Despite the heated opposition, it could be that the government’s changes to the planning system do make sense. With more than 200,000 additional homes needed, something has to give
In recent weeks, anyone who has escaped the hullabaloo between ministers and conservation groups must have been living as a hermit. The National Trust, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, the Daily Telegraph and others have closed ranks against the Government’s draft National Planning Policy Framework and especially its ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’.
Tempers have frayed. Sir Simon Jenkins, the National Trust’s chair, has referred to it as ‘the most biased document I’ve ever seen’. In response, planning minister Greg Clark has spoken of the ‘nihilistic selfishness’ of those opposing development. Another Conservative minister has pointed darkly to ‘a carefully choreographed smear campaign by left-wingers’.
But, since the early days of the Coalition Government, the criticism has come full circle. In March, the Government was condemned by a parliamentary select committee for leaving ‘a vacuum at the heart of the English planning system’ through its abolition of regional spatial strategies. This removed the housing targets that local authorities had to meet, arguably blowing a hole in housing supply.
The Opposition benches lambasted the Localism Bill as a ‘nimby’s charter’. Concerns were raised that the New Homes Bonus, which will give cash rewards to communities that accept development, may not act as sufficient incentive to encourage housing growth where it is most needed.
Damned if they do and damned if they don’t. One might ask if the Government ever gets the balance right. Perhaps not. But taken together all these individually controversial reforms might just make sense.
The reason these unhelpful and over-excited arguments return time and time again is that we are not debating the right thing. Instead, we are conflating two separate though inter-related dynamics: first, the mismatch between housing demand and supply; and, second, the decision-making apparatus used to approve development.
The Government’s most recent estimates show that around 232,000 additional homes are needed each year to meet housing need. Society cannot really have it all three ways: a rising population; sustained quality housing; and total conservation of all green spaces no matter how aesthetic or otherwise. One of these has to give.
In the second place, if the Government’s competitive market and decentralised decision-making is to prove itself successful, it must provide a significant net increase of houses.
The Government should bear some of the blame for this confusion. The store put in their localist agenda may have given the false impression that communities can decide what they like irrespective of national, environmental and inter-generational concerns. While central planners may no longer dictate specific housing numbers for each area, the Coalition policy (quite rightly) continues to exert a strong national influence through planning policy and financial rewards.
The feverish nature of the recent debate has exacerbated this problem: the prospect of 3,000 additional acres of development was enough to excite media panic but ignored the fact that this represents 0.01% of land in England and the fact that these homes won’t be built in our national parks.
So, how can we start to square this circle? In the long-term, the solution lies in the Government’s aspiration to engender more meaningful, collective and political engagement with the tensions set out above. Judging by a recent YouGov poll, the public at large acknowledges these tensions and broadly approves of the Government’s strategy.
More urgently, communities need to be encouraged to debate what trade-offs they are ready to make. Few would disagree that using previously developed land should be the first port of call in development. But, the Social Market Foundation’s previous work has indicated that even building at very high (London-style) densities on brownfield land will be insufficient if houses are to appear where they are needed.
Therefore, we are left with a series of less appetising compromises: would communities prefer smaller gardens and larger fields of oilseed rape? More playing fields or nicer views from their commuter train? Do we need a green belt or would green wedges be a more sensible option?
These are the questions society and communities need to ask themselves. And, the way to make sure these are considered may be for the Government to crank up the financial reward to those areas that accept development.
Given the inherent tensions, unless the Government is to be disingenuous and sit on an uncomfortable fence between green-field land and suburban development, it has to come down on one side. With UK household numbers set to increase by over a quarter between 2008 and 2033, the burden of proof should sit with those who advocate development rather than inaction.
Nigel Keohane is the deputy director of the Social Market Foundation. He will be chairing ‘Enough homes in all the right places?’ at the Conservative Party Conference on 4 October
