18 THE INDUSTRY ADVOCATE
Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders
GOVERNMENT TARGETS WON’T BE MET WITHOUT PLANNING REFORM
Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), discusses the recent PAC report, and how bottlenecks in the planning system are jeopardising the Government’s housebuilding targets.
PERHAPS THE MOST SHOCKING STATISTIC WAS THAT ONLY 42 PER CENT OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES HAD AN UP TO DATE LOCAL PLAN
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planning system are likely to jeopardise the Government’s housebuilding target of 300,000 new homes a year. This won’t come as a surprise to small and medium-sized (SME) housebuilders, with half (51 per cent) reporting in the FMB’s 2018 House Builders’ Survey that the planning system was the biggest barrier to them building more new homes. The PAC claims that while the Government has made some recent reforms in planning, particularly to support smaller housebuilders, it doesn’t have a detailed implementation plan of how it will scale up housebuilding. Perhaps the most shocking statistic in the
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report was that only 42 per cent (143) of local authorities had an up-to-date local plan. A further 44 per cent had a plan that was more than five years old, and 14 per cent had no plan at all. This is particularly concerning as the plan-led system is the primary vehicle the Government is using to achieve its targets, particularly for the allocation of smaller sites. The report identifies that local authorities are often under-resourced and under-staffed and producing plans can be technically complex, time consuming and resource intensive. The FMB’s research last year found ‘inadequate resourcing of planning departments’ as the main reason for blockages in the planning system. The FMB campaigned for an increase in planning fees to help address this problem, and in January 2018 the 20 per cent increase in fees was ring-fenced for resourcing of planning departments.
he Public Accounts Committee (PAC) recently published a damning report, warning that inherent problems in the
The impact of this fee increase, however, is yet to be seen. Earlier this year, Sir John Hayes MP, asked a Parliamentary Question on behalf of the FMB, on the impact of the rise in planning fees. In response, the Housing Minister Kit Malthouse said that central Government is
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