Updates

The cross-party Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) Committee report  (May 8th) calls on the Government to:

• invest to build the social homes;
• conduct an early assessment of the adequacy of grant funding allocations and how much social rent is to be supported;
• use land value capture as a tool to support social housing;
• provide social housing providers exactly the same access to funds for building safety remediation as private sector landlords;
• give greater weight to the positive benefits of regeneration so more funding can be made available for regeneration;
• where registered providers face more financial risk, we recommend that the Regulator should engage with them more regularly.

The government have 2 months to respond.
Full report – The Finances and Sustainability of the Social Housing Sector here

There were 36 questions to respond to covering a range of proposals. In summary, we acknowledged that IF implemented sensibly, on a modest scale and for applications with few complications, it could work BUT otherwise it would likely make things worse in the processing of all planning applications – causing a diversion of resources in Local Authorities when many are having problems establishing a full complement of planning staff. We made the point that most large schemes will have been many months, and most likely years in the making. So, reducing the limit from the current 13 weeks to 10 weeks for the determination of eligible applications is almost irrelevant. We emphasised that meaningful pre-application engagement with the local community should be strongly encouraged and that in our experience the main cause of delay is that almost all planning applications for major developments run materially counter to adopted local plan policies in one or more respects.

The fifth report for the Healthy Streets Scorecard ranks London Boroughs for 2023 on how healthy their streets are according to ten indicators that are explained here.

The results by borough can be seen here.

On 15^th April 2024 the DLUHC Chief Planner, Joanna Averley, wrote to local authority planning officers as here with details on Biodiversity Net Gain on Small Sites, consultation on an Accelerated Planning System, a new draft Planning Performance Dashboard for individual local planning authorities speed of decision-making, Round 2 of the Local Nutrient Mitigation Fund, a register of decisions on all compulsory purchase orders and listed building temporary stop notices and enforcement warning notices.

Earlier Chief Planner’s letters can be seen here.

The House Building Federation conducted a review of progress in house building since the review by Kate Barker for Government in 2004.

They conclude England would have 2 million more homes today if her most ambitious scenario for increasing housing supply had been achieved. The HBF report is here.

HBF seeks better long-term financial footing of local planning authorities and proposes “reassessment of the recent changes to the NPPF is needed.”.

Kate Barker said she was “particularly disappointed by the failure to follow through on the supply of new social rented homes”. She has been appointed head of a new commission on behalf of think tank Radix Big Tent into the current shortage of homes.

The Planning Act (Commencement No. 8) and Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 (Commencement No. 4 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2024 will largely come into force on 25 April 2024. There are a raft of changes. Two key ones for local authorities are:

Section 115 amends section 171B(1) and (2) of the 1990 Act to extend the time period in which local planning authorities can take enforcement action against unauthorised development in England from 4 to 10 years.

Section 116 amends section 171E of the 1990 Act to allow local planning authorities in England to issue a temporary stop notice that has effect for up to 56 days, [increased from 28 days] providing more time for a local authority to investigate a suspected breach of planning control.  See HERE for more detail.

Comments can be made up to 1st May 2024 on a DLUHC consultation on an Accelerated Planning Service for major commercial applications with a decision time in 10 weeks and fee refunds if this is not met.

It is proposed also to change the use of extensions of time and to implement section 73B for applications to vary planning permissions.

The government has published long-awaited technical guidance on its second staircase rule after months of uncertainty. The Mayor of London said last month work on 38,000 homes has been halted due to uncertainty caused by the lack of technical guidance. Research commissioned by the government found that when there is a second staircase in a high rise block, the evacuation time is halved. Published on Good Friday, changes to Approved Document B – the government’s building guidance covering fire safety – make clear that a second staircase is required in tall blocks of flats over 18 metres in height. It also confirmed that evacuation lifts will not be a requirement and introduced a transition period for the rules up to 30 September 2026. Full details on the design and construction of second staircases can be found here.

The DLUHC SoS, Michael Gove MP, has written to the London Mayor with criticisms of failure to build sufficient new homes on brownfield, industrial and Opportunity Area land.

Sadiq Khan is ordered to review London Plan policies and to provide early findings by the end of June and full proposals by the end of September 2024.

Gove’s letter also mentions a new ‘Super Squad’ of expert planners to work with the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Newham to accelerate developments.

Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) regulations have been brought into effect. BNG is an approach to development that makes sure that habitats for wildlife are left in a measurably better state than they were before the development. London Forum’s members could see how their local Council will apply the rules.

Details are in the publications of  the Government and of Natural England.

The Government consulted in July 2023 on relaxing Permitted Development Rights (PDR) restrictions for conversion in Class MA of commercial, business and service uses to residential. There is a House of Commons briefing paper on PDR and Change of Use. The Government’s further consultation on more PDR is here and runs until 9^th April 2024. It is proposed to remove size limits on buildings to be converted and no longer to consider how long they have been empty. The consultation covers also increased flexibility for householders to alter or extend their homes, more consideration of building upwards, changes to the rules for demolition of certain buildings and their rebuild plus new rules for electric charging points and installation of air source heat pumps.

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The Government has issued many planning proposals since December 2023. They include letters to LPA planning officers, as here. Michael Gove MP gave a speech on his intentions, issued a revised NPPF, published his Long Term Plan for Housing and issued instructions to LPAs to focus on brownfield land development. A consultation on the latter runs until 26^th March 2024. Read (more…) for press articles expressing doubt and concern about the latter.

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