Those of you who have worked your way through the conference agenda and Conference Extra will by now have reached the emergency motions (page 28, since you ask) and will notice that there are four in the ballot: banks are awful, Julian Assange is awful, teacher qualifications are under threat and ‘what have you done with our planning system?’
I paraphrase unfairly, of course. All tastes are clearly catered for and you can make your own mind up about which to vote for if you are at conference.
The planning one (which I have something to do with) is a mild rebuke to government and unusual because ALDC, its sponsor, rarely uses its rights to propose motions. Its mild tone perhaps masks the considerable anger at grass roots level: on 6 September the Government made various announcements about relaxing planning rules, claiming that these will help kickstart the economy. In summary these are
• agreements between local authorities and developers over affordable housing can be renegotiated if the agreement threatens the viability of the scheme
• councils which are poor performers in planning terms may lose their rights to determine planning applications.
• there will be consultation on a temporary (3 year) relaxation of the planning rules governing rear extensions, allowing in some cases extensions of 8 metres in length to be erected without planning permission.
I will spare you the full details.
There are two main points of objection. One is the matter of principle: planning is a local matter and should be determined locally without Government interfering either positively or negatively. That principle is breached as often as it is honoured, however, as you can see from the amount of national ‘guidance’ issued over the years, the various legislative interferences by successive governments and the very concept of the planning inspectorate.
The second is whether there is a benefit in economic terms. The Chairman of the Local Government Association, a practising Conservative, said: ‘Local authorities are overwhelmingly saying “yes” to new development. There are enough approvals in the system for 400,000 new homes.’ And the House Builders Federation has said the real problem is lack of demand, not least a shortage of affordable mortgages.
Moreover, it beggars belief that a surge in large extensions will do much to stimulate the local economy – although it may do a lot to ruin relations between neighbours.
The whole thing smacks of fag packet policy-making. There are rumours that Tory ministers in fact wanted something far worse but that the Lib Dems restrained them. If so, good, although nobody is going to remember this when gathering signatures (fruitlessly under the new rules) against Mrs Miggins’s massive 8 metre conservatory in Acacia Avenue.
Interestingly the Daily Telegraph has noticed the motion and Conservative Home wrote a disobliging piece about it (anyone would think they didn’t like us). Those Conservatives who commented on the piece, however, largely supported the ALDC motion.
Strange bedfellows indeed.
* Chris White is a Hertfordshire County Councillor and Deputy Leader (Policy) of the Liberal Democrat Group at the Local Government Association
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Last West End Christmas Fortnight events today! #dundeewestend
How national insurance increase will undermine homeless services
Rediscovering the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway
North London's expanse
Paul Reynolds
David Allen
Ahmad
Matthew Radmore
13 Comments
“Emergency”
Well said. Cameron and Osborne really are clutching at straws if they think the economy can be rescued by building oversize conservatories. (BTW just how big do they think most gardens are?)
Well said indeed. Two additional points:
The silver lining with issues like tuition fees, NHS, Osbornomics etc is that we are alienating the same people each time, and you can’t lose the same vote more than once. But now we are after a brand new market, the people who live next to those who want to build monstrosities that stare into their neighbours’ faces. We have found a whole new constituency of voters to lose!
Also – When people build extensions, it is often an alternative to moving. When people move, they creat a demand for a whole new house, not just a conservatory. It could well be, therefore, that this proposal will reduce rather than increase the overall demand for building work.
A lot of the commentary about the government’s proposals are focused around a few issues that the media have chosen to focus on. To highlight an example of one proposal that has been ignored, the government has suggested introducing permitted development rights to enable change of use from commercial to residential properties.
As a planning councillor, I am regularly shocked and disappointed by the propensity of councillors to seek to second guess entrepreneurs (e.g. who believe that a unit that was once a newsagent is actually more viable as a restaurant) or resist changes that are in fact part of the natural evolution of society (e.g. the tiny parade of long-empty shops in an area where there is a shortage of flats). The government is right to make change of use easier, but this is not the focus of the media story.
My first comment, then, is that I hope that the amendment focuses on specific items rather than condemning the proposals as a whole.
The second is on the extent to which this will help economic growth. I agree with Chris that “it beggars belief that a surge in large extensions will do much to stimulate the local economy” – it will spur economic activity, but not to a degree that will show up in the national aggregates. That’s mainly because the changes are so timid, however.
If serious reforms were introduced – the type that would help us reach our newly-announced target of building 300,000 homes a year – it would have a massive impact on the economy. Building is a very labour intensive industry. Reforms that increased the number of homes built in the UK by 100,000 a year could create up to a million jobs. Crucially, many would be low skilled and others would be in teachable trades – exactly the sort of work that the long term unemployed need.
Two statistics that might be worth noting:
* If house building increased by 300,000 units/year by 2015, GDP would increase by 5% and rents would fall by 11%
* If over the next 10 years the UK converted just 3% of its farms to other uses, specifically covering 90% of that land with trees and just 10% with houses, we could build a million new homes and 13 million acres of woodland.
These reforms are hardly the solution to either the country’s economic or its planning crises. But we shouldn’t dismiss them completely.
What on earth were the people responsible thinking when they came up with a “3 year” window in which people could effectively bypass planning regulations. I just don’t get it. Surely the point of planning is that its not a temporary thing. Imagine what our townscapes would be like if every 5 years we had a year with no planning? It would make the years with planning utterly redundant. What about those people that have just built a 3m extension safe in the knowledge that their neighbour would never be able to extend beyond it, to find out that now they can and nobody can object? Lib Dems, disassociate yourself with policy this bad or you’ll be a laughing stock.
Tom,
>Building is a very labour intensive industry.
It may be but remember 2008~09 when we went into the current downturn in house building, there was very little impact on the unemployment figures because over the years the building industry had increased it’s use of (dependence on?) non-UK resident labour. So when the downturn came, the majority returned to their homes abroad… So unless there are conditions placed upon the building industry, a significant number of the circa 1 million jobs will go to non-UK residents. Additionally, these jobs will do little to improve our exports and balance of trade, nor will there be many graduate jobs …
>the UK converted just 3% of its farms to other uses
This misses the real world facts of the problem, remember we’ve been building new towns and houses on farm land for decades but still people prefer to live within the existing towns and cities such as London. It is also a very expensive way of providing housing as it also incurs a significant infrastructure requirement, whereas increasing the density of our cities requires little new infrastructure and brings with it efficiencies of scale.
It also misses a rather more important point, namely we already import more than 51% of our food, if we are serious (and we need to be) about building a sustainable society and low carbon economy (a large proportion of this food is brought in by air) with a secure food supply then we need those farms to be producing food…
So the argument put by the pamphlet you reference , that rents ‘could’ fall by 10% is a red herring, unless you happen to be measuring rents in poorer areas that loose out to the new build…
>GDP will rise by 5%
All sounds very good until you crunch the numbers and realise that the figures show that at current levels of house building, each individual property has a significantly great er impact on GDP than if we were to build significantly more houses, which would indicate that our resources are better spent elsewhere.
Tom:
We do indeed need some bold measures. What would you say to redefining the definition of commencing construction so that it had to be substantial (defined in some measurable way) rather than just digging a hole and leaving it? This could have the effect of forcing developers to get on with existing planning permissions for fear of losing them.
Roland
Isn’t it generally accepted that cities are relatively efficient means of providing housing and employment?
As a Lib Dem and someone professionally involved with the planning system, my heart sinks at yet another attempt to make significant alterations to our environment or economy through the planning system, by those who do not realise that, to a large extent it doesn’t work, often actually having completly the opposite effect to that what is intended. Indeed the very word ‘planning’ has become debased by the system of development control we have created.
A salutory example from a Lib-Dem Authority Chris knows well (Not his home town!) The Council notes that there is a worsening shortage of affordable housing so introduce a policy that all new developments must have 49% affordable housing, with a threshold of just 2 units.
My client has a block of 30 small flats, all of which he rents out. He had bought the house next door with a view of knocking it down to provide 8 more flats but to effectively ‘give away’ the land value of 4 units means it is not viable.
His choices are to do nothing, or, a clever idea this, he applies for extensions to make each of the existing flats on the end of the block, 6 bedroom units, builds them out, omits one basic amenity, and rents each of the rooms out as part of a House in Multiple Occupation, for which there is no planning requirement.
Result is that either the Authority do not get any of the much needed units at all, or what is built is not up to the standard they would wish and they have no access to, to help with their waiting list. The ultimate irony is that although the developer is a private individual, the existing flats are rented out at only about 5-10% above what they would be as supposedly social housing.
I personally feel that our Planing System has got into such a mess, we need to go back to a much more fundamental analysis at to what we want it to achieve. It is not the right tool to try to do all the things we are asking of it, and as such is in danger of doing nothing positive at all.
Chris
I think Tom and others who promote the building on greenfield and ‘brownfield’ sites and farm land don’t accept the evidence about the efficiencies of cities. As I’ve mentioned on other blogs, London’s population density is about half that of Paris, which in turn is less than Manhattan and Tokyo …
David Parry,
The tax system, planning system or administrative system that has no snags and always achieves what it was designed to do has not been invented. If we scrap all taxation and administrative systems that we find snags with, we’ll have nothing left!
Local authorities locally elected are best placed to judge the balance between the local economy and local amenity. They have, admittedly, less financial interest in a prospering local economy than they should, but this should be dealt with by changing the local government finance system so local authorities raise more of their money locally, with the central contribution restricted to an equalisation fund to help deprived areas and a few special projects. The chance to do this was missed under Gordon Brown when a certain media darling David Milliband was the responsible minister and a report on local government finance was neutered and the remains kicked into the long grass.
Under Labour local authorities were assessed on their effectiveness in dealing with planning applications, but this just meant requiring them to process applications quickly. Failing to tell people a few houses down from a development which would clearly affect them was no problem at all.
Ar rear extensions something that involves implants?
I hate to come back to a three week old argument, but I have to challenge Roland one a couple of points.
1) “Tom and others who promote the building on greenfield and ‘brownfield’ sites and farm land don’t accept the evidence about the efficiencies of cities”
Not at all. I fully believe that cities are efficient means of creating the network effects necessary to unlock enormous amounts of wealth and well-being. However, we are preventing our cities growing through overly-restrictive planning laws. That is clearly demonstrated by the rising price of housing. We need to allow the building of more homes in and around London and other population centres where demand (and prices) are high.
2) “London’s population density is about half that of Paris, which in turn is less than Manhattan and Tokyo”
I don’t think it’s fair to compare London with Manhattan. That’s like comparing New York City with Kensington & Chelsea. In fact, London is far more densely populated than New York, Paris and even Tokyo. Here are the figures:
London: 5,100 people per square km
Tokyo/Yokohama: 4,750 people per square km
Paris: 3,550 people per square km
New York: 2,050 people per square km
(These figures are 5 years old but are still reasonably indicative of the relative densities)
3) “a significant number of the circa 1 million jobs will go to non-UK residents. Additionally, these jobs will do little to improve our exports and balance of trade, nor will there be many graduate jobs …”
Some may go to non-UK residents, but as it has been categorically proven that labour immigration strengthens importing countries that’s no bad thing. Exports/balance of trade is irrelevant: the vast majority of our economy is domestic; that does not make it useless (do you think hairdressers create no value?).
As for this not creating graduate jobs, as I said above “many would be low skilled and others would be in teachable trades – exactly the sort of work that the long term unemployed need”. Forgive me if I care about the half of the population that doesn’t have a bachelors degree!
Oh, and by the way, graduate jobs aren’t the biggest problem area.