One village bypass we don’t need: Community right to build

Government proposals for a “community right to build”, announced last month, are part of the Conservatives’ “big society” concept aimed at promoting localism.

Under the right to build (RTB) initiative, villages will be able to sidestep planning bureaucracy to provide affordable housing, in the hope of revitalising dwindling rural communities. The proposals are in the Decentralisation and Localism Bill, due to be published this autumn.

The idea is that villages will form not-for-profit trusts to co-ordinate development proposals and hold a referendum to decide if each project should go ahead. An overwhelming majority (80-90% of votes) will be required for developments to proceed.

The local authority will then check that the proposals meet minimum criteria such as majority local support and defined environmental standards.

A suggested safeguard is that proposals do not expand the size of the community by more than 10% over any 10-year period. If the basic criteria are met, planning permission will be granted automatically; if not, the proposal will revert to the local planning authority to be treated as any normal application.

The RTB has evolved from the local housing trusts proposed in a Conservative green paper published last year. The proposals would encompass more than housing, however, as it is envisaged that RTB could extend to long-term, low-rent deals for shops, community halls and sports facilities.

The communities department has published a Q&A document that attempts to deal with some of the issues raised, but further detail is needed. For example, how does RTB fit with the recent changes to the garden-grabbing measures in PPS3? Councils will want to know how the required infrastructure services will be procured without the usual section 106 agreements.

There will also be fears that the system could be abused by influential landowners and developers. Preventing overdevelopment is a key concern, which the RTB proposals attempt to address through the trust status of the community organisation that will hold the land in perpetuity. This means housebuyers will be restricted to leasehold ownership.

To reach the level of community support necessary to push through proposals, considerable resources and expert advice will be required, and land acquisition costs will of course
be crucial to the viability of schemes. The availability of public funding has not been discussed (no surprise there), but there does seem to be a need for pump-priming money.

The Royal Town Planning Institute argues that by removing local authorities’ rights to determine development proposals, RTB housing could clash with wider community priorities and will only have to meet national minimum standards, irrespective of any higher design standards set by local authorities.

So RTB could actually disempower communities in terms of the quality of developments.

The British Property Federation has highlighted the need to develop a clear national policy alongside RTB, stating that “without clarity over local plans and certainty over how much will get built, the economies of scale we need for a viable market do not stack up” - which casts a shadow over housing minister Grant Shapps’ promise of a “nation of housebuilders”.

Many welcome an approach to development that allows local residents greater input and applaud the government for its desire to protect and enhance village life.
But some believe these aims might be better served by giving communities a key role in shaping local plans, or by making the existing rural exceptions policy in PPG3 more accessible.

Bypassing the planning process entirely is arguably not the way to achieve this. All development proposals need proper scrutiny and there is a danger that in granting RTB, the government is sanctioning rights without responsibility, undermining the other key principle of big society.

That said, RTB could fall at the first hurdle: the requisite majority vote. How realistic is it to expect local communities to work together for the greater good? It will take enlightened and active communities under strong and experienced leadership to do so.

Chris Charlton, Karen Howe and Kim Borg are members of the planning team at Clarke Willmott in Bristol