All councils have their part to play through their local plans to improve
housebuilding outcomes, including the essential need to deliver more homes for
social rent and homes which are genuinely affordable, the Local Government
Association (LGA) says.
The LGA supports the Government’s commitment to empower local authorities to
deliver more homes, particularly for social rent and other affordable rents,
and in its response to the Government’s consultation on the National Planning
Policy Framework (NPPF) sets out a range of pragmatic ideas about how to do so
in the spirit of partnership between local and national government.
The LGA highlights that planning permission is not a barrier to
housebuilding, with local authorities approving almost nine in 10 planning
applications despite significant resourcing and capacity issues. It also raises
concerns that making housebuilding targets mandatory, particularly if not
backed by the delivery of necessary infrastructure, centralises policy and
therefore weakens local decision-making powers and flexibilities over how to
develop an area over time to meet both local and national priorities.
The LGA also warns that some of the proposals in the Government’s
consultation, including a new methodology to determine mandatory housebuilding
targets, could lead to unintended consequences such as speculative unplanned
development, without the necessary infrastructure to meet the needs of
communities.
The LGA acknowledges the vital role that local authorities have to play in
tackling the housing crisis, and argues that councils and communities know
their areas best and are well placed to make judgement decisions on how to
manage competing demands for uses in their local areas through the local
plan-led system, so national planning policy should remain suitably flexible to
allow this. Planning is about creating communities linked with the right
economic activity and public services, whilst conserving and enhancing the
natural and local environment. New homes are a necessary but not sufficient
requirement to create thriving, attractive and desirable communities in which
to live. They also need to be accompanied by appropriate levels of local and
national infrastructure.
In its NPPF consultation response submission, the LGA also called on the
Government to urgently revoke the unfettered permitted development rights which
permit the creation of new homes without contributions towards affordable
housing and local infrastructure and controls to ensure new homes are of a
decent standard.
Allowing councils to set their own planning application fees would help to
address growing and real concerns that planning departments are facing
regarding resourcing and capacity constraints. The flexibility to set planning
fees, alongside other measures such as increasing the number of council
planners, will slowly help to address the national operating shortfall in
planning departments and provide better value for money from councils for the
taxpayer.
The LGA also argues that empowering local authorities to deliver more homes
for social rent must be backed by practical measures outside the realms of just
planning policy. Its Autumn Budget submission sets out the powers and
flexibilities needed by councils to build the affordable and social homes their
communities need.
With more than a million additional homes earmarked for development by
councils in Local Plans yet to be brought forward by developers, councils need
to be given greater powers to ensure these sites are brought forward and there
is prompt and meaningful build out of sites which have been granted planning
permission.
Cllr Adam Hug, Housing spokesperson for the LGA said: “Our message to
Government is simple: work with us and give us the tools to build the homes our
country needs. There is a strong appetite across local government to work
constructively to improve coverage of local plans and encourage housebuilding,
including the vital need to deliver more homes for social rent and homes which
are genuinely affordable.
“However, councils and local communities know their local areas best, and
need to be full partners in tackling the housing crisis together, with new
development supported by the infrastructure needed to make communities thrive
and proper consultation and engagement that can help ensure local people are
able to benefit.
“Councils need the right powers, skills, resources and funding to act and
want to work with government and the development and housebuilding industry.”
