Living by numbers

Planning, 10 October 2008

Delayed progress on plan-led regional spatial strategies and local development frameworks (LDFs) suggests that the government has lost confidence in the process. Now, as if to pile on the agony, communities secretary Hazel Blears has proclaimed South East Plan housing targets to be minima rather than the maxima to which councils have been working.

There can be little point in a target figure if it must always be exceeded. Where is the supporting evidence and capacity assessment for an infinite number of additional houses? Whoever came up with this suggestion has not considered the implications. Years of studies into sustainability, transport, housing need, landscape and the regional market are consigned to the recycling bin.

A developer could submit any size of application in any part of the UK and simply claim that it conforms to the regional strategy merely because the extra homes would be above the target. LDFs that have been found sound would immediately be declared unsound because they do not conform to the RSS, while authorities yet to achieve this state of nirvana would be knocked back several stages. The costs incurred so far could have contributed significantly to a bank bail-out.

Inevitably, developers have embraced this government gift to their profit margins. Yet all it will do is place huge strains on existing communities where these developments would take place. We can forget any notion of integrating incoming residents, especially where new development exceeds local need. Alienation can only follow.

Applications would take significantly longer to process. Matters currently considered at policy stage, such as educational needs, health care and infrastructure would suddenly need to be planned in detail despite having no heads-up at strategic level. Teams of policy planners - probably expensive consultants - would have to be drafted in to cope with the sudden burden on planning authorities and service providers.

The government fails to comprehend that the existing infrastructure deficit is increasing and new development cannot even remotely bridge the gap. What is needed is a new deal, where for every pound of development infrastructure the government provides match funding towards infrastructure renewal and expansion in new development areas.

The current market downturn offers an opportunity to step back and recast the planning system so that it can deliver housing where it is needed without placing unacceptable burdens on parts of the country. Rolling back the accumulated damage to the planning system over the past 11 years will take time, but it will have to be done to bring common sense and realistic policy-making into play.

Equilibrium must be restored if future development is to be accepted by existing communities. But there is no flexibility in planning policy statements (PPSs) to take account of local conditions. Inspectors interpret PPSs as rigid rules that must be obeyed, even when local conditions render their terms inappropriate. The gaps left by incomplete LDFs are filled by inspectors making policy on the hoof in appeal adjudications based only on PPSs.

Is there not a link between the planning system and the current difficulties in the housing market? The surplus of homes that are unsuited to local needs has been increasing over the past three or four years. Homes that remain vacant for months after completion have been regarded as an opportunity for small investors to launch into the buy-to-rent sector and are mostly purchased with mortgages.

There are two reasons why these homes have been built. Government targets are one. However small they may be, these "units" count towards the dreaded housing numbers. Secondly, developers have taken the view that the more houses they provide the greater their profits. They leave it to the show home staff to blag any potential buyer. If homes cannot be sold to an owner-occupier, then sell them to the buy-to-rent sector.

It can hardly come as a surprise to anyone that communities with a surfeit of unsold or empty homes are sceptical about the government's claim that three million homes are needed by 2020. I do not believe that any existing community is so resistant to reasoned and justified development that it has to be beaten into submission by government diktat.

- Ricky Bower is cabinet member for planning at Arun District Council.