Planning matters

Last week saw the sprint to Number 10 stepped up a gear with the launch of party manifestos. Now with just two weeks to go until polling day, the industry is digesting what this means for existing projects and investment decisions.

Whilst pollsters and pundits are unanimous in expecting a change, they also all agree that elections are becoming more difficult to call and that estimating the potential size of a majority – vital for driving through change – is particularly challenging.

The general election takes place on the 4^th July, amidst warnings from all parties of challenges on multiple fronts. Economic and productivity growth has been low since the pandemic, with mortgage and inflation rises compounding the cost-of-living pressures. The tax-to-GDP ratio is now at its highest level since 1949. Effectively ring-fenced, defence, health and net zero commitments will affect spending decisions and limit the capacity of the next Government to make fundamental shifts in departmental spending. Therefore, the ability and capacity of the new Government to generate new tax revenues or make large spending commitments is severely limited. This puts a particular emphasis on planning reform as a way to kick start growth.

For the planning and development industry, the next Government will find sentiments at a particularly low ebb, with a record low rate of residential permissions and a collapse in local plan-making following the hiatus caused by the restrictive new policy context set by the December 2023 NPPF changes.

But there is room for positivity. The industry has been calling for stability and certainty, and the manifestos of the three main parties in England are a significant step towards this. There is some consistency across the manifestos, with all targeting building more homes, and both Labour and Conservatives offering a version of brownfield-first development that could see fast-tracked urban sites.

Beyond housing, all three parties are also looking to support economic growth outside of the South East, reform the unwieldly NSIP process to plan for an expansion in renewable energy generation, and to keep biodiversity net gain. Whilst their policy objectives might be consistent, the mechanism by which they will seek to deliver these differ.

However there are also some key differences, and more so than in previous elections. In direct contrast to the Conservatives, Labour has put forward the concept of developing on lower quality green belt land: ‘Grey Belt’ ^[1], thereby tackling one of the most controversial planning policies. It also commits to immediately reversing the December NPPF changes and ‘restoring mandatory housing targets’. The Conservative party has set out a slower path to net zero, with Labour looking to ‘accelerate towards’ it and the Liberal Democrats committing to a 2045 timetable.

Our interactive comparison gives the detail of the key policy ambitions of each party and how they seek to enact their ambitions. In the final weeks before the election, Lichfields will interrogate some of the key issues in planning and development at stake in the upcoming election in more detail across our website.