Government housebuilding targets risk allowing just under 165,000
new homes to bypass scrutiny by the local community, a new
analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) warns today.
The LGA, which represents more than 370 councils across England
and Wales, is calling for the Government to scrap its planned
changes to the National Policy Planning Framework which will
impose often “undeliverable” housebuilding targets on local areas
and penalise councils and communities left powerless to ensure
they are met.
Under the Government’s plans, local areas will be expected to
meet new housing targets imposed by Whitehall. If, by 2020,
private house builders fail to build more than 75 per cent of
those targets, then developers will be able to ignore sites
agreed locally and build in places that communities did not want
to include in local plans.
As a result, more than half of the target homes – just under
165,000 homes in 42 per cent of council areas - could be built by
bypassing local plans by the end of the decade.
This means house builders will be able to avoid other key factors
expressed in local plans, such as making sure the right types of
homes are built in the right places, to ensure these homes have
appropriate infrastructure, and built to high standards, and that
enough affordable homes needed locally are actually provided.
The LGA is calling on the Government to replace measures that
allow developers to build outside a local plan with more positive
tools for councils to ensure sites with planning permission are
built out more quickly.
The last time this country built the amount of homes it needs, in
the 70s, councils built 40 per cent of them. The Government must
trigger a renaissance in council house building through enabling
them to borrow to build more of the homes our communities
desperately need.
Cllr Martin Tett, LGA Housing spokesman, said:
“The planning system is not a barrier to housebuilding – the
opposite is true. Councils are approving 9 in 10 applications and
last year worked with developers to approve 350,000 new homes,
the highest in more than a decade.
“It is completely unfair to impose targets on communities which
can only be met by private developers, and then to penalise those
local communities if those builders do not deliver.
“This risks leading to a housebuilding free-for-all which will
bypass the needs of local communities and could damage trust in
the planning system. The Government needs to scrap these plans to
avoid this alarming scenario playing out across the
country.
“Councils are committed to ensuring homes are built where they
are needed. It is vital that they have an oversight of local
developments and are given the powers needed to play a leading
role in solving our national housing shortage.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
The LGA’s response to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and
Local Government consultation on the ‘Draft revised National
Planning Policy Framework’ can be found here.
