Government
housebuilding targets risk allowing just under 165,000 new homes to bypass
scrutiny by the local community, a new analysis by the Local Government
Association has warned.
The LGA, which
represents more than 370 councils across England and Wales, is calling for the
Government to scrap its planned changes to the National Planning Policy
Framework which will impose often “undeliverable” housebuilding targets on
local areas and penalise councils and communities left powerless to ensure they
are met.
Under the
Government’s plans, local areas will be expected to meet new housing targets
imposed by Whitehall. If, by 2020, private house builders fail to build more
than 75 per cent of those targets, then developers will be able to ignore sites
agreed locally and build in places that communities did not want to include in
local plans.
As a result, more
than half of the target homes – just under 165,000 homes in 42 per cent of
council areas - could be built by bypassing local plans by the end of the
decade.
This means house
builders will be able to avoid other key factors expressed in local plans, such
as making sure the right types of homes are built in the right places, to
ensure these homes have appropriate infrastructure, and built to high
standards, and that enough affordable homes needed locally are actually
provided.
The LGA is calling
on the Government to replace measures that allow developers to build outside a
local plan with more positive tools for councils to ensure sites with planning
permission are built out more quickly.
The last time this
country built the amount of homes it needs, in the 70s, councils built 40 per
cent of them. The Government must trigger a renaissance in council house
building through enabling them to borrow to build more of the homes our
communities desperately need.
Cllr Martin Tett,
LGA Housing spokesman, said: “The planning system is not a barrier to
housebuilding – the opposite is true. Councils are approving 9 in 10
applications and last year worked with developers to approve 350,000 new homes,
the highest in more than a decade.
“It is completely
unfair to impose targets on communities which can only be met by private
developers, and then to penalise those local communities if those builders do
not deliver.
“This risks leading
to a housebuilding free-for-all which will bypass the needs of local
communities and could damage trust in the planning system. The Government needs
to scrap these plans to avoid this alarming scenario playing out across the
country.
“Councils are
committed to ensuring homes are built where they are needed. It is vital that
they have an oversight of local developments and are given the powers needed to
play a leading role in solving our national housing shortage.”
