Jeremy's Blog 10th November 2023: Housing Development and Labour
This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 9th November 2023
Speaking to the North East Chamber of Commerce, Keir Starmer returned strongly to his party conference theme of the vigour that a Labour Government would bring to secure new housing and infrastructure as part of encouraging economic growth (see webnote). It chimes quite closely with the legislation that the Conservative Government is putting in place and, even while repeating the intention to “bulldoze” the planning system, faces the same challenge of the depth of an entrenched culture of resistance to development. While the net zero goal drives both frontbenches to want to accelerate energy infrastructure, his development speeches include no environmental qualifications.
His key remarks last Friday on planning and development were:
“Wherever we find barriers to British success – we will bulldoze through them.
“New development corporations, new planning regimes for national infrastructure.
“Consequences for councils that drag their feet.
“Reforms to judicial review.
“Whatever it takes – we will find a way.
“No stone unturned. No detail overlooked. No fight ducked.”
With the New Towns Act (and a consultation five years ago on the guidance for using its powers), the 2018 Letwin report on building out permissions (see webnote) and the provisions of the new Levelling Up and Regeneration Act including National Development Management Polices overriding local plans, development corporations, design codes and the limited exclusion of hope value, much of the framework for that is in place.
Nonetheless, a Planning Bill would come forward swiftly with a national consultation issued on new town sites, including those focused on the “grey belt” parts of the green belts (while the Government looks to the major cities). These are then presumed to have the political weight of a manifesto commitment and so have the force that the 2020 Planning White Paper lacked as its central proposal for allocating housing numbers foundered on the Government’s backbenches.
The commitment to reform judicial review seems new from Labour, perhaps taking further the Judicial Review and Courts Reform Act 2022. With no detail, it appears part of limiting challenges that delay and frustrate development. The environmental groups are clearly wary of such change and the larger references to removing red tape. Natural England’s Tony Juniper defended “scrubland” as a habitat but then affirmed his acceptance of development.
There is no magic wand here. Even with successful bulldozing, it will take time, maybe even a Parliament, to put the new system in place and follow it through to the point of construction and sale. Much would turn on the planning system’s capacity to handle what would remain expected of it.
Despite its stated imperative for housing, Labour voted down changes to nutrient neutrality rules, making that an issue it may itself have to tackle. Even with the housing shortage, there seem few reasons to suppose its backbenchers and council to be any more accommodating of specific development proposals than Conservative ones. The Canadian Conservatives are finding such housing policies can be electorally attractive at a national level but UK politics continues to suggest this might be less true locally.
With new settlements and overriding powers seeming an inevitable part of any sufficient answer to the scale of housing shortage, this, along with essential infrastructure, will call on rural land, owner occupied and tenanted. It illustrates the intensity of the competition for rural land, especially for land that is more suitable for several uses, as where good farmland has infrastructure supportive of housing or is convenient for the grid. With other pressures, those tensions already bear on values, management and professional advice. They will become more complex.