It was recently confirmed that the Ministry of Housing is looking at more than 100 sites across England that are under consideration by the Government for building new towns as part of its plan to build 1.5 million homes by 2029.
Although details on the projects are scant until a report this summer, apparently they are all over 10,000 homes and have “come forward to be considered.”
The Government, meaning the team behind Angela Rayner (such as Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook and Building Safety Minister Alex Norris) all seem to be absolutely confident that the industry is going to find the money, sites and time to build these projects.
I’ve never managed to be that optimistic.
Many people will man the battlements to prevent the building on their doorstep which will be necessary
James Parker Managing editor of Housebuilder and Developer and Architects Datafile
A big battle ahead
Basic maths leads you to conclude that if these schemes all happen then the Government would be well on its way to the 1.5 million. But we don’t actually know what the target number of new towns is.
What is absolutely clear is that the New Homes Accelerator Programme, which is already parachuting in ‘experts’ from Whitehall and Homes England to local authorities with virtual plungers to fix blocked housing schemes, is going to need to be boosted in the way one might apply nitrous oxide to a car engine, to get such mammoth schemes underway across the nation.
Currently, 20,000 homes have been ‘unlocked’ in the programme, and it’s looking at a further 700,000 homes across 350 sites, which presumably include some of the new towns projects.
It’s no surprise that the new settlements’ locations have not yet been made public – as in the end the ‘blockers’ which Angela Rayners has vowed to defeat are ultimately, the public.
This is going to be the big battle of Labour’s term in office, as many people will man the battlements to prevent building on their doorstep which will be necessary.
Pain before gain
The Ministry believes that the 100+ schemes which have come forward are evidence of “local areas and housebuilders’ ambition to get on board to build the next generation of new towns.”
But are those local authorities or local communities, where the rub will ultimately be, and where many protest groups are fully weaponised by concerns around lack of infrastructure and environmental concerns impeding their local areas.
There will be a lot of pain before the ultimate gain.
The Government taskforce will recommend sites to go ahead in a report due to be published this summer, followed by a “final decision” to be taken by Ministers, confirmed Secretary of State Matthew Pennycook.
He told Sky News that there was the likelihood that some of the projects will include “some standalone greenfield sites,” among other “urban extensions.”
He insisted they would have to be “well-connected, and well-designed,” and whether there will be any objective grading of what this means, remains to be seen.
They have also confirmed their commitment to ensuring that projects have the right supporting infrastructure in place; if they do not, they will be a string of further reasons for people to blame a range of society’s ills on immigrants.
Taking on the blockers
Rayner and Starmer have repeatedly uttered the mantra that they will “take on the blockers” but does this include Labour voters in those precarious ‘red wall’ seats, and certain sensitive southern constituencies?
And will the Planning and Infrastructure Bill due in the next couple of months provide details on exactly how schemes will be able to be railroaded, despite local objections?
It’d be welcomed by many in the industry, but I doubt Rayner, brave though she undoubtedly is, and large though Labour’s majority is, has that much courage to set up a truly interventionist planning system.
Dutch courage!
Possibly the biggest challenge which the Accelerator has thrown up, according to some in the property industry, is the conflict between the need to tackle the ‘blockers’ in the system (with one major one having been identified as Section 106 planning agreements), and the need and desire to raise the numbers of affordable homes delivered.
It is thought that nearly half of affordable homes provision came via Section 106 in 2022/23, and the Government may find itself in a particularly messy bind on this one.
If they want a healthy number of affordable homes but without the hassles of Section 106, in order to push through large numbers of developments in the way they suggest, they’re going to need another mechanism that works at scale.
Again, this is going to require some interventionist thinking and action of the like we probably haven’t seen for decades.
The Ministry is talking about the biggest housebuilding plan since the post-war period, but maybe they are going to need some of the biggest policy Dutch courage to get them to the same level of achievement, on issues such as affordable homes.
James Parker is managing editor of Housebuilder and Developer and Architects Datafile
