Government announcements on planning reform, right to buy and investment in social housing
Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, has announced a suite of changes to housing and planning policy as one of the new government’s first major efforts to “get Britain building again”. Announcements covered policy areas including the Right to Buy, significant reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the future rent settlement for registered providers and plans for investing in new affordable homes.
Future spending plans
After extensive calls from the housing sector on the need for certainty about future government spending plans on housing, the Secretary of State laid out the Government’s intentions in two key areas.
The Government has confirmed that there will be an Autumn Budget on 30th October, and a full Spending Review next spring. The Secretary of State said that the Government “will set out plans at the next fiscal event to give councils and housing associations the rent stability they need to be able to borrow and invest in both new and existing homes, while also ensuring that there are appropriate protections for both existing and future social housing tenants”, and that they “bring forward details of future Government investment in social and affordable housing at the Spending Review”.
We are continuing to press Government to announce a new Affordable Homes Programme quickly to ensure development can continue. In ‘Building the Future of Housing in the North’ we set out the need for a long-term programme, which supports regeneration as well as supply, allows Mayoral Combined Authorities to direct priorities locally to better meet local needs, and includes social rent as the main tenure.
Right to Buy
There were also a series of announcements, with special relevance for local authority landlords, relating to the Right to Buy. Firstly, the Secretary of State announced that the government will be removing the cap on the percentage of replacement homes that can be delivered as acquisitions, as well as the cap on the percentage cost of a replacement home that can be funded using Right to Buy receipts (both currently 50%). In addition, local authorities will be able to combine Right to Buy receipts with section 106 contributions to deliver new homes. These reforms will be implemented for an initial two years and then reviewed.
The Secretary of State also confirmed that the Government has started a review into the elevated Right to Buy discount rates introduced in 2012, with changes to be implemented in the Autumn of this year.
Finally, the Government intends to carry out a wider review of the Right to Buy later this year, focusing on eligibility and potential additional protections that could be provided for newly built homes.
In ‘Building the Future of Housing in the North’, the Northern Housing Consortium called for the removal of restrictions on how local authorities could spend their Right to Buy receipts, and for the Right to Buy, including the setting of discount rates, to be devolved to local authorities so they can ensure the policy does not act as a disincentive to developing new affordable housing within their areas.
Reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)
The announcement which grabbed the most attention, however, was the release of a consultation on a revised NPPF. The Secretary of State confirmed that mandatory housing targets would be reintroduced for English local authorities, and all councils would be required to allocate sufficient land to meet the targets in an up-to-date Local Plan, or risk losing their plan-making powers.
New housing targets will also be developed using a revised ‘Standard Method’ to establish housing need in each local authority area. This new method aims to spread housing development across the country to a greater extent, and direct housing development towards areas where affordability pressures are higher.
The proposals also remove the ‘urban uplift’ which previously increased housing targets in the 15 largest urban areas in England by 35%. In the North, areas covered by the uplift were Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield.
The impact of the new method is that total housing targets have increased from approximately 300,000 to 370,000 new homes per year, with significant increases across the North. A regional breakdown can be found below:
| Region | Current method | Proposed method | % change |
| East Midlands | 20,793 | 27,382 | + 32% |
| East of England | 35,101 | 44,858 | + 28% |
| London | 98,822 | 80,693 | -18% |
| North East | 6,123 | 12,202 | +99% |
| North West | 21,497 | 37,817 | +76% |
| South East | 51,251 | 69,060 | +35% |
| South West | 28,203 | 40,343 | +43% |
| West Midlands | 24,734 | 31,754 | +28% |
| Yorkshire & Humber | 18,699 | 27,433 | +47% |
| North | 46,319 | 77,452 | + 67% |
| England | 305,223 | 371,541 | + 22% |
Proposed housing targets at the local authority level can be found here.
Brownfield first
The Secretary of State also reconfirmed the government’s commitment to taking a ‘brownfield first’ approach to development, saying that previously developed sites should be the “first port of call” for future development and that the default answer for a proposed brownfield development should be “yes”.
Local authorities will, however, be required to reassess their greenbelt land if they cannot allocate enough land to meet housing need otherwise. Any review of the greenbelt should identify and prioritise ‘greybelt’ land, deemed of little natural or aesthetic value, with a full definition of ‘grey belt’ coming later in the year.
Any development on the ‘grey belt’ will be accompanied by so called ‘golden rules’ to ensure a 50% affordable housing contribution and access to infrastructure and green spaces as part of any development.
All other land use protections for environmental reasons will remain.
We recently published new research on the opportunities and challenges for Brownfield land in the North. Read Brownfield First: How devolved brownfield funding can build a new generation of homes in the North.
New Towns Taskforce
Finally, the government has also announced the establishment of a New Towns Taskforce to be Chaired by Sir Michael Lyons with Dame Kate Barker to serve as Deputy Chair. The taskforce will identify a final shortlist of recommendations and appropriate locations for new towns within 12 months. New towns will be large-scale new communities of at least 10,000 homes each, with a requirement of at least 40% affordable housing, and will include both new settlements as well as extensions to existing towns or cities.
Following all these announcements, the Secretary of State and Housing Minister held a ministerial roundtable with key stakeholders from the affordable housing sector. This included Northern Housing Consortium Chief Executive, Tracy Harrison. Further information on the roundtable can be found here.
More detail on the Secretary of State’s announcements on future spending, the Right to Buy and planning reform can be found here.
Matthew Pennycook, the Minister for Housing wrote to housing sector stakeholders laying out the government’s plans for housing in one place. This letter can be found here.
