News

As part of a long-term plan for housing, the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities have announced (24th July ) a commitment to a new era of regeneration, inner-city densification and housing delivery across England, with ‘transformational plans to supply beautiful, safe, decent homes in places with high-growth potential in partnership with local communities’.

The government’s plan is aiming to deliver reforms to ‘unleash’ building on underused sites in high-demand regions with the headline of ‘Densification’

New and amended permitted development rights would make it easier to convert larger department stores, space above shops and office space, support farm diversification and development, to allow businesses to extend and more outdoor markets to be held.

In the autumn, the government says it will set out its plans on how to better support existing homeowners to extend their homes.

The press release explains that the government intends to take steps to ‘unblock the bottlenecks’ in the planning system that are choking and slowing down development, and stopping growth and investment. To do this they are planning (a) a new £24 million Planning Skills Delivery Fund to clear planning backlogs and get the right skills in place (b) establishing a new “super-squad” team of leading planners and other experts charged with working across the planning system to unblock major housing developments and (c) Increasing the amount developers pay in planning fees.

Government appears to also be asking for a change in attitude for LPA’s by stating ‘Local councils should be open and pragmatic in agreeing changes to developments where conditions mean that the original plan may no longer be viable, rather than losing the development wholesale or seeing development mothballed’.
‘Communities taking back control / building beautiful everywhere’ is an interesting headline in the press release, which states that ‘communities will be supported to be at the heart of new development in their areas. This will be achieved by establishing the Office for Place in Stoke-on-Trent, a new body to lead a design revolution, ensuring beautiful new homes are built according to a simple design code supported by local people. The Office for Place will support residents to demand what they find beautiful from developers – ensuring every local place is built to reflect the individual local character and beauty of every community across the country’
Consultation on the new proposed ‘Permitted Development Rights’ (details published 25th July) has started, to which Chapman Lily will be formally responding by the closing date of 25th September.

Alan Davies, Associate Director comments; ‘the use of words like ‘unleash’ ‘unblock’ and ‘super squad’ in relation to the planning system is certainly attention grabbing – as is the increase in planning application fees! If this is truly the aim of central government, it appears to suggest wholesale de-regulation for specific aspects of the current legislation. How this speeding up and deregulation will square with the stated ambition to also allow communities to ‘take back control’ is going to be interesting! I welcome the clear advice from government that they want to see a more open and pragmatic approach by LPAs to proposed changes to applications. Chapman Lily Planning will be studying the details of the proposed changes to permitted development regime and we will upload our thoughts on this in the next few weeks.