A week ago, the Conservative Party finally published their long-awaited planning green paper. The paper proposes an overhaul of current regional spatial strategies, with the removal of the regional tier of planning, by instead transferring the responsibility of setting housebuilding goals to local authorities. Another key proposal of the paper is to give "third parties" such as residents, the ability to challenge planning decisions. This gesture appears to be a development of the Tory pledge to return "power to the people of Britain.
However, this concept of "third party appeals" drew criticism from the British Property Federation. Allowing residents to appeal against planning permissions won by developers, would seriously hamper the system by allowing all manner of appeals, the BPF says. These concerns were echoed by by Michael Gallimore, Partner and Head of Planning at Lovells, "developers will be extremely wary of the potential delays which could occur to schemes where third parties have a right of appeal."
Perhaps the most damming critique came from Matt Thomson, of The Royal Town Planning Institute, "such radical changes to the planning system could lead to a period of uncertainty, resulting in serious consequences for the provision of housing, employment and key infrastructure, and may even go as far as to impact the overall economic recovery".
One positive suggestion that caught my eye, was the introduction of a presumption in favour of sustainable development. This is a positive incentive to encourage the building more sustainable housing.
In summary, these plans would have major ramifications for the building of new homes. In a period when new homes construction has plummeted, and the building industry in general has been brought to it's knees, are unproven systematic changes to key legislation a the answer?
The property sellers are the ones most affected. In order for them to survive, they need to bring additional value for every transaction.
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