MHCLG document Planning for the Future (12 March 2020) announces:
Measures to improve performance of local planning authorities
- Formula for calculating local housing need to recognise 300,000 dpa target
- Deadline of December 2023 for all LPA to have an up-to-date local plan
- Reform New Homes Bonus to reward delivery
- Reform planning fees to properly resource planning authorities
- Automatic rebate of planning application fee when schemes allowed on appeal
- New policy framework and development corporations in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc
- Increase use of local development orders
- Increase use of CPO to facilitate delivery
Measures to encourage house building
- Set out a “detailed housing strategy”
- Funds to regenerate brownfield land
- Encourage building upwards and at greater density.
- Consult on new PD rights to demolish vacant buildings and build houses
- Support for community-led and self-build housing
- Use infrastructure funding investment to unlock housing development
- New (unspecified) measures to ensure permissions are built out
Measures to deliver affordable housing
- Financial investment
- Transform Homes England “into a more muscular agency”
Measures to improve home ownership
- Consult on new scheme for First Homes at a discount
- New national shared ownership model
Future Policy Revision
- Conduct a “comprehensive review” of the planning system
- Embed principles of good design and place-making, including local expectations
- Building in areas of flood risk
- Carbon emission standards
- New Homes Ombudsman to stop “rogue developers” getting away with “shoddy work”
