6 INDUSTRY NEWS
Brokenshire highlights need for planning reform
Housing Secretary James Brokenshire set out what the Government is doing to tackle the housing shortage and improve the quality of new homes at the Home Builders Federation (HBF) policy conference. Addressing the audience, Brokenshire emphasised the need to reduce planning delays, increase the capability of local planning departments, improve procedure to accelerate the end-to-end planning process, and reform the planning system. Richard Beresford, chief executive of the
NFB, welcomed the speech, believing that it indicates housing may be returning as a priority for the Government. He said: “The housing crisis is the greatest
challenge to social equality that we have in the UK. The Government must prioritise it. By building more and understanding how we physically get more quality homes built, we can make really positive changes to our communities.” Rico Wojtulewicz, head of housing and planning policy at the House Builders Association, also commented: “When Ministers utter the words ‘planning reform,’ the industry gets quite excited. Getting permission to build is a painful, slow and desperate process, especially for SMEs.”
Partly blaming the continuing Brexit negotiations, Khan said that the funding will be offered to help housing associations to switch homes from market sale or shared ownership to homes for rent and social or immediate rent levels, which are lower than market rent.
City Hall has also stated that the extra money will enable the housing associations to “commit to their future plans, sign construction contracts, and begin development without further delay.” The support received by individual housing associations will reportedly depend on the schemes in their pipeline and those underway, and is only available for homes starting in this calendar year.
Sadiq Khan has called on Government “at the very least to match this funding” by providing extra investment for housing associations to deliver their planned schemes. He said: “At City Hall we are building record numbers of new social rented and other genuinely affordable homes. We must not let the Government’s chaotic mishandling of Brexit undermine our plans. “That’s why it is right we push our funding to its very limits to keep housing associations building more affordable housing through the ongoing uncertainty – and it’s even more important given the Government totally failed to address my concerns when I recently raised them.”
ing resource,” and one which has the potential to provide a steady pipeline of development opportunities. The majority of sites identified are
reportedly available to build on now, as 59 per cent of the total identified housing has been shown to be deliverable in the next five years, with 63 per cent of newly identified sites also meeting this definition. In light of this research, the CPRE has
called on the Government to implement a ‘brownfield first’ policy to help prioritise brownfield over greenfield, as well as support local authorities to establish a more rigorous list of opportunities.
Crest Nicholson announces new CE
Peter Truscott is to join the board of Crest Nicholson as chief executive, succeeding Patrick Bergin, the housebuilder has revealed. The changeover will follow the cessation of his contract with Galliford Try, which is expected to take place in September 2019. Patrick Bergin agreed to step down from
Brownfield land for 1 million homes identified
London Mayor releases £200m extra funding for affordable home building
£200m of extra funding has been announced by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to counter what he described as the “low level of funding” from Government. Khan said this lack of funds is driving housing associations to use market sales to subsidise new affordable homes.
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An updated analysis of the potential brownfield land available for housing has been published by The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), which has called for a halt to the “unnecessary loss of our countryside and green spaces.” In its State of Brownfield 2019 report,
the organisation revealed that every local planning authority now has a register of brownfield land, and this showed that enough suitable land is available for more than 1 million homes, representing over 18,000 sites and over 26,000 hectares. The CPRE’s report also showed that
more suitable land has come forward over the last 12 months, with one in seven homes on up to date brownfield registers being on sites identified in the last year. The CPRE commented that this shows that brownfield is a “perpetually regenerat-
the group chief executive role and from the board at the company’s Annual General Meeting on 26 March 2019, and will reportedly not stand for re-election. In the interim, Chris Tinker, currently
chairman of Major Projects and Strategic Partnerships and board director, will become interim chief executive. He will be supported by chairman Stephen Stone, who became the firm’s non-executive chairman on 1 April 2019. Stephen Stone commented: “We are
delighted to welcome Peter to Crest Nicholson. We announced last year that we were shifting strategy from growth to cash generation with a strong emphasis on partnerships and other joint ventures, to de-risk the portfolio while delivering more homes. “Peter is highly experienced
at delivering a broad range of housing needs to customers working with local authorities, Housing Associations as well as private homebuyers. This, together with his operational and public company experience, will bring strong additional expertise to our team.” Stone continued: “We are extremely
grateful to Patrick Bergin for his dedica- tion, time and commitment to Crest Nicholson over the last 13 years, both as group finance director and latterly as chief operating officer and group chief execu- tive, and we wish him well for the future.”
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