What Labour need to do to deliver on housing

For a government that is supposedly all about “Localism”, it’s ironic that the Coalition’s chief planning reforms have reflected nothing of the sort.

Introducing new “permitted development” rights allowing, among other things, office to residential changes of use without any debate or regard to local planning policy whatsoever, drafting the National Planning Policy Framework, a document that allows developers to ride roughshod over local objections through the central government appeal process. These will be the lasting contributions of the Coalition to the planning system.

Aside from flying in the face of everything the Coalition advertise their planning reforms to be, they have been achieved in a piecemeal way, which focuses on quick-fixes and gimmicks without any kind long-term strategic plan to address the dire shortfalls in the delivery of housing and other basic infrastructure.

Labour is in danger of imitating this mistake if it doesn’t commit itself to recognising that housing delivery is a national issue that needs to be addressed on a macro-spatial scale. The now moribund Regional Spatial Strategies achieved this in part, scrapped by the Coalition government in the hopes their abolition would boost housing numbers (it didn’t, but in fact reduced housing delivery targets by a significant margin).

If the last almost 5 years of Coalition rule have been proof of anything, it is that a strong, pro-growth agenda cannot co-exist with Localism. Housebuilding is a national issue and the shortfall of over three million homes in England alone is evidence of the fact that local bodies do not have the expertise, resources, or political will to resolve this crisis.

A national planning body is needed to identify and appropriately incentivise key “planned areas” for new housing development. It needs to have the knowledge to place these in the most suitable locations, a very clear policy on what it would regard as desirable in terms of development proposals, and the authority to see through these large-scale schemes to completion.

Whilst such a body would be anathema to “Localists”, it should be recognised that many major planning decisions are already made on a national scale through the appeal process. The key difference would be that such decisions would be taken more strategically, with more consideration for the right kind of development, fewer delays, and a long-term vision for the spatial development of the country.

Such an arrangement will transcend the cheap political point-scoring and NIMBYism at the local level and introduce a more comprehensive framework for democratic involvement in the development process, instead of just crude reductionism.

Yes, people should have a say on what the places they live and work in look like. But this should not come at the expense of the millions of others that occupy our ever burgeoning waiting lists and the spare bedrooms of parents whilst existing homeowners use the planning system to aggressively defend the green fields of the UK, where land actually built upon only represents 2.2% of the entire country.

Labour’s proposals to reform the planning system thus far are all very well – “use it or lose it” planning permissions and the “right to grow.” But without more fundamental reform it will all be a squeal in the face of a dinosaur and the goal of delivering 200,000 houses a year by 2020 will be what many already claim it is: an unrealistic fantasy with no hope of success.