The UK competition watchdog has said councils should only consult statutory consultees to speed up the planning process.
In a working paper on housing development published today, focused on the planning system, the Competition and Markets Authority put forward “options that the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments may consider when reforming their planning systems”.
One suggestion was to make “better use of councils’ limited time and resources by requiring them to only consult statutory stakeholders, rather than a wider group, as part of their assessment of planning applications”.
It added: “Late consultee responses on development could also be ignored.”
This would effectively cut out single issue pressure groups and Nimbys, while putting the focus on statutory bodies such as the Environment Agency and Historic England.
In an indirect criticism of government policy, which scrapped housing targets, the CMA recommended: “Having an effective housing target which reflects the housing need of specific areas, and improving the ways governments ensure all councils have a proper local plan in place.”
It also asked whether a zoning or rules-based approach to development “may help improve competition between housebuilders and boost housing delivery”.
The paper was one of two published today as part of the CMA’s ongoing market study into housebuilding.
The other, focused on landbanking, found that there is little evidence of landbank monopolies holding back development.
CMA director of markets Dan Turnbull said: “As we have progressed our work, we have heard concerns that the way large housebuilders use landbanks and complex planning rules may be harming competition and hold up the building of new homes.”
The CMA’s analysis found that land equivalent to over 1m plots is held in landbanks. However, in most local areas that land is held by several different builders, reducing the impact on competition.
The CMA analysed more than 5,800 individual sites held in the landbanks of 11 of the largest housebuilders.
It revealed land in long-term landbanks is equivalent to around 658,000 plots, while the short-term landbank is smaller, at around 522,000 plots.
The CMA is seeking feedback on its analysis, and, in particular, whether local competition is being negatively impacted in the small number of areas where large amounts of developable land are controlled by a small number of housebuilders.
But it added that it was continuing to examine the size of landbanks overall, while recognising that housebuilders “need to hold a pipeline of land as sites pass through the planning system”.
Turnbull said: “We now want to get feedback on these working papers from the key people in the industry – be that council planning departments, builders or landowners – before we publish our findings early next year.”
The conclusions of its analysis will be published in its final report, due in February 2024.
Those who wish to submit feedback to the CMA on the latest working papers have until 6 December.
To send feedback, e-mail piers.wehner@eg.co.uk or tweet @PiersWehner or @EGPropertyNews
