Hopes were high for the long-awaited housing white paper.
When it finally arrived, the industry pored over all 104 pages before sighing and declaring that it simply rehashed a lot of stuff that we had heard many times before.
But there was one very important and subtle difference – the stark admission that the housing market is broken.
We have all known this for a while, but previous governments have tended to gloss over it, insisting with blind optimism that more could be done without fundamentally fixing the system.
There are a raft of laudable measures proposed in the white paper aimed at speeding up the delivery of new homes. Better resourcing of local authorities, reduced use of planning conditions, streamlining the Community Infrastructure Levy and the potential relaxation of space standards could all help make that happen.
However, the main point for me was the stated intention to better define housing need.
A disproportionate amount of time is wasted debating how authorities should best determine the actual level of housing need in their areas. Too many alternative approaches have been promulgated and blind alleys pursued, all arguing for different outcomes.
To this end, the new suggested standard methodology of objectively assessing housing need may at last provide some welcome consistency.
One of the housing markets Carter Jonas operates in is a good example. Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire District are currently producing parallel local plans looking to 2031. Between them, these make provision for 33,500 new homes under the particular methodology that has been adapted.
However, local developers have been advocating a quite different approach and are predicting that the requirement is in the region of 41,000 homes.
Settling a dispute of this type takes too long and prolongs the examination process, leaving the independent planning inspector to judge what the correct approach is and placing huge responsibility on his or her shoulders.
A new methodology has the potential to settle all that and let housing providers, including local councils, get on with delivering the new homes that the nation needs – somewhere between 225,000 and 275,000 per year according to the government.
If these agreed targets can be pursued, we will finally have greater certainty in the planning system. Local authorities, developers, infrastructure providers and the surrounding communities can finally set about working together in an efficient manner that the current system – all too often mired in suspicion and controversy – does not encourage.
Greater success in identifying housing need should also help local authorities demonstrate that they have a deliverable five-year land supply – something they are all supposed to have as part of the plan-making process. In its absence, applications for new housing developments are being allowed, often on appeal, to the considerable chagrin of some local communities.
More disappointing is the approach taken by the white paper when it comes to the Green Belt. For too long, the Green Belt has been deployed as a policy tool to protect landscape quality when its purposes are quite different.
Though I recognise it is a thorny subject, I think there is a need to re-interrogate our approach to the Green Belt.
Sometimes developing a Green Belt site might in fact be the most sustainable option available to a local authority. Allowing some development does not mean paving over rolling hills or encroaching on picturesque villages, but could mean much-needed new housing on chemically soaked arable land of poor visual quality on the edge of towns.
If we can get the land supply right from the outset, with the right trajectory and balance of sites, it will give communities greater certainty. It will not stop objections to new development but it could reduce the scope for lengthy and costly appeals. It also provides the opportunity to work in partnership, which is the only way that we will ever solve the ever-growing spectre of the housing crisis.
Now that we have finally openly acknowledged that there is a problem – like an addict in recovery – we are being forced to deal with it.
Colin Brown is head of planning – Eastern regions at Carter Jonas
