What would the Conservatives do?: Eight proposals for the planning system

6/10/2009

A new kind of democracy, no housing targets and something that looks a little bit like a quango but isn't are all on the cards, says Michael Hardware of Chelgate.

Tory plans for housing and planning have already caused some gasps; here are some of the items on their agenda:

1. Farewell quangos. There is no doubt that there will be an early bonfire of quangos, with the regional development agencies at the top of the pyre.

2. No more housing targets. All forms of regional planning and centrally-driven housing targets will be abolished, leaving it up to local authorities themselves to decide housing numbers. On the face of it, this sounds like a recipe for inaction as at the end of the day, councillors are looking for votes and want to get re-elected; councils will be unlikely to propose development of any size, and will not make the hard decisions necessary to bring forward any reasonable supply of new homes for fear or making themselves unpopular. The national issue of housing supply will not be addressed by this approach and the underlying trend of under-supply will continue with the existing pent-up demand for housing  - in the region of a million homes - continuing.

3. Community involvement. Local communities are at the centre of the Tories' proposed planning and housing reforms. They want to redress the balance between the developer and the community to such an extent that ultimately communities will actually welcome developers with open arms. For this to happen, the balance would need to be radically changed, but radical is what they have planned - the idea is that local communities will have a far bigger say about what is built and where.

The planning system will be focused on community involvement, and weighted in favour of developers that go through the process. Developers will need to go to the local community far earlier, and engage with that community far more deeply. The practice of 'going through the motions' will need to cease, with real consultation taking place, ideally initially with a 'blank page'.  Of course, there will be certain parameters and various thresholds where a site is viable or not, with the subsequent project being a compromise between the desires of the developer and those of the community.

4. Financial incentives. Again, it looks obvious that this system will not work, as almost all of the time the local community will respond in a negative way and say they do not want any development on the site. However, to encourage development, the new government will introduce significant financial incentives to enable local councillors to become pro-development, allowing their community to see the benefits when new homes are built. At the party conference housing minister Grant Shapps announced that local communities accepting development of new homes would benefit by match funding of council tax revenues from the new homes for six years. As to whether this will be enough is debatable.

5. Section 106. A further incentive would be via S106 agreements. As well as being made more transparent, they will be made more relevant to the local community. Specific targets will be set and monitored with spending being at ward level so that the loss of amenity is properly compensated where that loss occurs.  Other suggestions have included allowing the issue of bonds, giving locals a real benefit in approving a project.

6. Extending local democracy. There has been a requirement for developers to engage with local communities since the planning reforms introduced in the 2004 Act - the Home Builders Federation included that recommendation when responding during the consultation. However, implementation of the requirement has been very haphazard, with only a small number of local authorities issuing guidance to developers on the level and type of community engagement required for a particular type and size.

The new approach would mean community engagement is implicit, and a developer is very unlikely to gain consent without it, even by going to appeal. There is even the suggestion of extending local democracy for the most contentious planning applications, introducing local referendums to help guide decisions. The proposal is that if just five per cent of the local population sign a petition, that would be enough to trigger a referendum.

7.  Councillors will be liberated. A huge barrier to local community engagement has been the Local Government Act 2000. It placed probity requirements on local councillors which, frankly, scared them to death. The new Conservative government would relax the rules, and in particular the pre-determination bar, so that the democratically elected members of the community can do what they were elected to do: represent their community.

8. The new quango that isn't. The Tories would encourage councils to join together to facilitate larger and more complex planning needs, especially those involving regional regeneration or growth requiring cross-authority and infrastructure decisions to be made. The opportunity to delegate these larger decisions, and probably all large and contentious planning and housing decisions, will be electorally beneficial for councils, and probably crucial if development of any scale is going to take place. It is likely that these bodies or 'instruments' would not be dissimilar to the existing urban development corporations and companies, although with local as opposed to central government masters.

Whatever the form of the final reforms, the prospects for developers in the short term are not good. Some local authorities are already delaying the Local Development Framework process, instead waiting to see what happens. Similarly, there will be a delay as the new system is developed and enacted, and then as it beds in and parties become familiar with it.

Michael Hardware is executive vice-president with public affairs specialist Chelgate.