12 industry news HOUSING AND PLANNING ACT
Housing and Planning Act designed to speed housing delivery and help first-time buyers
T
he Housing and Planning Act, one of the most important pieces of legislation for the industry in years, finally received
Royal Assent in May, including measures to speed delivery of new homes and help first-time buyers. The Government hoped that the Bill “would
give homebuilders and decision-makers the tools and confidence to provide more homes and fur- ther streamline the planning system to accelerate new home delivery.” Among the Act’s many provisions, it places a
duty on local planning authorities to actively pro- mote the development of Starter Homes and “embed them in the planning system.” The Department of Communities and Local
Government (DCLG) said that the Bill “would unlock brownfield land to provide homes faster.” It requires local authorities to prepare, maintain and publish local registers of specified land as part of the Government’s aim to “simplify and speed up neighbourhood planning.” Every local authority must now produce a
NEW REGISTRATIONS GROWTH
New home registrations up 17 per cent
M
ore than 14,000 new homes were reg- istered to be built in the UK in April according to NHBC’s latest registra-
tion figures – an increase of 17 per cent compared to the same period last year. Nearly 2,200 more homes were registered in
the month compared to April 2015, and 373 more homes were completed. Commenting, NHBC Chief Executive Mike
Quinton said that the figures represented good news for the industry: “They show that the industry enjoyed a successful month, with regis- tration numbers well ahead of this time last year." There was also a slight decrease on last year's
figures as 40,399 new homes were registrations in the rolling quarter (February 2016 – April 2016) compared to last year’s 40,877. Notable growth was recorded in the North
East (+47 per cent), South East (+23 per cent) and Yorkshire & Humberside (+18 per cent).
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local plan for long-term development, and reforms the compulsory purchase process to make it “clearer, fairer and faster,” according to the DCLG. Housing and Planning Minister Brandon
Lewis commented: “This landmark Housing and Planning Act will help anyone who aspires to own their own home achieve their dream. “It will increase housing supply alongside
home ownership, building on the biggest afford- able house-building program since the 1970s.” In addition to measures on new housing and
local planning, the Act includes the important step of extending Right to Buy agreements to housing associations. Lewis commented: “The act will contribute to
transforming generation rent into generation buy, helping us towards achieving our ambition of delivering one million new homes.” In addition the Bill aims to support the dou-
bling of the number of custom and self-build homes by 2020, tackle “rogue landlords” by giv- ing more power to local authorities, and brings in
SKILLS SHORTAGE
Building interest in careers in construction with Lego film
to young people, with ONS figures showing there are currently 20,000 vacancies in the industry. The film showcases a range of career options
T
available to young people and encourages them to visit the HBF’s Housebuilding Careers online resource. The move follows the NHBC Founda- tion’s 2015 ‘A Career of Choice’ report which
he NHBC Foundation has launched an online film that uses Lego to highlight the benefits of a career in housebuilding
concluded that the industry needed to challenge misconceptions in order to recruit new entrants. The report found that young people were able
to identify trades such as bricklaying and plumb- ing, but were largely unable to identify technical, professional and managerial job areas. Research also suggested housebuilding had a poor image and a lack of information about careers. Four out of 10 parents said that they would not encourage children to pursue a career in housebuilding.
further measures to ensure fairness for council tenants. As a result of the new legislation councils now have to consider selling their higher value housing assets when they fall vacant.
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