The UK’s planners must feel beleaguered more than any group of public sector employees at the moment. Reports that there aren’t enough of them to cope with the pace of housebuilding and infrastructure investment that the government says it wants abound.
Surveys consistently show shortfalls in staffing up and down the UK. There is clearly a crisis brewing there, if it hasn’t arrived yet. Some government decisions seem to be tackling the planner shortage problem by apparently giving them less to do, which, for some, undermines local democracy.
News in November that councils in England are to lose their power to delay large-scale housing projects in a move that has been criticised as anti-democratic by councillors and officers alike is a case in point. Housing and Communities Secretary Steve ‘Build baby, build’ Reed has said that local authorities will be prevented from refusing planning permission for housing schemes with more than 150 homes and will have to refer these decisions to ministers. They will know better than locally elected officials and populations what is good for their areas? An interesting view.
The Housing Secretary recently claimed that some 900 housing schemes had been blocked by councillors in the past year alone. Councils will now have to tell him about developments of over 150 homes that they plan to block. These projects would then be called in for an independent planning inspector to examine the scheme before the Housing Secretary makes a final decision.
Housebuilder’s body The Home Builders Federation think the change in rules would accelerate development. The Local Government Association however argues that the plans would undermine local democracy. Authorities already approve nine out of 10 planning applications, the LGA says.
Critics generally object that the change undermines the democratic role of councillors in decision-making, hitherto thought to be key to the planning system.
The government has already weakened the planning committee system with other policy initiatives that could sideline councillors on planning issues. For example, unelected planning officers are to be responsible for smaller developments, instead of committees of elected councillors, under a proposed delegation scheme.
Much else is afoot on the planning front. Changes to the National Planning Policy Framework that guides councils on planning decisions are due later this year. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is designed to cut planning permission times for large infrastructure schemes, curtailing the ability of objectors to launch multiple judicial reviews and allow developers to pay into a new nature restoration fund which it is hoped will avoid ecological challenges delaying projects.
In News this month we report on moves to give planning applications for developments around railway stations a default ‘yes’ status. Developers in London will be obliged to provide fewer affordable homes to gain planning approvals, and also benefit from looser design standards under new planning rules.
Planning delays are no doubt contributing to a fall in the number of houses being built, but the lack of ability to afford the price of a new home is a significant, perhaps even more important, factor. Builders will not build what they can’t see being sold. Weakening local democracy might be a high price to pay for changes that might
not be addressing the main problem.
Nick Barrett
Editor