Changes to planning

[The Arable Farmer]

As above, any thoughts on the proposed planning changes? Will this be the end of the planning process as we have known for generations??

 

[devonboy]

sounds like fingers in pies to me.

 

[George from SJM Planning]

No, it will all be diluted by the time it become law.
There was senationalisation in the press of the Permitted Development changes that were made on 1st August but the parameters are quite tight in reality

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

If it is to be anywhere near as momentous as the BBC are suggesting every borough which has a current local plan would have to start again and those without one to get moving on one sharpish.

 

[Formatted]

I am a district councillor I'm elected to make decisions for planning, the number of quite angry emails I receive from locals will show you that if you expect by giving powers to residents to select land for houses to unlock the housing process, you'll find you will have much fewer houses will be built.

 

[Muddyroads]

I just wish they would allow former agricultural yards etc. to be considered brown field sites. Doesn’t sound like it yet though.

 

[The Arable Farmer]

I can see problems if the try to put every square inch of Engalnd in one of 3 categories

 

[db9go]

A lot of the time its not councils or the planning department its the other lot like EA and Highways who cause more problems until that lot are sorted nothing will happen

 

[George from SJM Planning]

A lot of the time its not councils or the planning department its the other lot like EA and Highways who cause more problems until that lot are sorted nothing will happen

As Highways and EA are statutory consultees on most forms of application then we will always have to deal with them. We now have Flood Risk Consultants and Transport Consultants on speed dial.

 

[Steevo]

A lot of the time its not councils or the planning department its the other lot like EA and Highways who cause more problems until that lot are sorted nothing will happen

Or developers playing the system!

 

[db9go]

Or developers playing the system!

No I dont think they are its the all the rest

 

[Steevo]

No I dont think they are its the all the rest

As I understand it...

Developers know local authorities need a 5 year plan to meet govt housebuilding targets. They local authorities therefore need the developers to be building or they risk fines.

The developers know this (and headhunt local authorities planning employees) and will play them by saying site A we had planning for can’t now be included in the plan as it’s not build ready because of xyz so we need planning on this new site for you to submit your 5yr plan by the deadline. Often that new site is a controversial one that would not normally get planning, but the council are over a barrel.

That’s what I’ve seen anyway.

@George from SJM Planning may know better than me.

 

[robs1]

Everyone says we need more housing.

As long as it's not near them then they dont want it

 

[Steevo]

I would love to know why we “need” more housing.

Is population growth in this country really that high...?

Are other countries building as fast..?

 

[Formatted]

I would love to know why we “need” more housing.

I'm in my late 20's and none of my friends from University, who all now are young professionals in good jobs can afford to buy a house. They will spend the majority of their life paying rent, transferring wealth to an older generation that has already seen the large gains in property value.

We need to build so much housing that there is no restriction on supply otherwise when I am 70 and looking to retire, I will be unable to because I haven't been able to buy a house and pay off the mortgage.

To be honest, I'm a Conservative but I would quite like to see Housing England being given more powers and more money to build affordable housing via compulsory purchase

 

[TheTallGuy]

Ban second/holiday homes, tax buy to let and Airbnb to the hilt and suddenly the housing crisis won't be half as bad.... Then apply some common sense to the planning rules to fix the other part!

 

[Swarfmonkey]

BTL is taxed. Indeed, the tax changes that have been made to BTL property over the last few years have made it a whole lot less attractive to the one-or-two property BTL types than it was. I can't see banning second/holiday homes making much, if any, difference at all.

The "housing crisis" is more a "not enough housing in areas where people actually want to live crisis" than anything else, and that's reflected in the prices. After all, there's no shortage of cheap housing in places like Preston where you can pick up 2 bed terraced places for £75k whilst the same type of housing within 10 miles of where I live would cost you £300k, minimum.

 

[Goweresque]

Well one of two things will happen if this proposal makes it to law: either land development zoning will become truly locally controlled, in which case virtually no development will happen at all, as every site will always be opposed by the local population, or it will become a virtually copy of what we have now (the Local Plan system) except that once the Local Authority has done its calculations as to which land should be built on there will be a 'democratic' vote on their proposals, whereby the choice will be between Plans A, B and C only, all of which contain roughly the same amount of development land, just distributed differently. The voters will not be given the chance to vote down development entirely, so all the power will still lie with the local authority, pretty much as now.

Either way I can't see any more land being available for development than it is now, and no more houses will be built either.

 

[Steevo]

Why is buy to let popular...? Probably because the country’s economy has historically been based on growth in house prices to finance the huge debt people are encouraged to take on to keep spending e.g have the latest car, phone etc.

Low interest rates encourage this further - aid finance debt and also cheap mortgages for the next BTL.

Building more houses won’t really change that unless the countryside is utterly covered.

 

[TheTallGuy]

BTL is taxed. Indeed, the tax changes that have been made to BTL property over the last few years have made it a whole lot less attractive to the one-or-two property BTL types than it was. I can't see banning second/holiday homes making much, if any, difference at all.

The "housing crisis" is more a "not enough housing in areas where people actually want to live crisis" than anything else, and that's reflected in the prices. After all, there's no shortage of cheap housing in places like Preston where you can pick up 2 bed terraced places for £75k whilst the same type of housing within 10 miles of where I live would cost you £300k, minimum.

I know of a couple of btl owners - both have 30% of their properties empty at any one time whilst waiting for the "right sort" of tenants. They have also taken basic properties that were affordable & turned them into unaffordable high spec over developed places.

On second/holiday homes you only have to look at places like Cornwall where locals are unable to afford local homes... also happens in some of the other picturesque parts of the country.