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Housing Forum outlines five-step plan
Experts from across the housing industry have set out five key steps for the Government to ensure housing market recovery and urged an assessment of its planning strategy at a lively debate hosted by The Housing Forum, held in July.
The forum, which represents stakeholders across the housing sector, drew on a wide variety of expert opinion for its annual debate. This included Housing Forum board members, Tony Bowron, new initiatives director of the Bromford Group, Ian Davis, operations director of National House Building Council and John Stewart, director of economic affairs from the Home Builders Federation.
Barry Munday, chairman of The Housing Forum said: “The recently announced changes to the planning system are radical and the long term effects on supply are uncertain.
“In the short term, some local authorities are already holding back on local development plans until more detail is provided on how the New Homes Bonus (the Government’s proposed incentive arrangement to encourage more homes to be built) will work and there are also signs that some councils are using the new direction to resist development.
“The question now is whether the proposed financial incentives to local authorities will be enough in the short-medium term to encourage them to allow more homes to be built.
“Also, we need to know what will happen when the incentive ends after the six-year period proposed by the Housing Minister. There is a long-term chronic undersupply of homes in the UK and we need a sustainable approach to planning and encouraging development.”
The system requires first a realistic assessment of housing need in the district upon which is based the local housing requirement, and second the five-year supply must then meet the first five years of this total housing requirement. It is a two stage process.
The debate concluded with a five step plan for the coalition Government to follow to ensure that the housing market recovery. This included:
Greater land availability
Have a robust process for ensuring that the required plans for ensuring a five year supply of permissioned land are produced as soon as possible and that they are realistic and meaningful.
Mortgage availability
Ensure a greater supply and range of mortgages for first time buyers and existing home owners.
Simplify regulation and encourage innovation
To ensure sufficient viable residential land is available for housing development, the cumulative impact of policy and regulation at the national and local levels needs to be reduced. Simplify the regulatory burden on housing providers and encourage innovation in design, procurement and funding to ensure that available resources are maximised and affordability and sustainability are increased.
Making localism work
Work with The Housing Forum and others in the housing industry to ensure that the new planning system is practicable and will stimulate more homes to be built and be prepared to act against those authorities that unreasonably resist development.
New partnering models
Contractors, developers and some housing providers to work together and share risk in order to meet housing demand, and increase supply of new housing of all tenures.
With the impact of the drastic cuts still to be felt, members agreed that housing providers will have to quickly adapt to an evolving market in which the demand for total housing supply will grow substantially.
There needs to be strategies and actions to increase housing supply in order to aid the wider economy and to do this there needs to be recognition of weakening consumer confidence and the continuing mortgage constraints.
Increased housing production is vital to meet new household formation and the forecast rise in demand for all forms of housing tenures. The new partnerships and models must target this objective and reflect the changed market conditions or the wider negative impact on communities and the economy will put future growth (or recovery) at risk.
Barry Munday, chairman of The Housing Forum, commented: “The importance of housing as an economic and social driver, as well as a major source of jobs must be recognised.
“It is difficult to see any alternative to combining an increased supply of land with a more certain and faster planning system – they are both key components in any move towards a more stable and equitable housing market in the UK.”
