Angela Rayner’s house-building policies will actually mean fewer homes are built, industry experts have warned. The Deputy Prime Minister is proposing tough measures “to get the homes we need” and keep her pledge to provide 1.5 million new residences. However the Housing Forum, which represents councils and housing associations as well as builders, warned the measures “would pit councils and developers against each other in costly and slow legal battles”.
Ms Rayner last month launched a consultation about measures designed to stop developers acquiring sites for housing and then sitting on them for years, or leaving construction of new estates unfinished. She wants them to set out how long work will take when they apply for planning permission, and to publish annual reports setting out their progress. Those that fail to carry out building work could have to pay a “Delayed Homes Penalty” of thousands of pounds per property to the local council, while the site could eventually be acquired by the authority.
They could also be placed on a blacklist so they are denied planning permission in the future.
It follows claims that some developers buy land and wait for the value to increase rather than building properties. Ms Rayner, in her role as Communities Secretary, is in charge of implementing Labour’s general election manifesto pledge to “get Britain building again, creating jobs across England, with 1.5 million new homes over the next Parliament.”
But the policy, known as Build Out transparency, will backfire according to the Housing Forum. It warns that creating “a complex new legal framework into planning” would add to red tape and make the planning process more complex, causing delays. The Forum, which includes local councils that deal with planning applications across the country, says developers buy up land to ensure they have a “pipeline” of sites ready for building without delays rather than to make a profit on rising prices.
The Housing Forum’s Director of Policy and Public Affairs, Anna Clarke, said: “Having consulted with our members from across the housing sector – including councils, housing associations, developers and legal firms who advise the sector – we believe that attempting to impose financial penalties on housebuilders for slow buildout rates would be counter productive to the intended policy ambition of speeding up housebuilding.
Rather than encouraging collaborative solution-finding to the complex issues around build-out rates and stalled sites, the proposed measures would pit councils and developers against each other in costly and slow legal battles, with councils expressing fears that this could “turn into a mud-slinging match between councils and developers over who is to blame”.
The measure would put up the cost of housing because it would increase the risk involved in buying land, meaning developers were forced to pay more to borrow funding, the forum said.
And it would make firms more cautious about buying any land where there could be difficulties involved in building, such as former industrial land known as brownfield land which might require cleaning up – even though many local authorities are keen for un-used brownfield sites to be put to good use.