A lack of planning officers could be one of the biggest obstacles for hitting the Government’s target of 1.5m new homes by 2029, warns the Homebuilders Federation.
- 2,200 planners needed to speed up applications
- 80 per cent of councils are operating below capacity
- Most major planning applications exceed 13-week timescale
More planning officers needed to hit 1.5m new homes target
Building 370,000 new homes a year is unattainable unless the Government funds training and recruitment of more planning officers, the Homebuilders Federation, HBF, has warned.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she was “genuinely shocked at how slow our planning system is” and pledged to remove regulatory blocks to speed it up in her growth speech in Oxford this week.
However, the HBF said this won’t happen unless 2,200 more planners are recruited across England and Wales.
HBF chief executive Neil Jefferson said: “The severe shortage of planning officers is directly undermining the Government’s ability to meet its housing targets, causing significant delays to housing projects when the country is in desperate need of more homes.”
The trade body’s Planning on Emptysurveyrevealed 80 per cent of local authorities are operating below capacity and would be unable to keep up with an increased volume of planning applications.
“The staffing crisis has resulted in a significant backlog of planning applications, slowing the approval of vital housing projects,” said Mr Jefferson.
The survey showed most major decisions on planning applications were made outside the statutory 13-week timescale.
HBF has said staff shortages have led to delays of several years from granting outline permission to starting to build.
SME builders have been particularly badly hit as without sites to build on they are unable to operate.
Mr Jefferson said: “Housing delivery offers immense economic and social benefits to communities, yet these advantages are being held back due to inadequate planning resources.
“It is frustrating to see local authorities unable to cope with the demand, particularly when the Government is looking for ways to boost infrastructure investment.”
Ms Reeves pledged £46m in October’sbudget to recruit 300 extra planning officers working out at one extra person per local authority.
HBF has said this would address just 15 per cent of the current shortfall among the 134 planning authorities who responded to their survey.
Brokers Hank Zarihs Associates said development finance lenders believed that well-resourced local planning authorities were key to handling future increased applications.
The National Housebuilding Council, NHBC, said the key to delivering new homes at scale lay in addressing the skills shortage not just in planning but construction.
It said it was investing £100m in the launch of 12 new multi-skill training hubs across the UK.
NHBC chief executive Steve Wood said: “These hubs will produce tradespeople who will support the sector’s productivity by delivering quality new homes when and where needed.”
Reeves pledges to make planning consultations easier
In her speech this week Ms Reevesstressed her commitment to “streamlining the process for determining planning applications”.
HS2’s £100m bat tunnel was quoted as an example of making major infrastructure delivery difficult.
Ms Reeves pledged to make consultation “less burdensome” by reforming environmental regulation so that building was the key focus not “bats and newts”.
The Environment Agencyhas already lifted its objection to 4,500 new homes around Cambridge due to water scarcity.
The National Federation of Builders, NFB, said it was glad Ms Reeves understood that the current planning system was a major barrier to business confidence and gross domestic product growth.
She reiterated her pledge to deliver 150 major infrastructure projects by the end of parliament in addition to the 1.5m new homes milestone.
NFB chief executive Richard Beresford said: “When decisions are delayed, or worse, intentionally stalled, it halts investment in essential infrastructure, such as clean water, transport networks that connect towns, cities, regions, and nations, the homes that create fairer societies, and the premises that investors and innovators need.”
The Chancellor’s key ambitions include a third runway at Heathrow, new plans to deliver the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor and £7.9bn to improve water infrastructure, including nine reservoirs.
Review of the green book used to evaluate large investment projects, redevelopment of Old Trafford and the Wrexham and Flintshire investment zone were also mentioned.
Both trade bodies have stressed that insufficient affordable housing has affected the workforce capacity of towns, cities and regions.
The HBF has highlighted that councils registered social landlords lack the resources to buy affordable homes built by private developers.
It has calculated that nearly 140 sites across the country are held up because developers are struggling to sell ‘affordable homes’ to registered social housing providers.
Councils are estimated to be sitting on more than £8bn infrastructure developer payments including £6bn from Section 106 agreements and nearly £2bn from community infrastructure levies.
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