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With planning and housing forming a clear plank of Labour’s campaign to form the next Government, we’re now starting to hear more from the party following earlier announcements. Many in the housing and development sectors have long asked for an honest national conversation on the Green Belt and/or changes in the current approach, so with Sir Keir’s recent announcements around plans for a new ‘grey belt’ classification, it sounds like these calls could somewhat be answered by Labour. However, from our perspective we need to see more detail around how this would work in practice, including the criteria for what’s ugly, in order to understand whether this proposal properly stands up – or not.
The Labour leader’s honesty that we won’t deliver the homes we need without recourse to the Green Belt is an acknowledgement of the challenges we face. For those of us in social housing, the requirements for any site to include 50% affordable housing sound more than sensible. However, it’s going to take much more than a revised Green Belt approach to seriously crank up the supply dial and deliver the thousands of new affordable homes our country needs. With the party talking about a ‘blitz of planning reform,’ including reintroducing mandatory housing targets, at least it sounds like there’s further recognition that a significant step change in policy thinking is needed if we’re to deliver the homes we need.
The shape of this blitz will be interesting to see, particularly the degree to which spatial and strategic planning will feature – from our perspective, this is vital if we’re to properly mind the gap between central and local government in seeing housing needs assessed, growth areas identified, and suitable supported infrastructure planned.
On the local plan front, Labour’s already referenced them being “quickly drawn up” – it’s long been recognised the existing system is complex with many plans becoming rapidly outdated or struggling to be delivered in the first place. For this local plan change to happen though, we’ll need to see the significant issues facing local government, particularly around skills and resources, as well as funding having to be properly addressed. We all recall some of the feedback when the Government proposed delivering local plans in 30 months!
Planning reform and local government, however, is only part of the jigsaw puzzle in helping drive supply as in our view, we also need to consider strengthening and enhancing bodies like Homes England. As a Strategic Partner, Homes England's support for our development projects is vital, particularly in helping achieve our aim of delivering 25% of our new homes for social rent. We believe, however, that reform of its funding programmes over a longer horizon is key in aiding delivery. We’re also of the view that the organisation can play an even greater role as a facilitator, channelling wider grant funding programmes, practical support and aligning advice from other departments to help see complex sites move forward.
We note that Labour has previously pledged to repurpose Homes England – while we don’t want the proverbial bathwater chucked out, we hope that as part of aiding delivery and supply, Homes England is given greater flexibility, greater powers, and enhanced funding, not least because developing on brownfield land / the grey belt is often more expensive.
The last one is a challenge as we know there’s little extra money, but the recent NHF report strongly made the case around the longer-term financial benefits of investing in homes to both the economy and the state.
If anything, recent announcements signal that Labour recognises that swift steps are needed if there’s going to be a meaningful start on tackling the current housing crisis. More detail and more substance on how they will deliver the 1.5million homes outlined over the next parliament are now key though.
For us in the sector, we now need to play our part in demonstrating what we can offer to any potential future Labour government as it seeks to move forward with its missions. As we know from our work locally, it’s about collaboration and partnership and through this, we should be able to help shape that blitz of planning reform that’s been promised in order to help define a new era of housing policy.