Out-Law News 3 min. read

Housing White Paper: More resources for local authorities that commit to housing


More financial and policy support will be made available to local authorities in England that focus their efforts on areas of greatest housing need, the UK government has pledged.

Incentives including increased planning fees, reduced regulation and various new funding streams could be made available in appropriate circumstances, as part of extensive government plans to fix the UK's "broken" housing market and deliver increased numbers of affordable homes.

Housing law expert Matthew Fox of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that the government's new 'white paper' on housing policy was "very much expressed as a 'deal' between the government and the relevant parts of the housing industry".

"In the case of local authorities, there is a clear focus on them getting more financial and policy support provided that they focus their efforts on areas of greatest housing need or where they are seeking to release public sector land, including their own," he said. "As well as various new pots of money and more detail on existing pots, such as the Housing Infrastructure Fund, the potential increase in planning fees is a particularly eye-catching element of this, potentially increasing by 40% for those authorities which are delivering on housing."

"With the government's focus on garden settlements of all shapes and sizes - initiatives which, in our experience, are more often than not led by local authorities, it is also pleasing to see that the white paper seeks to clear the regulatory hurdles that can delay such authorities partnering with developers to deliver these settlements. It is also encouraging to see the government recognise the link between the delivery of infrastructure and housing and how one can feed into the other at both an economic and planning level," he said.

"Although a lot of the white paper focuses on diversifying the housebuilding market - facilitated through programmes such as the Accelerated Construction Programme on public sector land, it does appear the focus of the potential local authority support given by this paper looks to facilitate large scale development happening quickly. As with the majority of this paper, much of the detail of these measures is expressed to be subject to future consultation, whether through new regulations, statutory instruments or revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework – and, as usual, it will be the drafting and consequences of this detail which will be vital to its success," he said.

Not enough local authorities planning for the homes that they need is one of the three main reasons given by the white paper for the lack of supply in England's housing market. The paper sets out a number of potential actions to address this, and pledges tougher intervention where local planning authorities are not taking the required actions to ensure that their local plans remain up to date and reflect local housing need.

For local authorities specifically, the government has proposed to introduce more funding for planning departments, simplified plan-making and more funding for infrastructure. Its proposals include the introduction of a new £45 million Land Release Fund for land remediation and small-scale infrastructure on surplus public sector land, and giving local authorities more flexibility to dispose of land with the benefit of planning permission which they have granted to themselves, potentially at "less than best consideration" if necessary.

Local authorities will be permitted to increase planning fees by 20% from July 2017 if they commit to investing the additional fee income in their planning departments. They may also be permitted to increase fees by a further 20% where authorities are "delivering the homes their communities need", subject to further consultation. The government will keep the resourcing of local authority planning departments under review in order to ensure their "financial stability" and that they are attracting sufficient skilled professionals.

A new £2.3 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund, targeted at the areas of greatest housing need, will open for bids this year, as previously announced. This funding will be available to transport, utilities and other infrastructure projects that will open up areas to the delivery of new homes, with bids that unlock the most homes in the areas of greatest need given priority. New funding of £25 million will also be available to support "ambitious" authorities in areas of high housing need to plan for new homes and infrastructure.

The government intends to legislate as part of its expanded town and garden village programme to create 'New Town Development Corporations', which will be available for use by local authorities as the delivery vehicle for these projects. It also intends to explore whether these new communities could be used to bring forward high quality, large scale developments, potentially with streamlined planning procedures.

Planning law expert Richard Ford of Pinsent Masons said that this proposal was an "eye-catching" one.

"This has been long campaigned for, but we need to see the detail as to what powers they will have," he said.

"New towns almost always require some 'pump priming' to be successful places, as the viability model does not go cash positive for a very long period due to the upfront infrastructure costs. The government needs to provide more creative ways to help facilitate that forward funding, and the size of these schemes means current funds are not adequate," he said.

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