Plan to make it simpler for councils to grab land for housing | EUROtoday

Councils are to be given larger powers to grab land, beneath authorities plans to spice up housebuilding.

The measure is a part of the flagship Planning and Infrastructure Billwhich has been launched in Parliament and goals to hurry up constructing.

Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook stated he needed larger use of obligatory buy orders (CPOs), which permit public authorities to amass land with out the consent of the proprietor.

Currently, councils shopping for websites by CPOs should issue within the “hope value” – the potential worth if planning permission for improvement is secured – and that is set to be axed to permit land to be purchased at a lower cost.

However, rural marketing campaign teams raised issues farmers may very well be pressured to promote at knock-down costs and that inexperienced areas may very well be misplaced.

Victoria Vyvan, president of the Country Land and Business Association stated the “expensive, slow and bureaucratic planning system” was what was stopping land gross sales by her members, who “strongly believe that a small number of homes should be built in a large number of villages”.

She added: “In removing hope value from compulsory purchases, the government wants farmers to pay for a housing crisis they didn’t create.

“We doubt home builders contracted by councils will likely be taking a decrease revenue, so as soon as once more farmers would be the solely a part of the availability chain to lose out.”

Paul Miner, head of planning and policy at CPRE, the countryside charity, said the group supported the use of CPOs to build genuinely affordable homes on previously developed land.

But he added: “Compulsory buy should not be used to allow the event of valued countryside and native inexperienced areas.”

Responding to such fears, Pennycook told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was “considerably mystified” by this interpretation, saying CPOs would be used “much more typically” for regenerating brownfield – or previously developed – land.

“We assume it is proper these powers are extra extensively used and will probably be for native authorities to make the selections about what land is suitable for these powers for use on,” he added.

A requirement for the secretary of state to sign off on CPOs will be removed “in sure cases”, he said, adding that the legislation would be “transformative” in unlocking construction for new homes, roads, rail and renewable energy projects.

The bill also aims streamline the planning process, with more decisions made directly by officers rather than councillors.

However, councils have raised concerns this could mean they will be shut out of the democratic planning process.

Richard Clewer, housing and planning spokesperson at the Country Councils Network, said he welcomed changes to CPOs as a “useful gizmo”.

However, he said changes to the planning process could “dilute and bypass the function of councillors”, particularly with rural developments where a few new homes could make a significant impact.

Defending the plans, Pennycook said “skilled planning officers” would support elected councillors with technical detail and allow councillors to focus on larger, more controversial applications.

The government has promised to build 1.5 million new homes in England over the next five years, with the pledge key to boosting economic growth.

However, the number of new homes continued to fall during the first six months that Labour was in power, with the construction industry warning the country does not have enough workers to deliver on the target.

Pennycook said the inheritance from the previous Conservative government was “dire” but there were “very constructive indicators” and “inexperienced shoots coming ahead” in the number of planning applications being submitted.

Other measures in the bill include:

• Up to £2,500 off energy bills for people living within 500m of new pylons
• Streamlining the process for approving key projects like wind farms, roads or railways and banning multiple “meritless” legal challenges.
• Allowing “ready-to-go” energy projects to jump to the front of the queue for grid connections, replacing the current “first come, first served course of” which the government says has clogged up the system

Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said the plans would be “backing the builders” and “taking up the blockers” to create “the most important constructing increase in a technology”.

She told the BBC that cutting the number of bodies which get a say in planning decisions would prevent some cases of “ludicrous” rejections.

Officials will consult on removing Sport England, the Theatres Trust and the Garden History Society from the list of “statutory consultees”, who are legally required to provide advice on decisions.

The government said in some cases organisations were slowing down building, giving the example of a housing development in Bradford which was delayed because the application was thought to have not adequately considered the speed of cricket balls from a nearby club.

“We cannot have nonsensical approaches that imply folks’s homes cannot be constructed due to a stray cricket ball,” Rayner said, adding: “We have to have a standard sense strategy.”