Government-backed pilot to speed up housing-related infrastructure begins

The Housing and Finance Institute (HFI) Infrastructure Dependencies Mapping scheme will focus on housing developments that have faced delays due to issues connecting them to roads and utilities, such as water or electricity supplies. HFI is chaired by Natalie Elphicke, who co-chaired a study on housing delivery for the UK Treasury.

A report by the HFI, published in March 2016, warned that "failures" by utility companies were restricting housing growth.

Planning law expert Matthew Fox of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that the pilot scheme "could potentially be very good news for developers, who will be used to the frustration of the severe delays to delivery of developments that utilities and infrastructure commonly introduce".

"It is noted that this pilot has the support of the government and it is hoped that the lessons from this pilot, which will no doubt identify issues common to many sites, will be turned into legislative or policy action from government to ensure that the blueprint can be copied elsewhere," he said.

"For a government keen to burnish its housing delivery credentials, this pilot could lead to practical solutions – rather than the 'facilitative' funding that has been common to many of the other announcements made this month," he said.

The pilot scheme will give public and private sector organisations in the south east of England the opportunity to identify areas where delays are common. It will involve the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), the Home Builders Federation, Laing O'Rourke, Anglian Water and KeepMoat, along with Kent County Council, Essex County Council, the government's Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on infrastructure, which is chaired by former transport minister Stephen Hammond.

The scheme will run until May 2017, and the findings from the pilot will be reported to Hammond and to Gavin Barwell, the housing and planning minister, according to Inside Housing. An initial report is due at the end of this month.

Elphicke said that housing developers often cited "water, electricity, gas, broadband and roads" as "impeding their ability to build more homes faster".

"Our hope is that this new pilot scheme, which brings together key players from the private and public sectors, will provide us with a blueprint for fixing these issues and facilitating accelerated housing growth," she said.