Councils 'must use planning powers to boost housebuilding'

By Nick Mann | 14 November 2011

Councils given more planning powers under the localism agenda should be monitored to ensure they take a positive attitude towards proposals to build new homes, according to business leaders.

The CBI said it was ‘essential’ that the push to have planning decisions made at a local level helped to meet the UK’s housing requirements. According to the business lobby, the UK requires a quarter of a million new homes each year for the next 20 years.

In its Unfreezing the housing market report, published on November 11, the CBI welcomed the ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ contained in the National Planning Policy Framework. This, it said would help encourage councils to take a ‘pro-growth’ approach towards new developments.

But it called on the Planning Inspectorate to ‘closely monitor’ whether local authorities were taking this into account when making planning decisions on new housing projects.

And it also called for close attention to be paid to how councils use incentives put in place to encourage new housing developments, such as the New Homes Bonus, under which they receive government funding to match the council tax they raise on either new homes or empty housing brought back into use.

CBI director general John Cridland said: ‘Despite five million people languishing on waiting lists because of the housing shortage, housebuilding is at its lowest peacetime level for 90 years. A quarter of a million new homes are needed each year for at least the next twenty years to make up the shortfall.’
‘So we’re also urging the government to deliver a comprehensive, long-term strategy to tackle the structural supply and demand failures in the housing market.
‘This must include planning incentives to support housing developments, reducing the regulatory drag on house building, and, in time, reviewing Stamp Duty.
‘These, along with the other measures outlined in our report, will bolster a well-functioning and sustainable housing market as a key feature of the UK’s long-term economic growth.’