Rachel Reeves’ speech led with the expansion of Heathrow with a third runway – a saga which has been going on since the 1980s and will almost certainly carry on for at least another 20 years. The issue is totemic and deliberate picked to demonstrate the Chancellor’s determination to create growth*.
But sitting underneath all of this, MHCLG is motoring. In the six months since Labour took control we have had major and minor interventions to get housebuilding going in England and Wales. The policy announcements keep coming** and represent a comprehensive direction of travel:
- Short term: call-ins and approvals for housing and infrastructure schemes to match the strong narrative
- Medium term: NPPF reforms, a push on Plan making, mandatory targets, planning committee reforms
- Long term: the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (due in the Spring), changes to NSIP regime, changes to court rules, introduction of zoning….
Reeves’continues to make the case for growth as the only way out of the current financial woes of the country and has been at pains to engage with businesses and to encourage them to invest.
For the house building sector it feels like the overlapping layers of changes are slowly beginning to address the multitude of issues in a system which has become beset with regulation and where regulators have the power to halt development across vast areas with the stroke of a pen.
With each successive announcement, the Government has sought to address restrictions on deliver, most recently with the plans to introduce a Nature Restoration Fund. The Fund will operate on a strategic level and will address the issue of the “neutralities” (and BNG) across a region – rather than site by site basis. This approach could unlock many of the schemes currently stuck in the planning system and many sites which simply haven’t come forward at all yet.
There should be a word of caution on this approach though. It was only at the end of last year that it was widely reported that councils were sitting on billions of unspent CIL and Section 106 payments. With dramatic drop in ecological indicators in the UK, this situation cannot be allowed to develop for any future Nature Recovery Fund system.
Of course, for some (mostly the Daily Mail), the proposed changes represent a ripping up of environmental protections, for others, a sensible way to unlock homes and infrastructure where they are needed. We would expect local planning authorities to be very suspicious of these changes at least until the mechanism is proven, albeit many of these local authorities are set for reorganization themselves.
Reeves has also quietly reintroduced the concept of zoning. Put forward by the Conservatives, the concept of zoning for development was shouted down. Such is the pace of change coming out of MHCLG there is little bandwidth to recognize that zoning is coming and what it could mean.
In the first instance, Reeves has cleverly introduced the first AI zone at Culham, an established research area, but there are plenty of hints that zoning will go beyond industrial and infrastructure. For example, the announcements talk (without mentioning zoning) about streamlining planning for development near transport hubs – surely this is going to mean zoning? If they happen, the presumption in favour of development in these areas will unlock growth – and (relatively) fast.
Making another leap, could these zones also be used for the much-touted New Towns. Could they also come with Development Corporations?
We will be watching progress – get in touch if you have any questions.
by Julian Seymour, Deputy CEO, Managing Director (Planning and Communities)
* Notably Gatwick’s Second Runway and Luton’s expansion explicitly not mentioned – this may have been part of a deal with some of the more environmentally minded in the Cabinet or a recognition that tackling Heathrow was enough for now.
** The Treasury has provided a handy list of all its commitments on planning reform in its press release here.