The RTPI champions the power of planning in creating prosperous places and vibrant communities. As learned society, we use our expertise and research to bring evidence and thought leadership to shape planning policies and thinking. As a professional body, we have over 27,000 members across all sectors, and are responsible for setting formal standards for planning practice and education.
Q5. Do you agree with the evidence base and theory we have set out on build out rates?
The RTPI recognises the Government’s ambitions to ensure planning permissions are built out in timely manner. We note in particular the findings from the Letwin and Competition Markets Authority reviews as being key sources of information in this regard. However, there are a number of factors that we believe need fuller consideration of in order to design targeted interventions. This would include a fuller appraisal of the role of land promoters in progressing residential developments through the planning system. This is important as land promoters may play a key role in submitting build out schedules but will not be responsible for the future delivery of homes. There are also several factors that influence build out rates that have not been fully explored in the working paper as discussed in response to Q10, which will merit a more comprehensive review before proposals should be taken forward.
Q6. How could we go further to support models of housebuilding which build faster, such as small sites, strategically master-planned and mixed tenure?
It is important that Local Plans (LPs) reflect a mixture of smaller sites that can be built out more quickly by SMEs and larger sites that can support the delivery of strategic infrastructure. The RTPI believes that through proposed plan-making reforms there is a significant opportunity to shape how allocations can better support diversity in the market, catering for a range of sizes and development types. The impending revision of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and associated guidance relating to the new style of LPs is anticipated to provide further detail for the expectations of plan-makers in the preparation and presentation of key “components” of plans described in the principles, such as site allocations and how they related to small sites and large strategic masterplanned sites.
In order to go further in this regard, the Government needs to improve the coverage of up-to-date Local Plans in this country, with only around one third of local planning authorities having adopted a local plan in the last 5 years. Fundamentally, this will include putting in place substantial, long term resourcing solutions to address capacity issues in LP Teams. Our recent State of Profession 2023 report has highlighted a contraction of public spending on planning of 16% between 2009 and 2022[1]. These findings are supported by the recent publication of the Local Authority Planning Capacity and Skills Survey 2023 from MHCLG which identified around three in four planning departments reporting significant barriers to resourcing[2]. Such budgetary contractions are particularly concerning given the new Government’s growth agenda, which we anticipate will bring forward a significant increase in planning applications and a more acute need to prepare, amend and adopt LPs. The impending increased demand in planning services has been reflected in modelling work undertaken by the LGA on anticipated cost pressures for local government. This work reported an anticipated additional 6.2% spend increase in planning and development services from 2026/27 compared to 2024/25[3]. On the ground, cuts to services have resulted in planning departments reporting widespread problems with recruitment, retention and skills gaps. The MHCLG’s Local Authority Planning Capacity and Skills Survey 2023 reported that 62% of local planning authorities had a skills gap in their workforce relating to masterplanning and design codes. This is a key consideration if we wish to see planning authorities take an enhanced role in strategic masterplanning. Whilst reference is made to new Development Corporations (DC) in their role of strategic masterplanning, the RTPI is concerned that the establishment of new DCs could create wider strains on the planning system, through recruiting skilled senior planners away from local authorities.
The RTPI is concerned that any delays to the publication of the revised NPPF and NDMPs will create further uncertainty and delay in the system, hampering local authorities in their ambitions to prepare and adopt local plans. Combined with uncertainty deriving from impending local government reforms, local plan coverage could become even lesser across the country.
Q7. For mixed tenure, what would you consider to be an appropriate threshold level?
We acknowledge that a lower threshold could achieve better social mixes but would need to be balanced against the risk of impacting the viability of certain sites. In general terms the RTPI supports the principal of securing housing product diversity on larger sites, especially that which seeks to go further than market housing and affordable housing, identifying specialist housing needs such as Build-to-Rent and retirement housing.
The degree to which an appropriate threshold may be set, depends on the nature of the mixed tenure proposition and it may be difficult to identify thresholds and compositions nationally to be applied across markets locally which are very different in characteristic. For example, appetite for Build-to-Rent developments varies significantly across the country[4]. We therefore would wish to see more detail around the expectations of mixed tenure sites and how these can reflect local market conditions. Again, the role of land promoters and submission of outline applications would be a key consideration as tenure mixes are not always known at this stage and often a developer has not been secured.
Q8. Do you have any views on how the proposed CPO measures would work best in practice?
The RTPI supports the implementation of reforms introduced by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 to allow the conditional confirmation of CPOs. However, as set out in our recent response to Compulsory Purchase Process and Compensation Reforms , we strongly encourage Government to take a broad and ambitious view on modernising the CPO process and set out further opportunities to be explored. We note that in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill impact assessment the savings anticipated from CPO reform are modest at £2.5million and therefore a managed expectation of the outcome of such reforms is needed. Whilst the aforementioned modernisation of the CPO process could bring particular benefit in terms of reducing the administrative costs of undertaking the CPO process and potentially expedite the process, a more comprehensive appraisal of barriers to their use in the public sector would be welcomed, noting the work of the Law Commission in these regards. We also note some caution around expediting CPOs on allocated sites as this may disincentivise sites to be promoted though the Local Plan preparation. As discussed in response to Q13 we believe that a fuller exploration and roll out of partnership model approaches to stalled sites could be of great benefit.
Q.9 How should MHCLG guide local authorities and developers towards reasonable build out schedules (noting that ultimately this will be negotiated locally)?
The RTPI notes the potential benefit of developers/promoters submitting build out schedules upfront, and updating data over time makes the monitoring of housing delivery and 5YLS more straight forward for an LPA. However, we also recognise such an approach could create conflicts in the system, particularly regarding assumptions put forward by developers/promoters to establish build out rates. With the threat of a Delayed Homes Penalty there may be a reduction in transparency between developers and LPAs over likely build-out rates with developers/promoters incentivised to exercise excessive caution in this regard. This could inadvertently lead to shortfalls in 5YHLS. An option that could be explored is setting a benchmark delivery rate based on historic local delivery. Whether an LPA could comfortably refuse an application based solely on pessimistic build out rates remains a question.
Q10. What are the right set of exemptions for external factors that impact build out rates? Should this include economic downturns which reduce sales rates, or does that mean that payments would be too weak to induce the shift toward the partnerships business models we want to see?
In order for the assumptions on build out rates to be reasonable, and the monitoring of the development progress reports to be robust and fair, a complex array of factors need considered beyond what has been proposed in the paper and the technical consultation. A comprehensive understanding of the interrelated factors will be crucial if we are to create a system that does not penalise under-delivery which has come about for legitimate reasons and avoid protracted legal disputes. This would include, for example:
- Issues relating to previously developed land such as remediation.
- Timing of infrastructure delivery relating to third parties.
- Lack of Registered Providers able to take on S106 dwellings.
- Market demand including interest rates.
- Timely consents being received across the wider regulatory environment.
- Legislative and policy changes.
- Changes to viability post consent such as construction and finance costs.
Such factors will also likely vary across localities and throughout the country. The potential difficulties establishing how external factor exemptions are applied could undermine confidence of how this system will work in practice and potentially impact upon land coming forward for development. Furthermore, the RTPI recognises that there may be scenarios when there may be a delay of delivery for developer against a build-out schedule put forward by a land promoter. The proposed exemptions in the paper may also need further development. For example, at what degree of macro-economic downturn could the exemption be triggered?
Q11. For the Delayed Homes Penalty, do you agree with the intention to use it to incentivise the shift towards higher build out models of housebuilding?
The RTPI understands the desire to incentivise faster build out rates, however we are greatly concerned that proposals would constitute a significant new and unfunded resource burden to LPAs, whilst potentially creating a system that is complex and adversarial.
Q12. How should the Penalty be calculated? What are the strengths and weaknesses of using a percentage of house price, or reference to local council tax rates? What information would local authorities require?
The RTPI is unclear how the house price rate would be clearly defined to calculate a percentage of the expected house price. Details on how the receipts from the proposed DHP could be spent would be welcomed.
Q13. Are there wider options you think worth worthy of consideration that could help speed up build out of housing?
The RTPI has previously called on the Government to substantially increase public subsidy for the direct delivery of affordable homes by councils and RPs and welcome the recent announcements in the spending review relating to affordable housing investment. Beyond financial stimulus there are a number of process related improvements that could be explored, as well as improved collaborative partnership working models.
Negotiations for CIL/s.106 currently can add significant delay and complexity to the planning process and slow the delivery of housing. We also note a separate Government work strand relating to the reform of regimes and await to see progression on the matter. Separately we also recognise elements of the working paper that point to improving ways in which data is collated and shared, in particular relating to build-out rates and monitoring housing land supply. The RTPI sees a clear role for the MHCLG Digital Planning Programme, especially relating to proposals for digital innovation in the preparation and monitoring of the next generation of LPs.
In terms of ways of working there is still a clear need to improve the collaborative working between developers, LPAs, statutory consultees and infrastructure providers to help reduce the time between planning consent and first completions. Regarding stalled sites we urge the Government to continue to build on successful partnership model such as across public and private with the aim of sharing risk and unblocking sites. In particular, we recognise the potential benefit of having regards to further development of the Homes England’s New Homes Accelerator programme alongside the rejuvenation of the Advisory Team for Large Applications (ATLAS) programme.
Q14. Do you anticipate any environmental impacts from these proposals that the government must consider and the Environmental Principles Policy Statement?
No comment.
Q15. Do you anticipate these proposals giving rise to any impacts on people who share a relevant protected characteristic, as defined by the Equality Act 2010, that the government must consider under the Public Sector Equality Duty?
No comment.
[1] RTPI State of the Profession
[2] Local Authority Planning Capacity and Skills Survey 2023
[3] LGA analysis of multiple public data sources
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