Sector groups welcome Gove’s long-term housing plan but criticise absence of social housing

The government’s housing plan includes a consultation on new permitted development rights, to provide more certainty over some types of development. It will also consider how design codes might apply to certain rights to protect local character and give developers greater confidence.

 

“New and amended permitted development rights would make it easier to convert larger department stores, space above shops and office space,” Mr Gove said.

 

The plan also “backs rural communities”, the housing secretary said. Changes will support farm diversification and development, to enable businesses to extend and more outdoor markets to be held.  

 

Unblock planning

 

Mr Gove emphasised that development should proceed on sites that have been adopted in a local plan with full input from the local community, unless there are strong reasons why it cannot.

 

Local councils should be open and pragmatic in agreeing changes to a development when conditions mean that the original plan may no longer be viable, he suggested. This would be preferable to mothballing the development or losing it wholesale.

 

Where it makes sense, better use should be made of small pockets of brownfield land by being more permissive, so more homes can be built more quickly, Mr Gove said. This will give SME builders more confidence and certainty.

 

Later in the year, the government will pass the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill to put in place its reforms, and publish updates to the National Planning Policy Framework. The government’s commitment to development and regeneration in and around existing town and city centres is also guiding its consideration of responses to the framework.

 

Locally led developments

 

Mr Gove said that communities will be supported to be at “the heart of new development in their areas”.

 

This will be achieved partly by establishing the ‘Office for Place’ in Stoke-on-Trent. Formerly a team in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), the new organisation will now be legally constituted as an arms-length body.

 

The Office for Place will continue to be chaired (on an interim basis) by Nicholas Boys Smith. Mr Boys Smith also chaired the government’s ‘Building Better, Building Beautiful’ commission from 2019.

 

The government will support councils to deliver high-quality, up-to-date local plans, Mr Gove said. The DLUHC will launch a consultation to seek views on its proposals to simplify the system of developing a new plan.

 

The secretary of state highlighted that local authorities should continue to develop their local plans, ensuring local people get their say: “To deliver housing anywhere, all new homes built will need to be accepted by the community – they will need to be beautiful, well-connected, designed with local people in mind and be accompanied by the right community infrastructure and green space. Communities must have a say in how and where homes are built.”

 

Building safety

 

On building safety, Mr Gove confirmed the government’s intention to mandate second staircases in new residential buildings higher than 18m. 

 

“This responds to the call from the sector for coherence and certainty,” Mr Gove said.

 

He added it was a “considered and gradual evolution of safety standards, which, when taken with our other fire safety measures and reforms, ensures the safety of people in all tall buildings – both new and existing”.

 

The government launched a consultation in December 2022 on measures including second staircases in residential buildings. That proposed a higher threshold of 30m.

 

But a coalition of organisations led by RIBA called on the government in March to impose 18m as a minimum. The coalition said a 30m threshold would “fall short” of what it believed to be best practice.

 

Mr Gove also said the government is opening its Cladding Safety Scheme to all eligible buildings, to ensure no leaseholder will have to pay to fix dangerous cladding in medium or high-rise buildings. The scheme was previously announced as the ‘Medium Rise Scheme’ in November 2022.

Regeneration

 

Mr Gove also outlined plans in his speech to regenerate a further three English cities, with “transformational change” in Cambridge, central London and central Leeds. This forms part of the commitment the government made in its Levelling Up White Paper to regenerate 20 towns and cities.

 

The housing secretary referenced allocations from several existing pots of funding in his speech. That included £800m from the existing £1.5bn Brownfield, Infrastructure and Land fund that will be allocated to unlock up to 56,000 new homes on brownfield sites. 

 

Following the recent changes to the Affordable Homes Programme as part of Homes England’s pivot towards regeneration, Mr Gove also referred to the availability of up to £1bn of AHP funding in the capital to be used towards regeneration.

 

Sector response

 

However, the housing secretary did not announce any new funding for social housing, at a time when many housing providers are having to cut back their development ambitions because of financial pressures.

 

The National Housing Federation (NHF) and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) welcomed the long-term plan for housing but criticised the absence of social housing.

 

Rhys Moore, director of public impact at the NHF, said that the trade body has been calling for a long-term plan for housing. However, although the government’s plan was a “positive start”, it was “nowhere near the scale or ambition that is needed”, he added.

 

“We have a massive housing crisis on our hands, with one in six children living in overcrowded homes and 4.2 million people in need of social housing,” he said.

 

“We welcome the commitments to planning interventions. However, this is relatively piecemeal, given the challenge we face. There is also nothing in this announcement about investing in social housing, which is sorely needed.

 

“We have a chronic shortage of social homes in this country, caused by decades of underinvestment by successive governments, and this has exacerbated the rental crisis and increased house prices.

 

“Last year we only built around 6,500 social rented homes compared to the 90,000 a year that are needed. We need a strategic, nationally coordinated and properly funded long-term housing plan focused on drastically increase social housing across the country, which this is not.”

 

Gavin Smart, chief executive of the CIH, said that the group welcomes some of the measures and the “recognition that long-term problems need long-term solutions”. But he said the CIH would have liked to have seen a “greater focus on much needed social housing”. 

 

Mr Smart said: “Analysis shows we need 90,000 new homes for social rent each year for the next 15 years but we’re a long way off delivering this.

 

“Without investment in social housebuilding, we’ll continue to see housing waiting lists grow and will continue to spend huge amounts of money subsidising poor-quality housing.  

 

“It’s time for a long-term, cross-cutting strategy, backed by government investment, focused on delivering more homes in the right places that people can afford. Everyone should have access to a decent and affordable home from which to build their lives."  

 

Fiona Fletcher-Smith, chair of the G15 group of housing associations and group chief executive of L&Q, said the government is right to recognise the need to build more homes in urban areas such as London, which has a “significant level” of unmet housing need.

 

She welcomed the housing plan, particularly the information on planning reform. But she said that more longer-term grant funding and a wider range of innovative funding models are required.

 

“Reforms and investments in the planning system are welcome and the Planning Skills Delivery Fund is a step in the right direction,” Ms Fletcher-Smith said.

 

“However, more and longer-term grant funding, a wider range of innovative funding models and certainty of rental income will be essential if the housing sector is to genuinely scale up supply whilst meeting other building safety and net zero commitments.”

 

Simon Century, managing director of housing at Legal and General, welcomed the announcements seeking to accelerate housing delivery, but pointed to the need for attention to detail and a focus on diversity of tenures.

 

He said: “[Planning] authorities remain deeply underfunded and under huge pressures, creating roadblocks in the UK’s ability to deliver the housing volumes required to meet our needs. A super squad of planners is therefore a welcome vision, to help speed up the process and support approvals for the most complex schemes. 

 

“As always, the devil will be in the detail, and any policy should consider not just city centre housing renewal, but homes for all parts of the economy, including suburban living, affordable housing, build-to-rent and later living. Delivery through diversity of tenures is growing in importance, against a picture of construction volumes falling.”