Councils demand greater powers to ensure build out of sites with planning permission

Local authorities must be given greater powers to ensure prompt build out of sites with planning permission, the Local Government Association (LGA) has said in its response to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government consultation on a revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

In its submission the LGA said: “People cannot and do not live in planning permissions. The Government must take urgent action and work with the development and housebuilding industry to ensure there is a suitable pipeline of sustainable sites, which once allocated in a Local Plan and / or given planning permission, are indeed built out.

“Local authorities must be given greater powers to ensure prompt build out of sites with planning permission. Local authorities deliver permissions, developers deliver homes. Unless there is a fundamental shift in local authorities’ abilities or expectation to deliver homes, they should not be subject to punitive measures which undermine the plan-led system including the 5-year housing land supply test and the Housing Delivery Test.” 

The submission’s other “key messages” included:

• Local authorities must be empowered to take their residents along with them on the journey to develop and build more homes. “That is because it is not just homes that are required to create thriving, attractive and desirable places and communities in which to live but the accompanying local and national infrastructure, to be developed both now and phased at early and timely stages alongside the development of new homes, which is of primary concern for residents.”
• It should be ensured that constituent local authorities, and local communities, have a meaningful voice and role within regional approaches to spatial planning which should be led at a local or locally-agreed appropriate level. “Local authorities should always be given the flexibility to influence the geography that is most appropriate for local needs, as opposed to a burdensome central directive.”
• The LGA conceded that it is a difficult task to determine the housebuilding targets for each local authority area, but said any housebuilding target derived by a formula which does not account for local circumstances or the practicalities of delivery in that particular location is “likely doomed to fail”. It added: “Issues such as land value and viability, land availability for competing uses such as employment and green space (in particular in built-up areas), water and nutrient neutrality, and geographically limiting factors such as coastal areas or those surrounded by 'hard constraints' all contribute to the genuine feasibility of authorities being able to adequately plan for these ambitious new figures.” 
• The Government’s narrative shift towards empowering local authorities to deliver more homes for social rent is welcome, but this must be backed by practical measures both within and outside the realms of planning policy.  These include: the roll out of five-year local housing deals by 2025 to all areas of the country that want them; giving councils the powers and flexibilities to use the Right to Buy scheme and receipts in their local area; strengthening Housing Revenue Accounts via a long-term rent settlement of at least 10 years alongside restoration of lost revenue due to rent cap/cuts; further investment in the Brownfield Land Release Fund and One Public Estate programmes; further opportunities to utilise compulsory purchase powers (CPOs) to facilitate land assembly and expedite the delivery of approved regeneration schemes; and increased flexibility for local authorities in the use of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding “to enable it to be invested directly in the delivery of affordable housing (rather than only be applicable to enabling works as at present)”.

The LGA also renewed its criticism of “unfettered” permitted development rights, “in particular those which permit the creation of new homes without contributions towards affordable housing and requirements to ensure the new housing is high-quality”.

These rights represent a deregulated approach to development which undermines the Government’s own and local authorities planning policies and place-making ambitions, both in urban and rural settings, it argued.

The submission argued that the NPPF must be stronger on promoting sustainable and resilient place-making. “Within a clear set of expectations set by a national framework, local planning authorities are best placed to make decisions about ways in which to address climate change mitigation and adaptation in their local areas, and therefore the NPPF should be suitably flexible to accommodate this.”

The LGA also called on the Government to bring forward urgently a more ambitious Future Homes and Buildings Standard as soon as is practically possible.

It meanwhile “hugely welcomed” allowing local authorities to set their own planning application fees, saying it would help to address growing and real concerns that planning departments are facing regarding resourcing and capacity constraints.

The Ministry's consultation ran until 24 September.