In the UK, we are facing multiple, interlinked crises: ecological breakdown, climate change, sewage and water mismanagement, food and farming disruption, and a deepening housing emergency. Given this context, it beggars belief that the government’s solution is a new planning and infrastructure bill which has been variously dubbed a “licence to kill,” “cash to trash,” “pay to plunder” – and far stronger names behind closed doors.
Nature under threat
The blows just keep coming for communities and for nature. Beyond the cash-to-trash implications, this bill proposes to reduce public consultation, limit the involvement of planning committees, and slash nature-related funding for farmers.
Why is the government so intent on attacking our already depleted countryside, where bird and insect populations are in freefall?
And why is it proposing, quite literally, to let developers pay a fee to get away with environmental destruction?
It’s inexplicable. And horrifying.
Over-reliance on the private sector
Even more baffling is the government’s refusal to tackle the real housing crisis – the one faced by the 150,000 children in emergency accommodation, and by the countless individuals stuck indefinitely on public housing waiting lists.
The government is ignoring two blindingly obvious facts in its over-reliance on the private sector:
- Setting a housing target for the private sector does not improve affordability. Housebuilders prioritise profit margins over build volume.
- The only time the UK has ever approached delivering 300,000 homes a year was when the public sector provided around 100,000 of them annually.
Furthermore, by outsourcing responsibility to the private sector, we place more of our countryside, farmland, and remaining natural spaces at risk – even areas misleadingly labelled “grey belt” within the green belt. This reliance increases car-dependency, worsens traffic congestion, and raises air pollution levels.
None of the proposed planning “tweaks” are designed to benefit those who are hoping for affordable homes to rent or buy. In fact the entire system appears geared towards enriching major housebuilders and their shareholders.
Homes for Everyone
That’s why, at the Community Planning Alliance, we are advocating for a Homes for Everyone approach. With more than 3.5 million potential housing options available before a single new home is built on bulldozed countryside, the answer lies in smarter use of our existing resources.
We should use the 1.5 million derelict homes, the brownfield sites which could take over 1.2m homes, the commercial and public sector properties which could create well over 165,000 homes and a tiny percent of the 26 million spare bedrooms. On top of that, you have around 1.4m unbuilt planning permissions.
We need to flip the thinking and follow a greenfield last approach. The Community Planning Alliance has devised a six-step plan that could achieve this aim.
- Robust testing of Brownfield Land Registers in the local plan examination process to ensure that all suitable land has been allocated for housing in the local plan. Bring back Labour’s brownfield first policy in the National Planning Policy Framework.
- An active program to bring empty homes back into use. Requirement in local plans for councils to demonstrate empty homes policy. Funding & support by government.
- A full review of commercial or public buildings suitable for conversion and a plan for encouraging conversion into residential units must be a robustly scrutinised requirement of the local plan process. Just as they are required to have a Brownfield Land Register, they should be required to have a Commercial & Public Land Register.
- Rooms used by lodgers should be counted towards a council’s annual housing target. Government must allow for this, must further incentivise home-owners and councils, and do more to publicise the Room for Rent scheme which allows home-owners to earn £7,500 a year tax-free.
- Density must be optimised in every single development, so that low density, car-dependent sprawl becomes the very last resort, (only allowed if justified through robust evidence). This would allow for more public open space, better public transport and walkable/cyclable neighbourhoods.
- Government needs to do more to insist that developers build once they have planning permission. Ironically, it does now have some proposals to attempt to tackle this problem, in a consultation (with no end date) on speeding up build out Planning Reform Working Paper: Speeding Up Build Out – GOV.UK.
There’s a forthcoming Long Term Housing Strategy expected, but until it commits to a greenfield last and public housing first approach, it will be tinkering with the deck chairs on an already sinking Titanic.
For further information, listen to the debate which was held at the Hay Festival where I joined Chris Packham and Kevin McCloud on a panel, chaired by Sarah Lamptey.
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