Planning matters

The Levelling Up the UK White Paper, published on 2 February, describes the practical steps the Government will take that “will make this a better, fairer country for us all", according to the Prime Minister's foreword.

The White Paper is not a consultation exercise; it is a series of missions against which the Government is to be measured, albeit the Levelling Up Minister said, in a written answer, that the Government intends to “continue to engage with a wide range of stakeholders and partners".    

Edward Clarke's blog considers what the Levelling Up White Paper's missions mean for the development industry.  

In terms of future changes to the planning system specifically, there are several statements that show the elements of planning reform that are still favoured and provide hints on timescales for announcements, which we set out below.

 

The Chief Planner identified what she considers to be the key planning changes highlighted in the White Paper, in her February 2022 Planning Newsletter:

• “The simplification of local plans ensuring they are transparent and easier to engage with
  
  
• The consideration of new models for a new infrastructure levy
  
  
• A number of policies and powers to enable planning to better support town centre regeneration
  
  
• Improving democracy and engagement in planning decisions
  
  
• Supporting environmental protection through planning”

The Planning Newsletter said that there will be further updates on changes to the planning system “in the Spring", albeit a day earlier the Net Zero Minister’s response to a written answer asking when a Planning Bill would be published was much less specific, and reflected the White Paper:

The anticipated Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which will contain whatever changes to the planning system/reform that require primary legislation, is not mentioned in the White Paper.

Planning-related matters and proposals are presented under the overarching mission 3.4 “Restore a Sense of Community, Local Pride and Belonging”. And then under two White Paper missions shorthanded “Pride of place” (which includes heritage) and “housing” (missions 9 and 10 respectively). The technical annex to the White Paper explains that the metrics for measuring success against both are in their infancy.

Regeneration is one of three strands of the pride of place mission, the other being communities, culture, heritage and sport. The regeneration policy programme is focused on transformational projects (e.g. projects identified for Wolverhampton and Sheffield), high street rejuvenation and green spaces. The housing mission includes sub-missions of home-ownership and housing quality and planning reform – albeit changes to the planning system fall under other missions too.

The High Street rejuvenation’s section celebrates recently introduced permitted development rights, business rates relief and the High Streets Task Force.

The White Paper refers to the intentions to “incentivise landlords to fill vacant units by giving local authorities the power to require landlords to rent out vacant properties to prospective tenants. This will tackle both supply and demand side issues to avoid high levels of high street vacancies and blight, and in turn increase the attractiveness and vitality of our high streets”.

During the Oral Statement introducing the White Paper, the Levelling Up Secretary (SoS) said that this proposal builds on work by Jonathan Gullis MP. Jonathan Gullis has campaigned in Parliament for buildings not to be allowed to fall into disrepair. He is the sponsor of the Planning (Proper Maintenance of Land) Bill Private Members' Bill. This may provide clarificatory context when considering how far reaching the powers of the LA might be and when they should be used. Having said that, measures could of course go much further and might apply to all properties in a given location, rather than to certain use classes, although a wide variety of potential tenants might be put forward by the LA for Class E properties, given its breadth.

On a larger scale:

A key part of regeneration proposals is ‘refocusing’ Homes England so that it uses its statutory powers to partner with local leaders and to unlock barriers – which links to proposed changes to CPO powers.

Green Belt is to be enhanced and maintained - with “further greening the Green Belt in England".

Other plans for “green" spaces generally include bringing wildlife back, aimed at increasing public access while simultaneously delivering nature recovery; and securing further environmental improvements.

The greening of Green Belt may be linked to repeated criticism that the Green Belt isn’t green. Support is not given to the principle behind a Private Members' Green Belt Protection Bill, which is to require local planning authorities to allocate new Green Belt land of the same size when removing Green Belt land; such a decision is still considered a local matter.

This sub-mission pulls together various proposals that are intended to have a more localised role in the future, whether this is put forward in the White Paper or elsewhere.

In this section there are also references to a review of neighbourhood governance, pilots of new models for community partnership and testing the proposed Community Covenants, which lead to an identified role for planning within Mission 9:

The 'encouragement' of hybrid models for planning committees - but not expressly committing to legislate for them - is noteworthy and comes ahead of publication of the call for evidence or response to it. Support for virtual committees had been expressed by the SoS but not confirmed by the Government.

A proposed UK Strategy for Community Spaces and Relationships would link to planning policy (UK-wide) in due course. Notably this, the third of four guiding principles of the Strategy, would be:

Neighbourhood planning hasn’t been front and centre for some time. Its mention in the White Paper comes alongside funding for pilot schemes to fund neighbourhood planning in deprived and urban areas or areas piloting a simpler approach to neighbourhood planning. There has also been confirmation from the (then) Housing Minister that “we are committed to retaining neighbourhood planning as an important part of the planning system, and we will set out our proposed way forward shortly”.

The White Paper confirms that there will be neighbourhood portion to the new Levy, reconfirming that a new Levy is on the way and suggesting that the legislation behind it is likely to be similar to the much-tweaked existing CIL Regulations. According to the White Paper, the ways in which CIL can be spent locally will be explored while a new Infrastructure Levy is developed.  The Government is to “explore how the existing Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) can be used to support neighbourhood and community activity where Parish Councils do not exist across England”.

In the planning reform section, it is made clear that the new Levy is intended to increase land value capture and that affordable housing is to be provided via the Levy:

The policy programme for home-ownership and housing quality form part of the housing mission: a. making home-ownership a reality; b. improving housing quality; and c. reforming the planning system.

That planning reform sits under the White Paper mission devoted to home-ownership and housing standards, is interesting in itself, given continued criticism that planning equals housing in the Government’s eyes:

The mission discusses the wider benefits of housebuilding, including removing constraints of productivity by allowing labour mobility, restoring a sense of community, having a stake in society through home-ownership.

The rhetoric is therefore on a housing system that works for everyone, rather than a planning system – which is recognised as being an element of the housing system objective.

There is a continued reference to housing availability and the demand for/push towards home-ownership, hence a reference to First Homes.

An important housing quality announcement is that there will be a Government appointed task force “launched shortly to look at ways better choice, quality and security of housing for older people can be provided, including how to address regional disparities in supply of appropriate and where necessary specialised housing".

There is an acknowledgement that falling access to home-ownership and social housing has resulted in a doubling in the size of the Private Rented Sector over the past two decades and that many are in temporary accommodation. In February, Tom Walker, one of the authors of the White Paper told Local Government Chronicle (£) that there will be a Private Rented Sector White Paper in June, which may be relevant to planning, given this mission.

There are references to planning and CPO powers beyond housing, and while the section quoted below is a bit of a round-up of planning related proposals not covered elsewhere in the White Paper, the intention to set a more positive approach to employment land in national policy is encouraging.

While the Government is insistent that the south east will not be levelled down, there are references to diverting funds away from the south east and measuring successful delivery of missions by measuring against the south east.

The White Paper says “UK Government investment in housing has been concentrated in areas where the private sector has already been investing most heavily, disadvantaging the North and Midlands”.

With regard to making home-ownership a reality, funds already announced are to predominantly deliver housing outside of London/South East, where housing pressure is among the greatest. The majority of homes to be delivered via the £1.8bn brownfield land fund will be targeted on brownfield sites outside London and the South East. The £11.5bn Affordable Homes Programme will deliver up to 180,000 affordable homes, with 75% of these delivered outside London.

While this says where investment is going, the intention that there will be a related outcome beyond funding allocations is there too. With reference to the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission’s recommendations and communities to be developed in the future:

Many in the development sector have raised concerns that levelling up will mean a levelling down of areas with significant housing pressure. The Government has repeatedly sought to emphasise that this is not the case.

And in November the SoS said in response to Theresa Villiers' request to “halt urbanisation and save the suburbs" that the way housing need is assessed needs to be updated and “every part of England—indeed, every part of the United Kingdom—will have to share in making sure that we can meet the housing needs of the next generation, but we are seeking to achieve a fairer and more equitable distribution of need across the country.

In a January debate housing on housing and North Kent, the (then) Housing Minister reminded the House “housing need numbers, as calculated, are a starting point, not an end point" and, as such, housing numbers are decided locally. He indicated that the current standard method was devised to reflect the circumstances of the time: “We took a view a couple of years ago that, particularly given the pandemic, local authorities needed consistency and certainty, so we chose not to change the local housing need calculations for all but the 20 largest cities in our country".

A further revised standard method formula continues to be anticipated by developers and local planning authorities.

In the same debate, the Housing Minister indicated that the Government would still look at concerns around land banking, notwithstanding the outcome of the Letwin Review:

And in a later written answer said “where delays in starting or progressing sites may be avoidable and the Government wants to empower authorities with the tools to respond to such cases”.

November 2021 Lichfields research for the Land Promoters and Developers Federation and the Home Builders Federation explored the extent to which the house building sector must scale-up their delivery to achieve the national 300,000 homes per annum ambition. It found the equivalent of English LPAs granting permission for an extra 4 to 5 medium sized sites per year, or alternatively 4 to 5 large sites which deliver each year over a longer period, would be necessary - in addition to LPAs continuing to approve its usual ambient level of permissions being granted.

A Lichfields research piece for Barratt has found “existing housing mix policies will be based on evidence that pre-dates the pandemic and thus is unlikely to reflect the changing way in which people will now occupy their homes. This shift makes it more likely that the LPA’s review should conclude that the local plan must be updated to revise policies on housing mix, including to support provision of homes that are suited to working from home".