Inside Housing – Home – Reeves pledges to overhaul planning and ‘get Britain building’

National Housing Federation Kate Henderson, said the organisation welcomed Reeves’ proposals.
“It’s powerful to be at a conference where housing is at the top of the agenda, and it’s been particularly welcome to see the recognition of the central role that social and affordable housing ought to play in tackling this national crisis.
“Planning departments across the country are low on capacity, causing unnecessary delays to the approval of much needed social housing. Labour’s commitment to addressing this critical lack of resource with additional planning officers is a vital step in speeding up delivery of new affordable homes and something we’ve been calling for.”
James Prestwich, director of policy and external affairs at Chartered Institute of Housing, said: “It is positive to see housing feature so prominently in the shadow chancellor’s speech today and more widely across the conference. The proposals outlined so far are sensible, pragmatic solutions to some key elements of our dysfunctional housing market. Local authority planning departments are under-resourced and under-funded and boosting capacity can play an important role in reducing delays in the planning system. 
Ms Reeves’ speech followed comments published at the weekend that Labour would speed up planning by reviewing rules about construction on green belt land, as part of the party’s target to build 1.5 million new homes over five years. 
Ms Reeves told the Sunday Times: “We’re not talking about turning the beautiful countryside into housing developments. What we’re talking about is a common sense approach where local authorities and local people can go ahead with development on areas that are ripe for development, while still protecting our natural environment.”
“We know that some greenbelt land can be of low quality, and limited value and may include things like former car parks or petrol stations,” said Ms Henderson. “Given the chronic shortage of homes we have in England – one of our most serious domestic challenges – it seems sensible to use some of this land to deliver the homes we sorely need, whilst protecting the parts of the green belt that play a vital role in our ecosystem.
Meanwhile, Angela Rayner’s speech on Sunday pledged that the Labour Party would oversee “the biggest boost in affordable and social housing for a generation”.
“We will strengthen the rules to prevent developers from wriggling out of their responsibilities and we will speed up the building of new social and affordable housing,” she stated.
Mr Prestwich added: “The green belt remains an emotive, contentious issue. We would argue a mature debate on the designation and use of green-belt land is long overdue and would welcome the opportunity to engage with any future government on how to deliver an approach that gets the right balance between building new homes and conserving the environment.”
 
Update: at 15.45am, 09.10.23 – Comment added from Kate Henderson.



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