Will new Government policy deliver the homes we need where we need them?

28.11.06

Advance Briefing

1. The Government is expected to publish its long awaited planning policy on housing, PPS3, in the next few days. This will set out principles for the level, location and type of new housing and guidelines which planning authorities must follow in allocating land for housing and deciding whether to give planning permission to developers. The new policy is critical for the future of our environment, countryside and quality of life.
2. CPRE believes new housing should contribute more to urban renewal and meet the needs of those who cannot afford to buy or rent housing on the open market. In rural communities, the focus should be on meeting local needs, rather than market demand. We will look carefully at the new policy and be available for comment.
3. The background to the new policy is the review of housing supply commissioned by HM Treasury and carried out by leading economist Kate Barker. The policy is expected to take forward some of Ms Barker’s recommendations. Key among these was the recommendation that we needed to build more homes in order to address issues of affordability.
4. CPRE accepts we need more homes. But decisions about how many and where, should be based on an area’s capacity to take development without damaging environmental quality, and also on evidence of local housing needs. We question the contention that in order to make homes more affordable we simply need to build more market housing.
5. We need to think much more carefully about the type of housing built to ensure that it is genuinely affordable and fosters sustainable patterns of development, rather than car-based sprawl. This will entail making best use of resources, including land, water, energy and materials, and existing housing, and steering the majority of new development to areas where jobs and services can easily be reached on foot, by bicycle and public transport.
6. The planning system should encourage better use of the existing housing stock and look to the resources and potential across the country as a whole, rather than focusing development on the wider South East of England. Last year, for example the number of empty homes in the North West rose 10%. How we plan is crucial. For example, the benefits of compact communities are made clear in Sir Nicholas Stern’s recent report on the economics of climate change; it notes their potential for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
7. We welcome the Government’s continued commitment to a brownfield first approach, in which derelict, wasted land is used for new housing before greeenfields are built on. Yet unless the new PPS is strengthened in comparison with the draft policy published last year, this could be hard to achieve in practice. Without such an approach, declining urban areas and communities may not get the investment and regeneration they need and their problems could worsen.
8. CPRE will be scrutinising the new PPS carefully; the devil may be in the detail. In particular, we will be looking for a policy that:

• requires plans and decisions on where and how many homes should be built to take full account of their effect on the environment and the views of local communities on how their area should develop in future;
• secures well-designed homes that respond to local needs in terms of size, affordability and mix of housing – houses with gardens for families with children as well as flats for smaller households. We need to create new neighbourhoods with a sense of place;
• requires developers and decision makers to make the best use of resources, by ensuring homes are energy and resource efficient and use sustainable construction methods;
• secures better use of the existing housing and other building stock;
• places a high priority on urban regeneration, requiring planning authorities to undertake comprehensive assessments of urban capacity and maximise opportunities on urban brownfield sites in plans and decisions;
• gives planning authorities powers to secure affordable housing based on local needs assessments;
• ensures new housing development fosters sustainable patterns of development and lifestyles, by reducing the need to travel, giving priority to pedestrians and cyclists and building new homes in areas where services and jobs can be easily reached on foot, by bicycle or public transport; and
• looks to the potential and resources across the country as a whole, rather than focusing growth in the pressured southern regions, and includes measures to manage demand and growth within environmental limits where this is needed.
  

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