Housing Green Paper

28-Sep-07

The Government have recently issued a Green Paper seeking views on proposals to increase the supply of housing, provide well designed, greener and more affordable homes. 

Index

This web page summarises and respond to the sections and chapters of the Green Paper as follows:

SECTION ONE: MORE HOMES TO MEET GROWING DEMAND

Housing stock is currently growing at a rate of 185,000 per year; however the demand for the number of households is projected to grow at 223,000 a year. The Green Paper sets Government housing growth targets of 240,000 per year by 2016 and states that this rate of growth will deliver 2 million additional homes by 2016 and 3 million additional homes by 2020.

The new homes are proposed to be delivered through:

  • Regional Spatial Strategies (1.6 million – 1.8 million)
  • New Growth Points (100,000 – 150,000)
  • Eco-towns (25,000 – 100,000)

Chapter 1: Delivering homes where they are needed

Expansion of New Growth Points

The government have launched a new bidding round for additional New Growth Points to achieve up to 50,000 extra homes. The programme is to be expanded to cover the whole of England, reflecting the government’s acknowledgement that housing growth is a national issue not just limited to the South East.

Recommended policy approach
The RTPI welcomes this approach as a means of taking growth to suitable locations to meet needs and that enjoy local community support.

Eco-towns

Eco-towns will be entirely new settlements which are exemplar green developments of between 5,000 and 20,000 homes. They should incorporate renewable energy systems, low and zero carbon technologies and meet the highest sustainability standards. The Green Paper states that the government are looking to develop five eco-towns, however, the Prime Minister recently announced that this has risen to ten. The Green Paper states that a large proportion of future investment in eco-towns will be made by the private sector.

Recommended policy approach
The RTPI supports this initiative and emphasises strongly that spatial planning tools, techniques and skills, and learnings from the new towns programme and comparisons with overseas programmes will benefit its delivery.

Community Infrastructure Fund

New Growth Points, Growth Areas and eco-towns will share in the £300 million Community Infrastructure Fund.

Recommended policy approach
The RTPI welcomes this funding in principle, subject to the positive resolution of issues raised below about the need for a clear direction in infrastructure development planning and funding.

Rural development

The Green Paper acknowledges the issues associated with first-time buyers getting on the housing ladder, particularly in rural areas where there is often a more limited supply of suitable land and a lack of affordable housing. The government has set up a Rural Housing Advisory Group in order to consider innovative and efficient ways of delivering more rural affordable housing. The Housing Corporation are undertaking a study to consider the case for a new time-limited funding programme to help organizations overcome local barriers to the provision of affordable homes in rural areas.

Recommended policy approach
The RTPI welcomes this approach which reflects issues raised previously by the RTPI in various policy fora and through our Rural Network.

Chapter 2: Delivery without needless delay – continuing planning reform

The Green Paper highlights the need to ensure that the planning system supports the goal of achieving 240,000 new homes every year and makes reference to the proposals outlined in the Planning White Paper to streamline the preparation of plans and the handling of applications.

Regional planning

The Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) will continue to be a major means of identifying the need for additional housing and its distribution. The government will encourage early reviews of housing provision in RSSs, particularly in areas of high demand. This review process will facilitate the proposals for new eco-towns and additional Growth Points. It is anticipated that all RSS reviews will be completed by 2011 to reflect plans for 240,000 homes a year by 2016.

The Green Paper also sets out longer-term changes to regional planning. This includes the requirement for a single strategy for each region that embraces the current RSS and Regional Economic Strategy to improve planning for homes in relation to jobs and infrastructure. An economic growth objective for each region will be set, requiring the spatial aspects of the regional strategy to set out the level of housing needed to match the level of projected growth in the region.

Recommended policy approach
The RTPI welcomes continue emphasis on the role of RSS in settling the volume and broad spatial distribution of housing. It welcomes the resolution of the relationship between RSS and RES. However, the RTPI strongly cautions that Regional Development Agencies as currently constituted lack the culture, resources and the expertise to make a credible part of the development plan. Further work to develop the planning as distinct from economic development functions of the RDAs will be essential and the RTPI will be seeking early discussions with Government to take this forward.

New local planning incentives

Increased pressures are to be placed on Local Council’s to bring forward suitable development land for housing through their LDFs. Priority is to be given to brownfield land and local targets should support the national target of at least 60% of new homes being built on brownfield land.

LPAs that do not currently have enough land identified to meet the five year requirement or respond to higher levels of homes through their RSS should not wait before identifying potential additional housing land and should draw up Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessments in line with PPS3.

From 2008 a new Housing and Planning Delivery Grant (HPDG) will reward the delivery of both the completion of new housing, the identification of at least five years worth of sites ready for development, and ten years worth in plans. The HPDG will be awarded to local authorities that meet their agreed development timetables for new housing.

Where local authorities have not identified enough land for housing, planning inspectors will be more likely to overturn their decisions and give housing applications the go ahead on appeal. The Secretary of State will not hesitate to use powers to recover planning appeals in order to reinforce PPS3 land supply policies.

Recommended policy approach
Whilst the RTPI broadly welcomes the commitment to the HPDG and notes that a substantial sum (£500m) has now been allocated in principle to support the grant, it retains concerns that the planning system, plan making and decision making deliver a wider portfolio of good to society than housing goods.

Further, there are locations where housing demand may be lower than average, but where planning authorities need to expend resources to achieve high level policy objectives, ranging from the safeguarding of valued landscapes and recreational opportunities in national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty or heritage coasts, to the conservation of world heritage sites and significant natural environment values. There are locations where it is necessary to carry out non revenue generating planning functions such as conservation area management or enforcement work, which may or may not have housing implications. The work of developing Local Development Frameworks across their broad content must continue, on subject matters that are not necessarily related to housing.

The administration of grant funding should not penalise or put at risk these and analogous legitimate functions of planning services.

Chapter 3: Public sector land use

The Green Paper states that unlocking surplus public sector land is an urgent priority for delivering additional new and affordable homes and sets out the target of 200,000 new homes to be delivered on surplus public sector land by 2016. This includes the potential for 60,000 new homes on surplus brownfield land held by local authorities. The minimum level of affordable housing provision on these sites will be 50%.

Recommended policy approach
The RTPI welcomes the utilisation of appropriately located surplus public land to create sustainable communities. However, care is required to ensure that in our desire to deliver housing numbers, we do not unduly emphasise the development of poorly located and serviced land, far from established or reasonably expandable infrastructures, employment, services and the like.

Local Housing Companies

The Green Paper identifies a new opportunity for local authorities to establish joint ventures with Local Housing Companies into which they will invest public land to develop new mixed communities and meet specific affordable and family housing needs. English Partnerships will support local authorities through the initiative by enabling them to unlock land for new housing and establish the quality and mix of development in their areas and providing financial and technical assistance.

Fourteen Local Housing Companies are to be created this year and it is estimated that they have the potential to deliver at least 35,000 new homes, with at least 17,500 affordable homes. The Government are inviting more local authorities to set up Local Housing Companies.

Recommended policy approach
This is a thoroughly welcome initiative.

Chapter 4: Recycling homes and land

Brownfield land

The Green Paper reiterates the Government’s national target of delivering 60% of new homes on brownfield land and states that local authorities need to continue to prioritise sustainable brownfield land in their development plans.

Recommended policy approach
A retained commitment to brownfield land is broadly welcomed, although careful monitoring of the migration of this land through the housing supply chain will be required.

Better use of existing buildings

The Green Paper acknowledges the issue of homes that are empty for long periods of time as a waste of valuable housing resources and places increased pressures on local authorities to reduce the number of empty homes as part of their strategic housing role.

A range of measures to achieve this are being explored and will include the new Housing and Planning Delivery Grant (HPDG). Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs) are to be retained to give local authorities powers to take over the management of some residential properties that have been empty for more than six months.

Recommended policy approach
These are welcome initiatives.

SECTION TWO: CREATING PLACES AND HOMES THAT PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE IN

Chapter 5: Infrastructure

The Green paper acknowledges the importance of providing access to good schools, healthcare, transport and other communitiy facilities for people who are moving into new homes.

CSR07 – supporting housing growth

The Government proposes to use the CSR07 performance management framework to move towards a more co-ordinated cross Government approach to housing growth, ensuring that it is a priority for the key infrastructure departments. This will include a clear plan for deliver that sets out how each infrastructure department will be responsible for delivering the requirements for housing targets.

The role of local government

Through their role in preparing Sustainable Community Strategies and Local Area Agrements, Local authorities will be responsible for adopting a co-ordinated approach to creating the necessary infrastructure to deiver housing growth. LPAs will be required to demonstrate sound infrastucture planning to support the proposals set out in their LDF. The Planning Inspectorate should consider the demonstration of infrastructure availability as part of the test of soundness of a development plan document.

Infrastructure funding

Funding for infrastructure to support new housing growth is already being provided by CLG through Growth Area funding (£1 billion) and New Growth Points (£40 million) between 2003 and 2008. The Green Paper states that the Government expect to significantly increase the scale of their funding to reflect the scale of the challenege to deliver.

The Community Infrastructure Fund (CIF) provides an additional £300 million for Frowth Areas, New Growth Points and eco-towns. It is designed to complement mainstream transport funding. Details on how to bid for the CIF will be announced in the autumn.

The Government is to seek substantial funding for infrastructure to support housing growth through private sector developer contributions.

Planning Gain Supplement

The Green Paper states that the use of PGS in order to generate extra resources for infrastructure delivery is the Government’s preffered option for capturing additional planning gain. However, in the light of concernts raised about certain aspects of the PGS proposal the Government is offering local authorities and developers further opportunity to discuss alternative approaches to PGS and sets out the following options for discussion:

Approach A

  • A lower rate PGS with lesser scale-back of planning obligations
  • Planning obligations continue to be based on test in Circular 5/05 Planning Obligations rather than scaled-back as proposed in the Government’s 2006 consultation document
  • Circular 5/05 tests to be placed on a statutory basis
  • Provision of increased certainty about local revenue strames for local authorities and developers
  • PGS could be lower as higher PGS revenues would not be needed to compensate for a loss of planning obligation benefits
  • All PGS revenues to be returned to the region from where they were raised

Approach B

  • PGS limited to greenfield sites (on average greenfield sites experience higher uplift as a result of planning permission)
  • Planning obligations continue to be based on test in Circular 5/05
  • May require EU State Aid approval

Approach C

  • A charging mechanism based on an expanded system of planning obligations
  • Amendments to Circ 5/05 to remove some or all of the policy restrictions
  • Easier for local authorities to develop policies seeking standard charges to mitigate the impact of development and fun fund infrastructure
  • Charges to be set out in Development Plan Documents with an evidence base that clearly links the charge level to infrastructure need

Approach D

  • A statutory requirement for local authorities to require developers to pay average standard charges based on the total costs of infrastructure in the area
  • Easier for local authorities to collect contributions to infrastructure costs in areas in which a large proportion of developments are of smaller-scale

Recommended policy approach
The RTPI welcomes the proposals in Chapter 5, but considers that there will be a number of keys to their success.

  • The government must clarify its intentions for the PGS in the near future, as doubt over PGS liability and application will shortly inhibit investment decisions about infrastructures that will bear strongly on housing delivery.
  • Local Infrastructure Plans and Programmes for allocated growth sites should be included in the Local Development Framework
  • These should identify the necessary infrastructures and areas to which the costs of those infrastructures can reasonably be attributed
  • A tariff or charge should then be levyable to fund infrastructure delivery.
  • There is scope for a ‘balance of area’ PGS charge for windfall and small housing sites that generate new infrastructure demands but are too small to fall within the scope of a Local Infrastructure Plan and Programme.

The RTPI has done considerable technical work to support the development of such a system and should continue to work hard with government and other stakeholders to promote this. This work is broadly compatible with elements of approaches C and/or D or a composite of both, and discussions with government should proceed on this basis.

Chapter 6: Well designed homes and places

The Green Paper highlights the importance of creating places and communities where people want to live and work and ensuring that good design that is flexible and responsive to the changing needs of society is utilised.

Housing mix

PPS 3 states that local authorities should promote and create sustainable, inclusive, mixed communities that meet the needs of all members of the community and the Green Paper emphasises the importance of continuing this approach.

The need for family homes is also discussed following the adoption by the Housing Corporation of a target to ensure that 35% of new social rented homes entering the programme have three or more bedrooms. The Government are to consider further ways of providing larger homes in the private sector and through shared ownership and social housing.

The need to provide housing for an ageing population is also identified in the Green Paper with the Government requiring that RSSs and LDFs consider this demographic trend when developing policies for new housing and infrastructure.

Recommended policy approach
These are welcome initiatives. The RTPI is particularly aware of the need to house an ageing population and will shortly complete Good Practice Note 8 on Extracare Housing, researched and drafted in partnership with the Department of Health.

Green spaces

The Green Paper highlights the need for good to design to ensure that new house building reaches higher environmental standards by providing more green spaces. In order to achieve this the government are proposing to continue their support of CABE Space, an initiative assisting local authorities with green space strategies, and the Green Flag Award Scheme, the national standard for parks and green spaces.

The Growth Areas and New Growth Points programmes will focus on improving the interface between the urban and rural environments, the restoration of countryside to a more natural state, the protection of habitats and the integration of green spaces with urban development.

Recommended policy approach
These are welcome initiatives, but highlight also the virtue of some measure of re-appraisal of the role and sustainability of Green Belts. More active management of open land retained as such for public benefit is strongly to be encouraged.

Chapter 7: Greener homes

The Green Paper clearly highlights climate change as one of the greatest challenges we face and acknowledges the significant contribution that the way we heat, light and run our homes makes to current carbon emissions.

Zero carbon homes

In order to achieve the target of achieving zero carbon homes by 2016 the Government will make changes to Building Regulations to achieve a 35% reduction in carbon emissions by in 2010 and to achieve a 44% reduction by 2013. The Government believe that it should be mandatory for all homes to be rated against the Code for Sustainable Homes with proposed stamp duty land tax relief for the vast majority of zero carbon new homes.

Existing homes

The Government are working with the Energy Saving Trust to improve the energy efficiency of existing homes and are funding an industry-led scheme to certify installers and manufacturers of microgeneration equipment to build consumer confidence in these technologies.

Recommended policy approach
The initiatives above are welcome and respond well to previous RTPI policy positions.

Flood risk and development

The Green Paper acknowledges the crucial role that the planning system can play in addressing the flood risk of a new development. The Government are currently undertaking a review of the 2007 floods and will then consider whethere there are any implications from the findings on how new policies on flooding and new development are implemented. A PPS on Planning and Climate Change will be published later this year along with a Practice Guidance companion to PPS25 Development and Flood Risk. The Green Paper does not rule out future house building in flood risk areas.

Recommended policy approach
There is always a balance to be struck between supporting the natural growth of existing settlements in flood prone areas, not entailing excessive investment or unsustainable works, and the in principle virtue of retaining a naturally unimpeded flood plain and flood storage area.

SECTION THREE: MAKING HOUSING MORE AFFORDABLE

Chapter 8: More social housing

The Government recognises the need to provide social housing for those unable to afford to rent or buy a home of their own and estimates there will be a need to at least 40,000 new social rented homes per year.

Social homes

Over the next three years the Government will invest a total of £6.5 billion through the Housing Corporation and proposed new homes agency and has set the target of building 45,000 new social homes a year by 2010-2011.

The private sector

The Green Paper highlights the Government’s desire to further involve the private sector in delivering social homes as both a developer and a contractor. This includes continuing to seek social housing within market housing development as part of the privae sector developer contribution.

Local authorities

The Green Paper also highlights the Government’s desire for local authorities to play a greater role in facilitating the supply of affordable housing through their strategic housing role and by aligning housing plans with the planning framework.

Recommended policy approach
The initiatives in Chapter 8 are welcome and respond well to previous RTPI policy positions. An increased housing role for local authorities is welcome in principle, however government must note that this will require considerable effort to restock the human resources of local authorities with relevant professionals, able to site, design, procure and deliver housing.

Chapter 9: Helping first time buyers

The Green Paper sets out the Governments commitment to supporting first time buyers and those on low incomes in the housing market.

The Government will increasingly be looking to secure provision of affordable housing as part of private sector development through developer contributions. The Green Paper identifies Community Land Trusts, Land Swap Levies and community bonds as potential methods of delivering more affordable housing in rural rural areas.

Plans to extend the Social Homebuy scheme that enables social tenants to buy a share in their existing home while paying rent on the part they do not own are set out. The Government wish to make this scheme more widely available.

Recommended policy approach
These are welcome initiatives that support an underlying vision of a move towards mixed tenure communities in which housing stock more frequently migrates in and out of market freehold, rental and social tenures. In this regard, more work is required to examine the virtues and duration of planning policies seeking to deliver social and shared ownership housing through the development process, as distinct from more holistic tenure monitoring and place management processes.

Chapter 10: Improving the way the mortgage market works

It is is considered that this section is not specifically relevant to the planning system, although its presence in the Green Paper is strongly welcomed, as evidence of the government’s commitment to consideration of housing issues in the round.

SECTION FOUR: DELIVERY – HOW WE MAKE IT HAPPEN

Chapter 11: Skills and construction

The Green Paper highlights the need for enough skilled workers to deliver housing growth, higher environmental standards and better places to live as a major issue in the light of current recruitment and retention difficulites and skills gaps in certain areas.

The Academy for Sustainable Communities is seeking to bring more people into the build environment profession and to improve training to ensure the sills to facilitate and improve housing delivery are available.

There has been a significant increase in the number of students on RTPI accredited planning courses – risen from 618 in 2001/2 to 3,390 in 2005/6.

Recommended policy approach
The RTPI has played a strong part in delivering a new cohort of planners. However, wider questions around the availability of broader design and construction skills are still being asked by the ASC. More work is needed.

Chapter 12: Implementation – a shared endeavour

Involving local communities

The Green Paper sets out the need to ensure that local people are genuinely involved in the debate about housing growth and that their concerns on supporting infrastructure are addressed. Local authorities will be required to provide evidence about housing pressures, demand and supply and the processes that shape decisions on housing locally in order to effectively involve local communities in debate.

This will be achieved through developing a ‘toolkit’ of information to ensure local communities are equipped to resolve the problems of housing locally. The ‘toolkit’ will include:

  • House prices and affordability data
  • Projections of household demand
  • Information on the local waiting list for council housing
  • Data from local housing market assessments
  • Details of the local authority’s five year supply of land
  • Examples of succesful forms of community engagement events
  • Opportunities for local people to engage in emerging local development frameworks

The toolkit will be linked to resources such as www.communityplanning.net , an RTPI supported resource.


Recommended policy approach
These initiatives are a welcome contribution to broadening the public debate about the need for, location of and impact of housing development. However, further significant efforts will be required to provide the information and culture change in local political life necessary to end the apparent disconnect between national and regional perceptions of the serious need for action to deliver homes and still widespread perceptions of housing proposals not enjoying local popular support.

Local authority - strategic role

Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are identified in the Green Paper as an important tool in raising the profile and improving the delivery of housing. Local authorities are expected to consider carefully how housing supply or other relevant targets should feature in their LAAs. Central and local government are working together to develop and implement a joint improvement and efficiency strategy to provide support for local authorities and their partneres in helping them deliver LAAs.

Local authorities can also make the delivery of housing more expedient by providing more land and the Green Paper states that they must take responsibility for embedding the new market-responsive approach to the delivery of land for housing and not reply in speculative windfall development.

Recommended policy approach
The RTPI considers that there is significant potential to further integrate the role of LAAs in the identification and delivery of infrastructures to meet local need and in infrastructure planning.

Local Delivery Vehicles

There are a number of Local Delivery Vehicles (LDVs) such as Urban Regeneration Companies, Special Venture Vehicles and Urban Development Corporations as meachnisms which can improve the prospects and pace of housing delivery. The Green Paper welcomes views on the range of LDV models that might be used to best deliver its ambitious housing targets.

Recommended policy approach
Whilst local delivery vehicles are often essential to develop the impetus for change and to deliver the skills necessary for implementation, the RTPI has concerns about short life programmes and the creation of enuring benefit to communities.

Home building industry

The Government have set out their ambitions for encouraging developers to bring forward land more swiftly in the light of anecdotal evidence of a practice whereby developers obtain planning permission but delay building a scheme in the hope of the land value increasing. The Government are currently considering further measures to incentivise developers to build out major housing development sites more quickly through the developmetn control process.

Recommended policy approach
This element to of the white paper represents a strong and positive response to the RTPI’s concerns and policy direction provided in our recent report on landbanking. The RTPI continues to press strongly for a consistent means of reporting land holdings both for planning purposes and to the City.

REGIONS AND NATIONS CONSIDERATIONS

Concerns have been expressed within RTPI Cymru that the Green Paper has potential implications for Wales, for example through its infrastructure planning and PGS proposals, but the precise nature and application of these to Wales or their relationship with Wales Government policy is not clearly thought through. Work is ongoing to clarify a Wales policy position for incorporation into the final RTPI response.

CONCLUSIONS

The Green Paper contains many valuable initiatives and proposals that are broadly supportable by the RTPI, including making a number of direct and positive responses to pre-existing RTPI policy positions. Broadly it is proposed to welcome the Green Paper, whilst continuing the debate with government and related stakeholders to promote RTPI policy positions.

Members are asked to respond to the recommended policy approaches and other relevant considerations as a key input into the direction of the RTPI’s draft response on the Green Paper.

 

 
Author:
Rynd Smith and Kate Halle
Publisher:
The Royal Town Planning Institute
Date:
28-Sep-07
Categories:
Practice, Policy 
Sections:
What Planning Does

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