No prizes it seems in the New Homes Bonus for being a housing-friendly good planning authority

 Yesterday the allocations were released for the New Homes Bonus.

And Grant Shapps happily slapped away criticisms that councils in the North were being unfairly treated under the scheme saying three of the top five councils benefiting most are in the North or Midlands.

His geography may have been correct when reading from the list of the biggest lumps of money allocated. Sadly he appears to have revealed either his ineptitude with statistics or his willingness to abuse their meaning.

Let’s have a look at Gateshead.

Why?

Well, people I have spoken to seem to think that the good folk of Gateshead have been rather positive when it comes to planning and regeneration.

And certainly the outward image of Gateshead is one that appears exceptionally planning friendly.

Statements like “If you are looking for planning permission, then you’re likely to get the right decision faster in Gateshead than almost anywhere else in the UK” are unlikely to ring from nimby boroughs.

Nor phrases like: “…to build new homes for local people is excellent news.”

But in the New Homes Bonus race Gateshead will receive 36p per head of population against the average of £2.74, if my rather rapid calculations are correct.

And just to make the whole thing seem a little more surreal the biggest winner on a per capita basis appears to be the City of London at £28.51 per head.

Indeed, if we look at the winners and losers on a per capita basis we find that Salford is the only northern council in the top 10, in fact the only one outside the South East.

The more I look at it the more I am of the mind that there is no way you can suggest the New Homes Bonus is fair and consistent with rewarding good planning performance and be within 180 degrees of the truth.

As I have mused many times before, this is not actually a bonus (ultimately it is an incentive that reallocates funds – so is as much a penalty as a bonus) and it is not about building new homes (it is about increasing housing stock).

In places like Gateshead the issue is about the right homes in the right place. This may mean knocking down homes to build more appropriate accommodation. Sadly knocking down decrepit homes does you no favours at all under the New Homes Bonus regime.

In this light what are we to make of this statement reported in yesterday’s Hansard.

Grant Shapps: It may have escaped the attention of Opposition Members that the new homes bonus rewards the authorities that build homes. That is why it is called the new homes bonus. Of the five areas that are building the most homes – the five top councils to receive the new homes bonus – three of them are in the midlands or the north.

For those that are interested, below I have done some rough calculations based on the number of people estimated for each council taken from the 2010 sub-national population projections used in the in the 2010-11 headline allocations for formula grant. This is a simple £ per head of the New Homes Bonus grant determination for 2011-12.

This allocation of funds takes no account of the fact that when the New Homes Bonus is in full flow the ”bonus” will be drawn from the formula funding, which will disproportionately be taken from northern boroughs and London, if rough calculation I did some months ago remain true.