Autumn 2022 Party Conferences reveal how little the national politicians actually know about planning
Article by Managing Director Robert Gillespie
With new PM Liz Truss having told the Conservative Party’s Conference that she is pro-growth, it is somewhat difficult to reconcile that stance with the signals sent out to her Party’s members during the recent leadership hustings. Both candidates having attempted to “out NIMBY” each other it will be interesting to see how growth will actually be delivered.
In all of this, one must assume that the major political parties still believe that a modern civil society should ensure that there is sufficient housing to meet its needs. All should have access to a decent home. That must surely be the common consensus, or are we witnessing a very profound change when it comes to meeting housing needs where it is geographically and socio-economically needed?
PM Truss has made plain her intention to abandon the “standard method” used in the forecasting of housing needs and provision in plan preparation. Despite it being part of her own Government’s national policy, the PM now regards it as “Stalinist” and Whitehall inspired. It is only the starting point in plan preparation and was specifically introduced by the Government in response to the protracted and often fraught process seen as stalling the preparation, examination and adoption of local plans.
It was specifically introduced to help overcome problems which had arisen through disputed housing market and needs assessments which many local planning authorities had pleaded with Government to address through the use of a commonly applied methodology.
The formula was therefore derived to ensure a common, rational and empirically generated housing forecasting model, as part of the local housing needs assessment.
This too has now proved unpopular, as many local planning authorities have experienced residents’ resistance to whatever housing provision figures the new methodology has provided. That therefore troubles ward councillors and, of course MPs, who sensitive to their vulnerability at the next local election, take issue with the findings. As a consequence, while the standard method was applied, together with additional research and modelling had identified housing need – it wasn’t wanted by the local decision-makers.
What is emerged from the Conservative Party leadership hustings and more recently the Party Conference, is an inevitable tension between the pro-growth policy and local resistance to further development especially housing, in the Conservative shires. This also in the context of the environmental lobby back-lash to a potential bonfire of former EU policies intended to provide natural asset and biodiversity protection.
This is likely to result in a new planning policy framework together with the intended legislative changes which will remove the standard methodology in favour of locally derived housing figures and, significantly the 5-year housing land supply requirement.
Both moves will cripple any reasonable prospect of delivering 300,000 housing completions a year; that is, if this Government remains committed to that objective. Watch this space.
First, it is likely that in the absence of considerably increased resourcing of local planning authority policy teams, the locally derived figures will see a return to the use of less than rigorously formulated and credible evidence-based needs assessment.
Second, the opportunities for housing and other development allocations will be reduced through a wider range of locally contrived environmental constraints – the intention being to further inhibit and reduce the scale of development to be accommodated.
Third, and with particular reference to shire districts, in the absence of former county structure plan teams, it has been notable that where once there was an overarching single body of expertise, guidance and coordination, many local planning authorities are now bereft of access to such expertise in-house or externally provided. Without significant resources to either recruit or buy in external support there seems little prospect that much can change beyond the current position.
The abandonment of the 5-year land supply requirement, ‘though undoubtedly popular with many councillors and their MPs, will almost certainly further stall plan-making.
It was trialled in the late 1970s and introduced in the early 80s to drive development plan production as a consequence of the failure to achieve then comprehensive structure and local plan coverage and thus economic growth and housing delivery. An abandonment of that critically important national policy incentive will almost certainly lead to an even poorer delivery of new development plans and of course, housing delivery.
Of profound concern is the mantra that is “levelling up”. This appears to some within the more pressured parts of England, as an opportunity to crudely deflect development pressure “up north” or, more likely, write off large amounts of housing provision which would have responded to need. This particularly so, where the extent of Green Belt, AONBs and other constraints combined with a now obvious almost universal lack of willingness to cooperate in accommodating unmet needs from adjacent authority areas, will result in significant housing under provision.
The 38 or so new investment zones will be regarded as the derestricted “opportunities” for employment growth and housing – well away from the politically sensitive shire authorities. They will assumedly come with incentivised and financed infrastructure support however, as with previous attempts to direct growth toward areas where there are less favourable commercial conditions, these will take time to establish and then deliver. Without some form of integrated strategic coordination, the concern may be more about inter-zone competition for investment than seeing a wider take-up and distribution of successful projects.
Will such growth magnets attract the economic investment which may be resistant to relocation? Will the jobs and then housing follow? Without the jobs, housing allocations are meaningless – no matter how well intentioned.
The result could well be short-to-medium term increased socio-economic stress particularly in the south, manifesting itself in further housing shortages, house price inflation, an inability to recruit and retain employees, relocate redevelop or expand businesses and attract investment.
The Office Development Permits and Industrial Development Certificates (effectively a pre commencement building license required in addition to planning permission in essentially southern England) of the 1970s, were ditched by the Thatcher Government in recognition that you couldn’t force development and investment away from where the market demand wanted to go. It either went abroad or didn’t happen at all.
The message to even a young graduate professional couple with reasonably well-paid jobs and currently renting a small flat in say Guildford or Reigate in Green Belt Surrey, is simply to resign your jobs and move “up north” in order to secure a home of your own. There seems little incentive in this approach however if there is no immediate prospect of well-paid jobs “up north”.
Is this really fulfilling the aspirations of the generations unable to gain a foot on the housing ladder? All rather reminiscent of Norman Tebbit’s “on yer bike” approach to finding work in the late 1970’s and early 80’s – this time housing, however the deep flaw is that people won’t move to areas where there are insufficient jobs let alone housing.
All this therefore smacks of yet more political expediency in terms which superficially attempt to address the real problems associated with achieving economic growth. You cannot “buck the markets” and, as was recognised by the late Professor Stephen Crow in his assessment of the former South East Regional Plan, the engine room of the economy is London and the south east; economic growth cannot be redistributed easily and in attempting to do so, without a well-resourced and coordinated long term strategy, you run the very real risk of actually damaging the national economy.
Any levelling-up ambitions need support through a reinstatement of strategic and regional planning. That would provide medium-to-long term planning, investor confidence, infrastructure coordination, real cooperation, and political consensus. Yes, this is “top down” however a patchwork of neighbourhood plans and ad hoc development plans with no 5-year land supply requirement, won’t even come close to delivering national economic growth let alone 300,000 new homes per year – if that really remains the objective.
The astonishingly crude criticism of the Planning Inspectorate by Michael Gove similarly reveals a completely disingenuous misunderstanding of what Inspectors actually do in the local plans Examination process. Essentially, they consider these plans against the requirements of Michael Gove’s own Conservative Government’s national policies as expressed with the National Planning Policy Framework. Don’t shoot the messenger springs to mind.
It is soon going to become clear that the Government has been tempted and given up the objective of delivering 300,000 new homes a year. Such a decision will reveal a withdrawal from any national commitment and responsibility for ensuring that the housing needs of England will be planned for and then delivered.
Left to its own devices, and based on previous experience, local authorities will most likely significantly under-provide in future plan-making with little conscience or acknowledgement of the cumulative effect on the aspirations, hopes and dreams of generations finding it increasingly difficult to access or own their own home. Political expediency will be the driver. This amounts to an abdication of national responsibility at the very point when housing and the role of the construction industry ought to be a key element of economic growth.
By contrast, to be of any real benefit to the national economy, any changes to the planning system must look to the big picture, consensus building and political commitment to achieving a long-term vision for growth. Levelling up requires a fundamental political consensus and long-term commitment to regional plan making. The latter would prove very difficult politically as the term regional had been expunged from the planning system by a previous Secretary of State – Pickles. Without however reinvigorating the planning system through significant resourcing and through attracting and retaining enthusiastic professionals, this is highly unlikely to happen.
