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ABOVE: Oliver Banks chatting with Robert Blackman-Woods

Labour have just launched their new Plannning Commission policy at their conference. We caught up with our shadow minister for planning, Roberta Blackman-Woods beforehand to discuss the party’s ambitions for the NPPF, Local Plans and the Housing Crisis.

At this year’s Labour Conference Brexit, antisemitism, factional power struggles and controversial speeches took almost all the limelight. While all that drama was unfolding we found ourselves in a small room outside the conference venue with some of Labour’s most senior planning policy figures all poised to announce what could be the biggest shakeup to the party’s planning policy since the Land Value Tax.

Roberta Blackman-Woods has been chipping away at a very big question for a very long time: “How can Labour change planning for the better” – she may have gotten close to an answer with the Labour Planning Commission.

Make no mistake, the purpose of this commission is to present in 2019 an entirely new national planning system.

Here’s how its billed to work; between now and September 2019 a consortium of planning experts from local governments, Labour politicians, the LGA, the RTPA, the TCPA, the BPF, the FMB and RICS will tour the towns and cities of the UK speaking with councillors, developers, residents, consultants, planners and local politicians about the planning process and how it could be improved. Now if you think that’s rather a lot of initialisms (some very prestigious ones you’ll doubtless recognise) then you’d be right and that’s a fairly strong indicator of how seriously this is being taken by Labour chiefs.

Labour has come out and said in no uncertain terms it believes the planning procedure in the UK is broken and unfit for purpose, rather than complaining and offering no solutions they’ve set up a robust panel to travel the length and breadth of the country to find a solution.

But we’re worried (even though many of us are lifelong Labour supporters), that the solution will simply be more regulation, more hoops and more bureaucracy.

The balance to be struck here is exceptionally fine, too much capitulation to residents who feel embattled by the planning process and you could further stall development and home-building, too many concessions to developers and you risk alienating the core Labour voter.

We’re looking to contribute to the commission’s consultation across the country and believe there’s a strong case to be made for greater granularity in the NPPF, so that a one size fits all rule won’t stifle development in Surrey while radicalising the opinions of residents in Southwark.

If Labour’s Planning Commission achieves anything, it should unveil the paradox at the heart of the planning process, that the time of a one size fits all national planning framework is unsustainable in this day and age, and that as councils are given greater and greater financial independence they should too receive greater powers of self-determination on planning.

Labour is about to launch their new Plannning Commission policy at conference.

We caught up with our shadow minister for planning, Roberta Blackman-Woods beforehand to discus the parties ambitions for the NPPF, Local Plans and the Housing Crisis.

More later…

Housing

Housing was one of the areas chosen for debate by Constituency Labour Parties (it actually topped the ballot) and last night a composite motion was agreed to be debated. It’s practically certain to be agreed.

Composite 1: Housing

The current housing crisis has doubled homelessness since 2010, an increase in families living in temporary accommodation and a drop-in home ownership. Lack of affordable housing, skyrocketing rents, exploitative landlords and poor-quality housing creates a broken housing model that has failed Britain.

The Conservatives’ Social Housing Green Paper offers no funds to build council housing, is a pitiful response to the housing crisis and severely declining levels of affordability in the private rented sector.

Shelters’ recent research evidences that private renters spend on average 41% of income on rent; and many cannot meet housing costs. Shelter called for a new plan for social housing to address the crisis of affordability.

Conference supports this call and investment in social housing is a vital necessity for our country.

– Under the last Labour Government, 2,000,000 homes were built, 1,000,000 more households became home-owners and there was the largest social housing investment in a generation.
– Under the Conservatives, the number of new social rented homes has fallen to the lowest level on record.
– There are now 120,000 children homeless in temporary accommodation, increased by two-thirds since 2010.
– Home ownership is the lowest for 30 years.
– The number of home-owning households under 45 has fallen by 1,000,000 since 2010.

Conference resolves the Labour Party should:

– Put housing at the heart of our efforts to win the next general election.
– Continue to promote the radical measures to fix the housing crisis set out in the 2017 Manifesto.
– Better regulation of Housing Associations as registered social landlords providing social rents and quality homes and repairs
– Deliver 100,000 social rented homes annually with secure lifetime tenancies, and rent and service charges not above 30% of net average incomes for the lowest quartile of households in the relevant housing market area. Other social homes built to be in addition to that number. This is to be an urgent priority, delivered in Labour’s first years in government.
– Remove HRA borrowing cap to allow councils to play a vital role in tackling the crisis which would allow the biggest council housebuilding programme in at least 30 years.
– Commit to an energy efficient building programme of council homes and construction jobs with Direct Labour Organisations taking on council newbuild projects
– End right to buy for Housing Associations and councils.
– Ensure planning consents to developers are time limited.
– End price-fixing by contractors when tendering for council and government contracts.
– Back low and ordinary income households who want to own their own home with discounted homes to buy, first dibs for local people on new homes built in their area.
– Introduce taxation to ensure that properties are indeed in use and not left empty.
– End rough sleeping within a Parliament and tackle the wider causes of rising homelessness, including welfare benefit catastrophes.
– Better regulate the private rented sector, including binding commitments from landlords to maintain properties, ending eviction of tenants who complain about poor housing standards, with secure tenancies.
– Implement government lending for first time buyer deposits.
– Overhaul the building regulations and end deregulation of building controls by privatisation or when managed by arms-length companies and Tenants Management Organisations, as exposed by the Grenfell fire.
– Utilise co-operative housing.
– Legislate to require higher minimum environmental and habitational standards in all new build and improvements in existing build.
– Help private renters with an end to ‘no fault’ evictions, controls on rents and new minimum standards, including three year tenancies as standard.
– Provide land to local authorities for building council housing, including allocation of land returned into public ownership through renationalisation of industries and utilities which were privatised or taken out of direct state control.
– Ring fencing surplus public land for building council homes to meet housing needs.
– End the biases towards private developers in the planning system; including by amending the appeals process; and removing the threat that local authorities will have their planning powers removed for turning down applications where developers refuse to include sufficient social and genuinely affordable housing.
– Ballot tenants in regeneration schemes, ensuring secure long term tenancies and the land registry remains under public control.
– Regulate and Charge business rates for all dwellings used solely for very short terms lets i.e Air B&B.
– Rebalancing the government’s housing budget in favour of social housing by setting a significant national housing grant.

Mover: Chinese for Labour
Seconder: Horsham CLP

Above:  Thorncliffe colleague Oli Hazell leads a discussion on housing policy

For a Prime Minister often supposed to be obsessed with Brexit to the exclusion of every other issue, Theresa May has certainly made many speeches on housing. This week she became the first PM to speak at the National Housing Federation summit, and made clear her policy on social housing.

May reminded delegates of her Downing Street speech on first becoming PM, which committed her to a “personal mission to fix our broken housing system”. She also reminded them of previously announced policies, including several u-turns on Cameron era proposals which were widely criticised and feared in the social housing sector. That includes guaranteeing rents, not going ahead with benefit caps, and delaying extending ‘Right to buy’ to housing association tenants.

It is easy to dismiss the concrete announcement of £2 billion over six years as being negligible, and that not until 2022. Andrew Adonis points out it amounts to just a tenth of the pro-rata spend on social housing in Scotland. But that may be missing the point.

May intends the commitment not as direct subsidy, but to give housing associations a guarantee of long-term funding – through which they can begin to leverage private finance. She emphasised the unique status of housing associations as “public interested, non-profit private institutions”.

This is a shift from the Cameron government, who managed to get so close to housing associations by 2015 that the Office for National Statistics was forced to classify them against their will as public bodies (counter-productively adding housing association borrowing to the national debt).

Former Secretary of State Sajid Javid succeeded in reversing the move precisely to allow housing associations to borrow and build. May is now exhorting housing associations to “lead major developments themselves”, which is exactly what several of the larger groups have been doing; she praised L&Q for their Barking Riverside development, and Peabody for leading on Thamesmead.

Hearing much more positive words, and a Conservative Prime Minister praising social housing, is actually significant in itself. It gives a lead to Conservative councillors who are making decisions on social housing schemes every week: May referred directly to “too many politicians … look down on social housing”. Some may feel, as Nick Clegg reported David Cameron and George Osborne, that “it just creates Labour voters”. May backed up her campaign to remove the stigma with support for tenure-blind design.

May pointedly quoted Nottingham historian Chris Matthews in describing council housing as the “biggest collective leap in living standards in British history” and cited an anecdote from Tony Parker’s 1970s study of the Brandon Estate in Southwark. Yet her speech was to an audience of housing associations, not councils, and her government is still wary about lifting the cap on Housing Revenue Account borrowing which a cross-party local government lobby urges as a way of getting genuine council homes built.

The speech has had criticism from the social housing sector over the low level of funding, with many pointing out that spend on social housing is dwarfed by the amount spent supporting private sector housing through Help to Buy and other schemes. Recent leaks have suggested Help to Buy is now seen as pushing up house prices; the Budget due in November may see changes.

Many have detected an implicit warning in the way the end of May’s speech was constructed: having made policy changes (including embarrassing u-turns) to help housing associations, she seemed to be saying that they had better now deliver. What is unclear is whether there is a plan B should this approach not work.

On 1 April 2019, there will be many failed attempts to write funny April fool stories in the morning papers, and the map of English local government will change for the first time in a decade. In Dorset, Suffolk and Somerset, and probably Buckinghamshire, new merged councils will take over.

Successive governments of both parties have wanted larger, unitary local councils, but failed to deliver it – generally by attempting to change the whole country at once, allowing wide opposition. That did for the Redcliffe-Maud proposals, commissioned by Wilson but scrapped by Heath who did something more modest. In the 1990s Michael Heseltine got Sir John Banham in, but local opposition meant he ended up recreating County Boroughs.

Since then governments have had more success by picking off one area at a time, in areas where locals have suggested change. The most recent changes in 2009 saw Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire and Wiltshire become unitary counties, while Bedfordshire and Cheshire formed two unitaries.

Biggest of the changes next year will be in Dorset, involving the first time that unitary councils created in the 1990s have been altered. Bournemouth and Poole, which became unitary in 1997, will merge with Christchurch; the remaining five districts will form a Dorset unitary council. Local consultation found this to be most popular, but Christchurch remains opposed: a referendum in December had an 84% vote against, and the borough council failed in a last ditch judicial review.

A decision is imminent on Buckinghamshire, where there is less consensus. The district councils want two unitary councils (north and south), while Bucks county council thinks there should be a county unitary. In March, then Secretary of State Sajid Javid was minded to go with the county; one last round of consultation finished in May.

There are also three mergers of districts. Taunton Deane has agreed to merge with West Somerset, England’s smallest population district which has accepted it is not financially viable. In Suffolk, Forest Heath (Newmarket and Mildenhall) merges with St Edmundsbury (Bury St Edmunds and Haverhill) to make West Suffolk; Suffolk Coastal merges with Waveney (Lowestoft) to make East Suffolk. In each case the upper tier county council remains.

For people trying to get permission for developments, there are advantages in dealing with a unitary council or larger district. You are likely to deal with a larger team of planning officers who have more experience. It avoids county-district disputes over transport impact, or section 106 contributions to education. It may also mean a scheme with intense local opposition is decided by councillors elected from areas many miles away.

It is not unalloyed good news. Merging councils is often seen as a way to get rid of housebuilding allocation and shift all the housing target into one area. Merged councils inherit planning policies from previous districts until their own is ready, but some new unitaries take their eye off the ball: Cheshire East went several years without a plan as previous ones expired long before a replacement was ready, and local opinion has little confidence in the council as a result. Central Bedfordshire has submitted a plan opposed by a majority of consultees.

Before 1986, everywhere in England had two tier councils. After 2019 only about 38% of the population will. That proportion is only going to fall further, as central government turns its attention to the next county.

Now the dust has settled across London after May’s borough council elections what key themes are emerging for housing where there has been notable changes in Council leadership or composition? We take a look at some of the councils in London that have experienced the most change since May and housing policies in those boroughs.

Probably the most talked about borough in London prior to the May elections was Haringey, mainly due to leader Claire Kober standing down, after many supporters of the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) were deselected by Momentum-dominated Labour party branches. So what has happened since?

Labour councillors narrowly elected Councillor Joseph Ejiofor to succeed Claire Kober. Cllr Ejiofor has in interviews since the election stressed that Haringey is a Labour council, not a Momentum council. However Momentum has certainly flexed their muscles in the borough and the council has shifted to the left. The leading councillors are prominent Momentum members: both Ejiofor and deputy leader Emina Ibrahim are on the Momentum National Executive Council. One of the first major moves by the Council, albeit hardly unsurprising, came in July when they voted to abandon the HDV project. This was despite a cabinet report that acknowledged the risk that the council could miss its housing target and incur censure from national government.

Moreover there is already evidence of a change in the way councillors prefer to see affordable housing delivered. In the two planning committees since the election, members have been clear that social and affordable rented tenures is their preferred way forward for the borough rather than intermediate forms of affordable housing. While Ejiofor is among the more moderate section of Momentum in Haringey, a wide spectrum of Labour opinion doubts the value of intermediate housing and shared ownership.

There have also been significant changes in Haringey’s neighbouring borough of Enfield. After the election the local Labour group elected a new leader in Nesil Caliskan who became at the time the youngest council leader in London, the first female leader of Enfield and the first person of Turkish heritage to lead a council in Britain. One of her first decisions was to agree a new strategy for the 10,000 home Meridian Water regeneration scheme after the council failed to agree terms with Pacific Century Premium Developments (PCPD), which led to PCPD exiting the process.

The revised plan will see the council work with multiple partners rather than one master developer to build the scheme. Caliskan has said the reason for this was the risk that the majority of homes built would be sold to overseas buyers, which was not something she was willing to sign up to. Thus, says the council leader, the Council’s new plan for Meridian Water will lead to a better deal for residents: her aim is to deliver for local residents and reduce inequality in the borough.

This is emblematic of an emerging theme across Labour boroughs in the capital, a greater focus on delivering what they deem to be truly affordable housing for local residents. In Newham the newly elected Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz made truly affordable housing for local people one of her key manifesto pledges during the election. Within the second week of her mayoralty a commitment was announced to develop a joint action plan with the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London to increase the number of affordable homes built in Newham.

Moving much further south and west across London, Kingston Upon Thames experienced a big swing away from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats returning a huge majority for the Lib Dems, with them taking 39 of 48 seats available, leaving the Conservatives on a rump of just nine seats. Before the election Kingston had a pro-development leadership under Kevin Davis with the only problems at committee for developers coming from the Liberal Democrat opposition.

On numerous occasions Lib Dems voted against unpopular housing developments, best exemplified by their opposition to Meyer Homes’s Tolworth scheme, a huge 950 home project replacing former Government offices.

So three months on from the Lib Dems taking power in the borough have they continued with past form and objected to housing developments? The answer so far is no. Whilst it is early days they have approved several major developments and voted to approve the Meyer Homes Tolworth scheme, despite previous opposition to it. The Lib Dems have asserted their five priorities for development in the borough; design, sustainability, accessibility, affordability and public realm. New housing developments will theoretically be judged on those measures.

Overall then what are the main conclusions three months on from where changes occurred in councils across the capital? Some Labour councils are shifting to the left on housing, delivering policies aimed at producing more truly affordable housing, echoing the Labour Party’s national policies that have emerged over the past year. While in the South West the Liberal Democrats in administration are more pro-development than their years in opposition.

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