Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 123
1st Report - Meeting housing demand
Published 10 Jan 2022
Built Environment Committee Meeting the UK’s housing demand All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Planning White Paper set out an ambition for homes to be built more quickly through designating ‘zones’ in local plans and cutting down the time taken to develop a local plan. These simplified local plans would place land in three categories: growth areas, renewal areas and protected areas (see Box 5). Box 5: Zoning proposal definitions Growth areas: places “suitable for substantial development”, including new settlements and urban extension sites, and areas for redevelopment, such as former industrial sites or urban regeneration sites. Proposals in these areas would automatically be granted outline planning permission for the principle of development, with full permission achieved through streamlined and faster consent routes. Renewal areas: places “suitable for development”, including gentle densification and infill of residential areas, development in town centres, and development in rural areas that are not annotated as growth or protected areas. Specified forms of development that meet the design and other conditions of the local plan would receive automatic consent. Other proposed developments would have a faster planning application process. Protected areas: places “which, as a result of their particular environmental and/or cultural characteristics, would justify more stringent development controls to ensure sustainability”. These would include Green Belt and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, amongst others. Proposals in these areas would follow the current process. Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, White Paper: Planning for the future
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Meeting housing demand, 10 January 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 10 March 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and says it is "taking action on a number of the issues identified", agreeing with some recommendations while disagreeing with others, including on home ownership schemes and the Apprenticeship Levy.
- It "disagrees with the report's assessment that homeownership schemes do not provide good value for money", citing independent evaluations and its own evaluation of Help to Buy.
- On older people's housing, it is launching a new taskforce "this year", chaired by the Minister for Housing, to look at better choice, quality and security of housing.
- It does "not intend to set out a proportion" of Affordable Homes Programme funding for social housing, though "around half" of the affordable homes are to be for social and affordable rent.
- On the Apprenticeship Levy it says it has "no plans to review" it. On planning fees it is "exploring options" to increase them, and on local plans it will make an announcement "in due course".