How the main parties are handling the housing and planning political hot potato

The news that Rachel Maclean (pictured) has been ousted as housing minister the day before she was due to introduce the government’s Renters Reform Bill to committee sums up the problem with government housing and planning policy at the moment. Housing ministers aren’t around long enough to implement it.

Planning and housing policy has become a major political hot potato ahead of the General Election next year, with the three main parties all issuing bold statements of intent.

The Conservatives are promising to deliver 300,000 new homes by the mid-2020s (rather than each year as they did in their 2019 manifesto), to protect the green belt by prioritising building own brownfield and to reforms the rental sector.

Labour is promising to build 1.5 million more affordable first homes over a five-year period, to create new towns with beautiful homes, green spaces and reliable transport links, and to devolve power to local mayors. Like the Conservatives, it says it will prioritise building on brownfield sites rather than in the countryside and will issue ‘planning passports’ for urban brownfield development, with a fast-track approval and delivery of high-density housing on urban brownfield sites.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats say they are targeting 150,000 council homes a year and want to grant new powers to local authorities to build their own social and affordable housing. They also have a 10-year emergency programme to insulate Britain’s homes and have pledged to ensure developers build appropriate infrastructure needed for new housing developments, abolish leaseholds for residential properties, end ground rents, expand neighbourhood planning, enable more democratic engagement in local plans, reform the Land Compensation Act and commit to building 10 new garden cities.

For all the parties, housing is a key campaigning issue – but don’t expect them to take any responsibility for the housing shortage. The blame for that is laid firmly at the door of the planning system and the developers. And this is just wrong.

The problem is not developers land banking. It is that too much development is not coming forward despite being granted consent. Unfortunately, politicians all too readily express their disapproval of planning applications in order to get the local vote closer to the elections, rather than working with their community and the developer to find a way forward for all.

The temptation is to blame the planning system, but the system itself is not at fault. It is the lack of funding that is the real problem. The system needs heavy financial investment by national government at local planning authority level to drive through policy-sound applications. Resourcing is needed. Politicians and the national press also need to educate themselves about the planning system and the proposed schemes to make sure that they are aware about the processes and requirements and that all voices are heard but a legally sound and robust decision is made. We cannot let the planning system be battered by false statements.