Opposition leaders have criticised the Government’s proposed planning reforms, calling them a “developers’ charter” and “wrong-headed”.
Speaking at the LGA’s virtual annual conference, Shadow Communities Secretary Steve Reed OBE said: “There is no doubt we need to build more housing, particularly good-quality homes that people can afford to rent or buy, including more social housing.
“But the blockage clearly isn’t the planning system, as the Government claims. It is developers who don’t go on to build the homes they are given consent for.”
Citing LGA figures that more than one million homes have been approved by council planning departments in the past decade, but never built, he said the problem was “how to incentivise developers to get on and develop rather than sitting on rising land values with a view to selling it on in the future”.
Labour has since brought forward a Planning and Local Representation Bill, which would require developers to ‘use it or lose it’ when it comes to planning permissions.
Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey was also critical of the planning reforms, saying concern about them had contributed to his party’s recent victory in the Chesham and Amersham by-election.
He made the case for more community-led ‘local neighbourhood’ plans, citing a government report that concluded they increased housing supply, improved design, improved local engagement with planning, and contributed to place-making way beyond land-use planning.
“Decisions on what homes should be built and where they should be built should not be left to developers or ministers in Whitehall; they should be made by local communities in local communities, making sure that local voices are heard,” he told delegates.