6 INDUSTRY NEWS
Letwin review launched to show why sites are not being built out
An independent review commissioned by Government and chaired by Oliver Letwin MP into the “hundreds of thousands of homes that haven’t been built despite having planning permission” is underway. Launched by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government after being announced in the Autumn Budget, the review will look to explain the gap between the number of planning permissions being granted against those built in areas of high demand. Currently, after planning permission is granted a variety of factors can prevent development from starting and slow down delivery, and the review has been launched to determine why. As of July 2016, just over half of the 684,000 homes with planning permission had been completed. Letwin’s team will seeks to identify the main causes of this gap, and will make recommendations on practical steps to take. He commented: “This Government is serious about finding ways to increase the speed of build out, as well as tackling the complicated issues surrounding it. “That’s why we have set up this diverse panel to help me test my analysis and to make practical, non-partisan recommendations.”
Housing secretary Sajid Javid added: “This review is vital to helping us understand how we can build more homes quickly. “All parties have a role to play in closing the gap, and I look forward to receiving sir Oliver’s findings.”
The review will be conducted in two
phases. Phase one, which was recently launched, will seek to identify the main causes of the gap by reviewing large housing sites where planning permission has already been granted. This will include information-gathering sessions with local authorities, developers, non-Government organisations and others. Early findings will be published in an interim report. Phase
two will make recommendations on practical steps to increase the speed of ‘build out’, which will then be published in the full report.
The review will also consider how to avoid interventions which might discourage housebuilding or hinder the regeneration of complex sites.
Government confirms £866m investment in council-led development
Up to 200,000 new homes are to be started after the Government has confirmed an £866m investment in local housing projects, as part of the first wave of funding from the £5bn Housing Infrastructure Fund. Housing Secretary Sajid Javid and Chancellor Philip Hammond announced that 133 council-led projects across the country will receive funding to support local housing work. Housing Secretary, Sajid Javid said
the first wave of investment will “make a huge difference to communities across the county.”
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, added: “This support will help us meet our ambitious plan of building 300,000 new homes each year, and ensure we have enough housing in areas which need it most.”
The £5bn Housing Infrastructure Fund is a Government capital grant programme, hoped to help ‘unlock’ new development in areas with the greatest housing demand. The fund is divided into two streams. A
Marginal Viability Fund is available to all single and lower tier local authorities in England, to provide infrastructure funding to get additional sites allocated or existing sites unblocked quickly. Bids can be up to £10m. A Forward fund is available to the uppermost tier of local authorities in England. This is for a small number of strategic and high-impact infrastructure projects, of which bids can be up to £250m.
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Construction industry among the least aware of GDPR
A low level of awareness around new data protection rules, which come in force this May, has been revealed by a new survey published by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
The construction and manufacturing sectors were among those with the lowest awareness, with 25 and 27 per cent respectively, significantly lower than the average.
According to the Ipsos MORI survey of 1,519 businesses, only 38 per cent said they had heard of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the foundation of the UK’s new Data Protection Act. Of those, just over a quarter had made changes to their operations in response to the GDPR introduction. The data suggests that smaller businesses are less likely to have heard of GDPR than medium and large organisations. Similarly, large and medium businesses were significantly more likely to have made changes to their operations in response to GDPR than smaller businesses. Despite the higher levels of awareness among larger businesses, less than half (48 per cent) of medium sized businesses had made changes to the way they operate, while just over half (55 per cent) or large businesses had done so. Steve Snaith, technology risk assurance
partner at RSM, said: “The new General Data Protection Regulation is one of the most pressing issues for UK business, and these figures should be a wake-up call. It is of key importance that organisations understand the extent of ‘in scope’ data they hold and ensure that their corresponding data governance framework aligns with the new requirements of GDPR.”
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