in July, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner told MPs that “we must all play our part” in the plan to build more homes.
A graphic showing green belt land in England in cities ranging from Newcastle to Bristol (PA Graphics)
Speaking in the Commons, she warned the country is facing the “most acute housing crisis in living memory”, claiming that the number of new homes is set to drop below 200,000 this year.
The overall annual housing target for the UK will increase to 370,000, replacing the previous Tory government’s advisory target of 300,000 homes per year.
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government representative said: “We will reform the outdated compulsory purchase process to remove inflated values of land and ensure compensation paid to landowners is fair but not excessive.
“We will preserve the green belt and take a brownfield-first approach in doing so, so sites which people are desperate to see used will be developed first. We will also use lower quality ‘grey belt’ land, like wasteland or old car parks, and introduce ‘golden rules’ to ensure that development benefits both communities and nature.”