EDITOR’S COMMENT Our friends in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities snuck out a consultation this week proposing increasing planning fees by between 25% and 35% to help plug an annual £225m gap in funding across the country’s cash-strapped and under-resourced planning authorities.
The knee-jerk reaction could easily be: “Here we go again. Government forcing the evil and clearly very rich developers to stump up more money”. It could easily make us wonder what this might do to development pipelines. If developers – as we have written about before – are turning away from spec development because the risk of building and then having no income is growing, imagine how they would feel if their costs were going to increase by more than a third before even getting the nod for a project.
It may well be a pretty crappy time to be a developer.
But from those that I have talked to since the consultation dropped on 28 February, the cost increase isn’t a bone of contention. In fact, most will be willing to pay if it means a decrease in time to decision and a general improvement in resources.
And there’s the nub. And, quite frankly, it is always the nub. Does this industry have the talent it really needs to fill its very many – and increasing pools – of skills gaps? How many kids do you hear in classrooms, playgrounds or having conversations with their mates over Fortnite about wanting to be a planner when they grow up?
In its consultation, DLUHC says government has had “consistent feedback” from all sectors that the core planning application service is not consistently performing at the level it should and that the root cause of this is a lack of adequate resource.
DLUHC’s mission to raise cash to enable a functioning planning system is a great idea. If it can work. But raising fees won’t magically bring more skills to the sector.
As C|T Local’s John Walker says: “Putting up planning fees by 35% for major applications and 25% for all other applications is a help but will not solve the resource problem in planning departments.
“The government needs to work with the sector on a strategy to attract the next generation of talented planners, starting with new courses and careers advice in schools. It’s a great career, but we don’t do enough to sell it to school-leavers.”
And ain’t that the truth for this industry as a whole?
Imagine if government (this one or a new one) engaged with this sector directly, through its many industry bodies, or even – if it wanted an objective aggregator – through a leading industry publication and worked out a plan that really would enable this country to level up.
Imagine if together some sort of new course, new lexicon, new pride in what a career in the built environment actually meant, could be established and rolled out across state and public schools, colleges, universities, wherever people choose to learn about the life they can lead.
I would bet a reasonably significant sum that this industry would support that with cash, time, people power and gusto.
I have written here before about sticking plasters and about best intentions not always delivering the best outcomes. This latest consultation could be another example of that. It is open to comment until 25 April, so make sure you have your say to ensure it isn’t.
And if you do think there is something to be done, with you, with us and with a strong message to this (or the next) government about fundamentally changing the way we talk about property, teach people about it, and inspire the next (and this) generation to be part of the most impactful industry on this planet, you know exactly where I am.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews
