22 July 2005
Local authorities have been told to make more land available for housing at the same time as ministers are promising to protect green belt areas.
Under a shake-up of the planning system announced by ministers on July 18, authorities must provide developers with a five-year rolling supply of suitable sites for new homes.
They will also be required to identify suitable land up to 15 years in advance, instead of ten, and take more notice of sub-regional, as well as regional, housing markets.
Launching the consultation paper Planning for housing provision, part of the government's response to the Barker review of housing supply, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said the planning system must respond faster to local housing needs by 'building more homes in the right places'.
But, at the same time, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister published a further consultation document warning regional planners to maintain or even increase areas of green belt.
Planning applications that infringe green belt restrictions will be automatically referred to the secretary of state before councils decide whether they are minded to approve them.
The Barker review, published in March 2004, called for an extra 17,000 affordable homes a year to be built.
Housing and planning minister Yvette Cooper said the planning system had failed to take proper account of housing market trends.
'There are huge social and economic consequences when the planning system fails,' she said. 'It is important for [it] to take better account of pressures in the housing market and keep the priority for brownfield development.'
Robert Ashmead, chief executive of the House Builders' Federation, said the government was getting to grips with the Barker agenda by starting to tackle the 'chronic' undersupply of land.
'The planning process should make better use of market information and ensure greater clarity and speed,' he added.
But Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, chair of the Local Government Association, said ministers were simply imposing further targets instead of giving councils more incentive to release land banks through infrastructure support. 'It's a continuation of top-down control,' he said.
A revised circular on planning obligations, published the same day by the ODPM, aims to speed up section 106 agreements between councils and developers that provide public amenities alongside affordable housing.
PFjul2005
