Planning reform will be a balancing act, says the chief executive of developer Harworth Group, but she urges the new government to help the real estate industry and prioritise fixing an under-resourced system.
“The government is focused on growth,” Lynda Shillaw tells EG as the company publishes its half-year results. “It is focused on driving that by building things, not just housing but employment space, green industries, decarbonising the economy. All of that, to be successfully delivered, requires planning reform and resources in the planning system.”
Positive outlook
Last year, Shillaw told EG that Labour’s focus on planning reform could be “massive” for real estate if the party came to power. The government’s first weeks and months have impressed her.
“Net-net, the [government] attitude towards reforming the planning system, the willingness to do it – they’re looking at green belt, they’re looking at grey belt, they’re talking about actually building settlements at scale – all of that should be positive for the real estate sector.”
Shillaw and colleagues are now working on Harworth’s corporate response to the consultation over changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, as well as contributing to the British Property Federation’s industry-wide response.
For Shillaw – who engaged with Labour ahead of the election but has had no meetings with ministers since the party’s win – the most pressing issue is resourcing.
“The technical complexity of what has to be submitted [in a planning application] has only increased over recent years,” she says. “Things like biodiversity net gain and other aspects of the planning system as it’s being reformed mean that planning applications are just more complicated and harder to work through.
“Some local authorities manage that process better than others, where they’ve got the depth and experience of resource. It’s often a real challenge for smaller authorities. If you’re going to get the planning system working more efficiently, they’ve got to look at resources. They talked about 300 additional planners, but in terms of overall planning resource and capacity it probably needs to be a whole lot more.”
The chief executive is realistic about how much else might change. “The cold, stark reality is that when planning reform comes, you never get everything you want,” she says. “A balance will be struck. The viability of schemes in one part of the country, or the affordability of housing in one part, is very different from the viability and the affordability of housing in another part of the country. The care that needs to be taken is to make sure that whatever comes in from a reform perspective understands and recognises that and allows those mechanics to work effectively.”
Remaining adaptable
Shillaw acknowledges that it is “early days” for the government. Real estate is still waiting for details on many policies, not least what comes from the Autumn Statement.
“It does feel like there’s a bit more caution coming to the market in the run-up to the October Budget and what happens there around tax and spending,” she says. “But I’m hugely optimistic about the UK as a country and the UK economy. We have continued to do OK in quite a difficult market. It has not been stellar but the economy has continued to progress. We have seen inflation coming down towards the benchmark. We have seen interest rate cuts starting, which is changing the investor lens on the UK. From a real estate market perspective, certainly the sectors that we are in, it feels like we are starting to turn the corner.”
And Shillaw reiterates the company’s long-term outlook even as the market shifts – governments will change, she says, but Harworth’s work won’t.
“We are assembling land on sites today that we might not have planning for for 15 years,” she says. “That’s three governments. At Harworth, in particular in the regions, we just bash through regardless of what gets thrown at it. We are used to working with different governments, different policy frameworks, and adapting and driving through it.”
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