Leading Planning Lawyers All To De-Myth The Green Belt

Planning lawyers at national law firm Irwin Mitchell urge the Chancellor, in this Wednesday's Budget, to allow some relaxation of the Green Belt rules, to facilitate more house building.

The firm believes that:

• Much of the Green Belt isn’t green: there are lots of brown field sites in it which could be developed
• There are green areas within the urban areas enclosed by Green Belt, worthy of more protection
• The Green Belt enforces longer commutes by people who cannot afford central London (and other central city) prices
• The Green Belt artificially inflates the property values of those lucky enough to live in or just within it, keeping prices high

"But," says Carl Dyer, Head of Planning at Irwin Mitchell, "The Green Belt is like the NHS: a political Shibboleth that everyone knows doesn’t work, but no one dares attack. It has ferocious defenders, many of them well-heeled members of the Conservative Party."

So Dyer is not holding his breath for any meaningful reform on Wednesday: "My best guess is a token reform which will sound better than it plays out – possibly an announcement of a consultation on ways to make it easier to amend Green Belt Boundaries, or to build on brown field sites in the Green Belt. Do not be surprised to hear the rattle of a can being kicked down the street."

Dyer would also like to see the Chancellor consider the following to kick-start the housing market:

• The abolition or huge down grading of affordable housing obligations: which he believes is a tax on house-building, that has contributed hugely to our current crisis; “But every time the crisis is discussed the knee-jerk reaction is to say: “people cannot afford houses; we need more affordable housing- so the percentage required (the tax on house building) goes up, and supply goes down, making matters worse. “
• Scrap CIL. Another tax on development- and one that’s not even being applied to infrastructure as intended. 90% of CIL collected is still held by councils. “It’s actually the opposite of quantitative easing: as central government tries to put money into the financial system by buying bonds, local government is taking it out through CIL and sitting on it.”
• Limit section 106 requirements. Another tax on development
• Further Permitted Development Rights Anything you can do without having to go to local planning authorities is a good thing.
• Self-certification of discharge of planning conditions: Many developments are delayed by the need to discharge literally dozens of planning conditions. This could be hugely shortened by allowing registered planning consultancies to certify that matters had been addressed – just as approved inspectors can deliver building regulation discharges.
• A new use class for retirement housing which will then be excluded from affordable housing section 106 obligations and Community Infrastructure Levy payment – this will help deliver desperately needed retirement housing and care homes, and also deliver general needs housing, because every person who moves into (usually smaller) retirement or care home accommodation frees up a larger property for other people to move into.

The Chancellor said at the weekend he would target 300,000 houses per year.

However again, Dyer is not hopeful,

“It would be a political 'No No' to downgrade all affordable housing obligations, particularly given the state of the current Government, however sensible that would be as a policy. We may get yet another announcement of reform of CIL in time to come - but nothing immediate - and we certainly won’t get a clear announcement on 106 agreements.

“I doubt the Chancellor will actually really introduce any serious reform to get the supply side of the housing market moving. The Government has been tinkering at the edges for years and nothing radical has been done to date despite being massively off target to hit housing numbers. The government has been targeting 200,000 houses a year for several years, but the average net additions (including conversions) in the last seven years has been less than 159,000 per year.

Meanwhile, we can expect to see an increase in planning fees- developers are an easy target to knock. I hope I’m wrong- we’ll have to see what Wednesday brings.”