Planning permissions drought continues


Show home from Springfield Properties.


Customers to be offered tailormade homes


Springfield Properties has launched the new ‘Choices at Springfield’ programme. This approach to selling houses will see homeowners given the freedom to customise an extensive list of significant features in their new home, all within the standard price.


Scottish based Springfield Properties is


rolling out a new consumer programme, which has been available to homebuyers in the north of Scotland for 20 years, across all 12 of its sites in Central Scotland. Springfield Properties’ Chairman Sandy


Adam studied other industries to see how they market products and respond to individual requirements and took inspiration for the ‘Choices at Springfield’ model from the car industry. “Car manufacturers give you all manner of


choices and options, as well as great warranties and after-sales service,” says Adam.


“As housebuilders, we believe you should


expect even more from us, especially when you are paying up to 20 times as much for your home as you would a car.” ‘Choices at Springfield’ allows customer to adjust the floor plan of their home, adding or removing internal walls, to suit their lifestyles. Customers are also able to select from a rainbow of colours for their internal walls, and choose where they want radiators and wall sockets. Finally, customers are invited to visit an independent showroom to design their dream kitchen and choose tiles. It is only when the customer has planned their new home, that the builders start work.


Planning given for Canary Wharf development


London residential property developer, Londonewcastle, and their joint venture development partner UK and European Investments are pleased to announce that planning permission has been granted (subject to legal agreement) for their Dollar Bay development in Canary Wharf, E14. Situated on West India Docks, Dollar Bay’s 31-storey luxury residential tower has been designed by Ian Simpson Architects and will offer 121 high specification apartments and penthouses. Dollar Bay will feature a double- height reception area with 24hour concierge service, a residents’ cinema and private dining facilities, fitness studios, a landscaped garden and secure basement car parking. The tower will feature a glazed ‘winter gardens’ that span the entire façade and maximise daylight into each apartment and the penthouses will have triple height ‘sky gardens’ planted with mature trees. The development also includes the regeneration of a site on


Dollar Bay at Canary Wharf.


Figures released in HBF’s latest Housing Pipeline report reveal that approvals for just 27,732 homes across England were granted in Q4 of last year, a fall on Q3 and on the same period a year earlier. It means that the total number of permissions granted in 2011 was the lowest since HBF started the survey in 2007, with permissions running at half the level of four years ago and half that required to build the homes needed to meet demand. The figures are a huge wakeup call and


forcibly demonstrate why Government must stand firm and deliver a pro growth


National Planning Policy Framework and resist the vocal anti development lobby’s scaremongering


If the new planning system is not pro-


growth other positive measures - for example the NewBuy mortgage indemnity scheme, Get Britain Building, release of public land – cannot succeed in boosting housing supply.


Planning permissions granted now will, in the main, be built during the next three or four years. At a time when fewer homes are being built in England than at any time since the 1920s, the figures reveal the potential for intensifying the country’s housing crisis. “This is a stark reminder as to why Government must stand firm and deliver a robust and adequate planning system,” says Stewart Baseley, Executive Chairman of the HBF. “Government has recently unveiled


Thomas Road to deliver much needed new homes. Of the 64 units – also designed by Ian Simpson Architects – 59 will be affordable, bringing the percentage of affordable housing across the two sites to 46 per cent. David Barnett, CEO of Londonewcastle says,


“We are excited that Tower Hamlets has given the go ahead to a British designed addition to the Canary Wharf success story – and during an exciting year for East London with the Olympics just around the corner.”


some very positive measures aimed at boosting housing supply, particularly the NewBuy scheme, but they cannot succeed unless we have a truly pro-growth functioning planning system. “The new system must provide enough viable land to build the number of homes the country needs. Continuing the current record low level of house-building is storing up huge social and economic problems for the years ahead and the shortfall must be addressed.


“Building the homes we need would take millions off social housing waiting lists and enable beleaguered first time buyers to get a foot on the ladder. It could also create half a million new jobs, and give the country a huge economic boost.”


PROPERTYdrum APRIL 2012 41


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