Newington's Dan Stern provides an overview of the Government's Housing White Paper
If anybody was hoping that the publication of the Housing White Paper today would represent a radical shake-up of the UK planning system, they will no doubt be sorely disappointed, but hardly surprised. With last week’s delay reportedly due to the Prime Minister’s concern that the Paper was too inflammatory for backbench Tory MPs in rural constituencies, Javid’s proposal to tackle the housing crisis was always going to be more constrained than radical.
Shadow Housing Minister John Healey referred to the White Paper as “feeble beyond belief”, while Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron called it “unambitious and disappointing”. Even former Tory Housing Minister Grant Shapps suggested it “won't make much difference” when talking to the Daily Politics shortly after the Secretary of State had introduced the White Paper in Parliament.
Industry reaction has been more mixed. Some have given a cautious welcome to the Government’s seeming shift in focus away from solely homeownership to a variety of housing types. Others have criticised the lack of ambition and recycled initiatives within the White Paper leading to rallying calls for a cross-party political agreement to deal with the matter of increasing housing supply. Furthermore, many of the so called ‘announcements’ today were incredibly light on detail and will be subject to further rounds of consultation, thereby making it difficult to know with any certainty exactly what measures were announced today, as many are likely to change as they go through the aforementioned consultations.
Local Plans remain central to housing delivery with local authorities being asked to reassess their housing need and make land available “in the right places”. Mr Javid’s appearance on the Today programme this morning suggested that the emphasis will be on building high density schemes in urban areas with strong pre-existing transport links and this was confirmed when he made his statement in the Commons today. The glaring omission in the White Paper is the lack of Green Belt land release. While this will likely please local campaigners in rural areas, it’s difficult to see how local authorities that are struggling to meet pre-existing housing targets will find more land available without looking to the Green Belt. With many local authorities already being forced to include Green Belt land within their local plans to meet existing housing targets, the Government’s stance may not be enough to save its housing strategy from the ire of the Tory backbench further down the line.
As had been expected, the White Paper seeks to move away from Cameron’s focus on homeownership to provide some much-needed support for the long neglected PRS sector. Plans to encourage local authorities to focus on delivering PRS schemes and increased security for renters through longer term tenancies are among the key policies targeting the build to rent market.
Other measures include plans to tackle rogue landlords and remove letting agent fees. The inclusion of additional funding to help small to medium house builders challenge the major developers has long been expected. Other headlines in the Paper include efforts to increase the use of pre-built or modular housing and the introduction of a Lifetime ISA to encourage homeownership.
Newington consultants have taken a look through the White Paper and have produced a full round-up of the highlight announcements for the industry. If you would like to be sent a full briefing please let us know.
