THE PROPERTY EXPERT

Why aren’t we building enough homes? WHEN it comes to assessing reasons we have not been building a sufficient number of new homes in the UK for decades now, we can point to a number of factors.

Local planning authorities are perhaps less obvious causal agents, but certainly need to be considered. The Town and Country Planning Act came into play shortly after the Second World War, and was the result of concerns at the time of ribbon development, urban sprawl and pollution.

The same concerns are good arguments for us still requiring planning policy today, with many of our town and city populations growing; and there needing to be a balance between housing the population whilst maintaining good infrastructure, managing traffic, and not making the UK an ugly country to live in.

A study published in the Economic Journal (March 2016), found strong evidence supporting the notion that the UK planning regime is the main cause of our high house prices. Not only this, but where the housing crisis is most pronounced, i.e. in the South East and Greater London, planning is most tightly regulated.

They point to the flaw of permissions to build being granted at a local level. Obviously local councillors are at the mercy of their electorate, and during the planning consultation process, ‘NIMBY’ pressures can be very pronounced.

There is therefore not much political incentive to drive through the level of house-building that may be required, if it is likely to cost them their place in the local government the next time their vote is called.

The Home Builders Federation warned about the significant time that the planning process takes, and its costs to developers. In past months we have seen central government stepping in during the appeals process to reverse local government decisions, but perhaps the more important focus would be on getting the decision right the first time.

Recent interventions from central government seem to show that they recognise a problem with the planning process in general, so maybe this is the year that local authorities and central government start to join up their thinking to devise a better strategy for delivering the homes the UK needs.