Smoke and Mirrors: 'It's the developers' fault'
The Government's current narrative as to why we are experiencing a housing crisis is to suggest that developers are at fault. The Cabinet seems to be focussed on directing the blame towards developers, rather than accept accountability. In particular, developers are being criticised repeatedly for refusing to build out their sites or deliver on their section 106 agreements.
On 5th March 2018, in her key policy address on housing, the Prime Minister stated that developers have a 'perverse incentive' to hoard land once it had been approved for development to achieve higher profit margins. She further stated that developers should amend their stance and 'do their duty to Britain'.
On 8th March 2018, Dr Liam Fox suggested on Question Time that until developers have built out a scheme, they should be refused the right to get further planning permissions (how this could ever be enforced in reality escapes me being that developers could always secure permission through shell companies).
Today the Planning Minister Dominic Raab stated that he is 'personally very keen' on imposing financial penalties on developers who fail to deliver affordable housing promised in their section 106 agreements, as this seems to be a reason why we are facing a lack of affordable housing.
Despite the above rhetoric, the current draft of the new NPPF only includes the following tacit reference to considering developers' previous form:
78. To help ensure that proposals for housing development are implemented in a timely manner, local planning authorities should consider imposing a planning condition providing that development must begin within a timescale shorter than the relevant default period, where this would expedite the development without threatening its deliverability or viability. For major housing development, local planning authorities should also assess why any earlier grant of planning permission for a similar development on the same site did not start.
How the above policy would relate to the law on fallback positions or how it would actually operate in practice remains unclear. But it would appear that, for the time being, despite the rhetoric, the Government are not currently proposing any substantive changes that would remedy their perception that developers are to blame for the housing crisis.
Time will only tell as to whether the proposed changes to the law on planning obligations will reflect this current narrative.
Anyone doing a business studies A level should understand the concept of over-trading, yet ministers seem to be encouraging this as policy. Can anyone shed any light on these non legally binding section 106 agreements Dominic Raab seems to be talking about?
Director KAF Development Services Ltd
7 年Let’s blame the developers for not building during a 10 year recession! We are now being forced to dig the politician’s out of a hole! Simple economics to my mind……. now that demand is back and in sustainable locations, supply will follow but this takes more and more time. Time is money when you have it heavily invested in an uncertain planning environment that maybe sometime later delivers much needed housing development.