Written by George Parkinson
Yesterday, the United Kingdom witnessed a significant moment in its political calendar as King Charles III delivered his annual King’s Speech to Parliament. This highly anticipated address outlined the government’s agenda for the coming year, detailing the legislative priorities and key policies intended to shape the nation’s future.
‘My Ministers will get Britain building again’
As has been eagerly anticipated in recent weeks across the industry, policies focused on housing delivery and streamlining the planning system were placed front and centre of a set of measures that will help ‘get Britain building again’, with several key points outlined to address the issues:
1. Increased Housing Supply: The government is dedicated to increasing the supply of homes across the country. This includes a commitment to build 1.5 million new homes across the country in the next five years. This was divided into multiple streams including unlocking existing sites, reinstating housing targets at local authority level and reviewing the capacity for urban expansion of existing towns into new areas, including into the Green Belt.
2. Affordable Housing: A particular emphasis was placed on the need for affordable housing, to ensure that a wider range of people can access homeownership. Labour’s commitment remains to deliver significant quantities of affordable housing on new sites. On released “grey belt” sites a target of 50% affordable is expected in line with Labour’s “Golden Rules” laid out before the election.
3. Planning System Reforms: The speech highlighted reforms to the planning system to streamline processes, modernise Planning Committees, increase officer capacity at a local level and reduce bureaucratic obstacles by hiring 300 new planning officers. A change to CPO powers and a review of the use of “hope value” in the process will also be reviewed to allow for a fair but not excessive figure is reached in CPO cases.
4. Regeneration and Renewal: There will be a focus on regenerating urban areas to improve living conditions and make better use of available space without neglecting existing communities in the pursuit of new housing delivery
5. Sustainability: The government aims to ensure that new housing developments are environmentally sustainable, aligning with broader climate goals and the push for greener living spaces with plans for developers to fund ‘nature recovery’ also put forward.
6. Renters rights and leasehold reform: The much-promised reform to section 21 evictions was committed to with legislation expected immediately. The effective banning of new leasehold flats and the reform of existing leaseholder rights will likely send ripples through the industry.
Modernising Planning Committees
The line grabbing most space on LinkedIn posts across the property sector appears to be the mounting speculation around how the government could carry out their plans to ‘modernise Planning Committees’. A slightly buried pledge that emerged in the notes published alongside the speech, but one that has left many interested stakeholders speculating as to what it could mean in practice. What might government have in mind – potentially the way in which local residents can view and contribute to committees; changes to the make-up of committees; the frequency of meetings.We await further details, but the industry has adapted in recent years to committee changes during COVID, proving that officers, councillors, applicants and supporters (and even objectors) are flexible, open-minded and committed to engagement.
Time is money/economic growth
The key element of the speech was seeing Labour introduce the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, a significant legislative move aimed at accelerating the development of infrastructure and the construction of 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. This bill, one of 40 legislative proposals, seeks to support a faster and more efficient approval process for major projects – an aspiration which will be warmly welcomed.
The need for stability
The industry will be familiar with the statistic, much quoted in the last 12 months, that there have been 16 Housing Ministers since 2010. Placing planning reform and housing delivery so clearly in view of the electorate as a key element upon which to be judged in coming years – at both local and national elections – will firmly cast the spotlight on to Angela Rayner as SoS for DCLG, but also Rachel Reeves at the Treasury.
The industry needs both Rayner and Reeves, supported by the policy-focused Housing Minister – Matthew Pennycook, to be given time to thrive in their new roles, which will spread confidence throughout the sector. Between them, they will focus on delivering the right framework and stability over the next five years. This should allow the sector to grow in confidence and to deliver for not only Labour, but the nation. Clarity and consistency have been lacking for many years, both need to return to spearhead Labour’s bold, but broadly welcomed, ambitions.