Barker: the aftermath

The Barker review's objectives ensured it asked some awkward questions. The challenges were:

• to achieve improvements in housing affordability in the market sector
  
• to ensure a more stable housing market
  
• to distribute housing supply in a pattern that supports patterns of economic development
  
• to achieve an adequate supply of subsidised housing for those who need it.

The most fundamental conclusion was that we are not building nearly enough new homes. While the report tests various scenarios, the emphasis is on the outcomes in terms of "market affordability".

Striking a balance
Planning policy strives for a balance between the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. This is reflected in the current consultation paper, PPS1: Creating Sustainable Communities.

Barker, however, urges a more rational basis for weighing environmental costs against the social and economic benefits from new housing. The key provisions are:

• greater use of market information and signals to identify where, when and how additional housing should be supplied
  
• greater allocation of land to increase supply and competition, and a more flexible response to changing market conditions
  
• new frameworks for managing regional housing markets, including merged regional planning and regional housing bodies, supported by regional planning executives
  
• various changes to locally allocating planning permission, including provision of a 20-40% contingency allocation in the new local development frameworks to increase competition between developers
  
• changes to planning policy guidance note PPG3 to secure greater flexibility to reflect local markets
  
• for larger-scale development, a wider use of new towns and special delivery vehicles
  
• landowners should be taxed on windfall gains on increases in land values from development, particularly of greenfield sites. Receipt of planning permission is a suitable point in the process for this. A planning gain supplement based on local land values runs the least risk of reducing supply
  
• the tax should run alongside a restricted form of section 106 planning gain agreement, which can only include mitigation measures and affordable housing contributions. The government's proposals to replace section 106 with a tariff are not appropriate
  
• a further 23,000 social and affordable dwellings need to be built every year over the next 10 years. Not all the cost of £1.6bn would necessarily be met by the government.

The government's response has been immediate. The overall case for a significant increase in housing development over time, a long-term market affordability goal and increased investment in social housing appears to have been accepted. The latter will be addressed in the July spending review but the remainder of the detailed recommendations have conveniently been put on hold until the end of 2005.

Should the changes to PPG3 really have to wait another 18 months, when this consultation paper is an overall template for the reformed system?

Planning policy implications
There are, though, unavoidable implications for the emerging planning policy agenda.

What of the proposals in the planning and compulsory purchase bill for tariffs, rather than the planning gain supplement now recommended? It seems the special advisory group's work on planning obligations reform will focus on improving the present section 106 system with particular emphasis on delivering affordable housing. The tariff proposal is likely to quietly disappear.

What of the long-awaited proposed changes to PPG3, belatedly issued in July 2003 yet still not confirmed? Now that affordable housing is to be dealt with by section 106, surely there need be no further delay and uncertainty. The changes should be consolidated and issued immediately, along with the accompanying good practice guide officially overdue by more than three years.

What about the rest of the recommended changes to PPG3? Should these really have to wait another 18 months, when PPS1 provides an important overall template for the reformed planning system? A new and promptly issued PPS3 will be fundamental to delivering more housing. Perhaps the most embarrassing finding of Barker for the government is that key elements of PPG3 (2000), heralded as helping give "everyone the opportunity of a decent home", are very much part of the problem.

Last, but not least, if planning and housing functions are to be merged regionally, would it not be logical for provision to be made in the Planning & Compulsory Purchase Bill for a similar integration of development frameworks and housing strategies locally?