It gave all the appearance of joined-up government. This month's Budget announcement and the accompanying documentation seemed to offer a bigger leg-up for urban policy and regeneration than in the immediate past.
There were, you will recall, new financial flexibilities "so that Regional Development Agencies can fulfill their strategic role in delivering higher productivity and for every region balanced growth".
There was accelerated tax relief, set at 150%, for cleaning up contaminated land and consultation on further Corporation Tax relief for firms investing in new Labour's Urban Regeneration Companies.
Ministers briefed away about plans for tackling urban decline. They are fond of making the following points:
- 58 000 ha of brownfield land are either vacant, derelict or available for redevelopment;
- over 750 000 homes are empty - with around a third vacant for at least a year;
- 1.3m properties in urban areas are unfit for human habitation; and
- there is a substantial amount of empty or under-used commercial property with potential for conversion to mixed uses, including housing.
By 2021 the current 20m households in England are projected to grow by 3.8m. But there is low demand for housing in some particular areas. Recent research by Heriot-Watt University estimates that around 47 000 homes in the social rented sector and 375 000 homes in the private rented sector are in low-demand or unpopular neighbourhoods.
Making the most of those resources and improving the urban environment is expected to help reduce the exodus of population from some towns and cities.
But a recent audit of PPG3, the planning policy guidance meant to help control greenfield housing development and promote urban renewal, suggests the message is not getting through.
The audit, performed by the Council for the Protection of Rural England, suggested there is greenfield land in the pipeline for 658 000 houses. That is enough to accommodate the demands of the top 80 housebuilders for six years before touching an urban site.
The CPRE research highlighted the fact that the Government's own regional offices have waved through the development of over 15 000 houses on 671 hectares of rural land. The pressure group reckons that nearly half of local planning authorities continue to give planning permission for low-density housing development in flat contradiction of government policy.
And if that was not bad enough, around half of local authorities have not yet undertaken a study of the capacity of their brownfield sites and three quarters of local authorities have not yet reviewed policies on density, design, parking standards or the scope for re-allocating employment sites for housing.
It is difficult not to conclude that the Government's own flagship planning policies are being thwarted by local authorities and its own regional offices. Housing sprawl is alive and well and coming to fields near you.
Put another way, what urban renaissance? Don't wait up!
Open plan
Recently backbench MPs have been quizzing planning minister Beverley Hughes about changes to planning applications after they have been submitted and so-called "post application discussions" between applicants and planning officers.
It was suggested there was a case for standardising the levels of confidentiality applied to pre and post-application discussions, and certainly the need for greater openness in post-application discussions between planning officers and applicants and their representatives.
Some MPs believe there is now a pressing need for some sort of code of practice, a step which ministers are currently resisting, along with the suggestion that maybe a dedicated planning ombudsman is required.
With the House of Lords ruling on the implications of the Human Rights Act on the planning system still awaited as this column went to press, at least one planning lawyer suggests that design stipulations by local planning authorities could fall foul of the legislation. The argument here is that any development control decision on visual design could be interpreted as infringing the applicant's right to free expression.
If nothing else, the Act is turning into a can of worms!
Source
Building Homes
