How to find out what people really think about new homes

“We call on elected councillors to retract this scandalous planning proposal and adopt instead a positive vision for the future – where people and not profit are the priority,” said a spokesperson for Bristol’s Tree Brides, so called because they had “married” trees in an attempt to prevent development. “Let’s unite against the predatory forces which threaten our historic Harbourside and make our children proud of us.”

The subject of their anger was a proposal for 166 new flats on a brownfield site in the centre of Bristol. The flats would be built by the city council’s own housing company for actual people – maybe even their children one day – to live in.

It is easy to find news stories about those opposing new homes, but it is surprisingly difficult to find ones about someone supporting development. Research consistently shows that objectors are far more likely than supporters to write to the council about a planning application.

In fact, many council websites do not even have an option to support an application – just to object. Even the House of Commons library’s article on influencing the planning process includes a section on “what comments make for a good objection?” without making any reference at all to supporting development proposals.

In part that is because we make it difficult to engage with the planning process – 50% reported finding the information confusing, according to a recent report. It is also because those who do respond are not representative of communities as a whole.

Local councillors who determine applications – and have often been elected by very slim majorities – get a skewed view of public opinion. That is a barrier to getting schemes approved

Of those aged between 18 and 34 – the age group most likely to support new development – 80% say they have never engaged with the local plan process. Homeowners are far more likely to respond than those renting.

That should not be a surprise when we only ask for the opinions of those who already live close to the development site. The 1.5 million “concealed” households that cannot form because of a shortage of homes, or the 131,000 families living in temporary accommodation, are not asked what they think.

As a result, local councillors who determine applications – and have often been elected by very slim majorities – get a skewed view of public opinion. That is a barrier to getting schemes approved.

Yet, broadly speaking, the public are in favour of new homes. Recent polling by Public First found that 55% of UK adults would support building in their local area, compared to just 33% who would oppose it.

“Representative planning” is the attempt to solve that. Public First proposes that, rather than feedback on new development proposals coming from a self-selecting group of usually older homeowners opposed to new building, councils would be required to seek the views of a representative sample of the population, using similar techniques to political pollsters. That would help councils to understand what the public as a whole really think – including those who would quite like a new home and not just the vocal, motivated minority.

Unlike many planning reforms, this could be a politically painless change to introduce. Even eight out of 10 of those likely to oppose new development would support the change – presumably because they believe everyone else will agree with them that new homes are a bad idea. A new cross-party representative planning group has formed to promote the idea.

When the government is rightly trying to reduce the cost and complexity of individual planning applications, representative polling is not something that should be required on a scheme-by-scheme basis.

There is also a risk that support for development in the abstract (“new homes in the local area are a good idea”) may disappear when the focus is on a specific site subject to a planning application (“we didn’t mean there”).

That difficulty highlights another failing in the way we currently ask the public to engage with the planning system. While local residents are free to oppose new homes on a particular site, they are not expected to say on which other site the homes should be built instead. They can ignore the trade-offs with which the planning system is designed to deal.

The best time for dealing with these compromises is when local plans are being prepared. That is the whole point of “reasonable alternatives” – considering different ways the required development can be distributed, before choosing the most appropriate mix of sites to deliver that development. Securing a representative cross-section of opinion on those decisions could give local councillors more confidence to press ahead with local plans, reducing the perennial delays to plan-making in many local authorities.

Those people so opposed to new homes that they are prepared to marry trees are not actually representative of the public as a whole

Where a local plan had been based on representative polling, there would be little need for individual planning applications to be voted on again by councillors under the influence of those vociferous objectors. Decisions could, instead, be made by planning officers secure in the knowledge that a thorough democratic process had already taken place and the broad sweep of public opinion was supportive.

Dozens of adjustments and changes – some major, some minor – are needed to get our planning system operating quickly and efficiently. Representative planning could be one of those.

Done right it could reduce the political heat around decisions and help to demonstrate that those people so opposed to new homes that they are prepared to marry trees are not actually representative of the public as a whole.

Paul Smith is managing director of the Strategic Land Group