House of Commons debate – Role of developers, housebuilders, and management companies in new homes January 2022

To meet the Government’s aspirations for the build out of new homes to help deliver 300,000 new homes per year, the Government needs to provide councils with the tools to encourage and oblige developers to build out sites with permission in a swift and timely manner.

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Key messages

  • Councils already play a vital role in housing supply as planning and housing authorities, as partners with house builders and registered providers, as direct builders, as providers of homes for the most vulnerable and as local place leaders. Local authorities have historically played a key role in delivering housing at scale in England.
  • Analysis undertaken in 2019 showed that councils were planning to build more than 77,000 homes in the next five years, and while the implications of COVID-19 will impact these projections, councils remain well placed to take a lead role in housebuilding.
  • Planning is not a barrier to housing delivery and growth. Nine in 10 planning applications are approved by councils, and there are more than a million homes given planning permission in the last decade not yet built. 2,782,300 homes have been granted planning permission by councils since 2010/11 but over the same period only 1,627,730 have been built. In addition, LGA analysis shows that developers are yet to seek planning permission for more than a million earmarked homes.
  • Councils need the tools to both require and incentivise landowners and developers to build high quality homes in a timely way once planning permissions or local plan allocations are given.
  • Councils are committed to getting homes built where they are needed but do not have all the planning powers to ensure it happens once planning permission has been granted. To meet the Government’s aspirations for the build out of new homes to help deliver 300,000 new homes per year, the Government needs to provide councils with the tools to encourage and oblige developers to build out sites with permission in a swift and timely manner.
  • Post-pandemic, people want their local area to have high-quality affordable homes built in the right places, supported by the right infrastructure, which provides enough schools, promotes greener and more active travel, and tackles climate change. This can only be achieved through a locally-led planning system with public participation at its heart which enables councils to deliver resilient, prosperous places that meet the needs of their communities. Building Back Locally will ensure that we support the Government’s goal to Build Back Better, driving up housing supply and supporting local areas to deliver more safe, secure, housing that meets local needs.
  • The LGA supports the Government’s increased focus on design, which should include thinking about how places work within their wider context, their ability to adapt and mitigate for the effects of climate change, beyond individual houses, developments, and their aesthetics. The Government’s proposals to allow ‘beautiful’ development to be fast-tracked may not lead to the quality homes and places communities want and need. Councils need tools that will empower them to create great quality homes and places and stop poor development, rather than supporting those deemed to be ‘beautiful’.
  • As the we set out in our response to the Government’s consultation into Supporting Housing Delivery and Public Service Infrastructure, the LGA is also concerned about proposals for new permitted development rights (PDR). The Government’s own research highlighting how conversions to residential through change of use PDR can fail to meet adequate design standards, avoid contributing to local areas and create worse living environments. The report also found that PDR undermined the ability of councils to bring about positive changes to their places by limiting their influence to repurpose town centre assets. Councils and their communities have already been left with a long-term legacy of negative impacts resulting from some of the 19 amendments to the General Permitted Development Order since 2015.

Additional information

House building

Planning reforms