Industry fears Brown’s 3 million homes will lead to fall in quality

Prime minister Gordon Brown has put housing at the top of the government agenda with his declaration to deliver 3 million homes by 2020, but there are concerns about whether industry can deliver either the numbers or the quality required.

Brown’s legislative statement earlier this month announced plans to: use the New Towns Act to deliver more housing numbers; push through more planning reform in the Planning bill; bring more public land into use for housing and regeneration; pave the way for affordable 25-year fixed-rate mortgages, and give a stronger role to local authorities and housing associations. The prime minister also effectively killed the proposed planning gain supplement by announcing a further review.

Although the industry has welcomed the ambition to deliver more homes, there are doubts that he can redirect the oil tanker that is England’s housebuilding by his 2020 target and do so without sacrificing housing standards.

Firstly, the reformed planning system is acknowledged by the government still to be in imperfect working order, and remedying its ongoing ills would cause at best short-term pain. “We can’t go through another period of change,” said Roger Humber, strategic policy consultant with the House Builders Association. “Anything in housing takes a very long time to feed through,” said Richard Donnell, head of research at property data company Hometrack.

CLG’s housing green paper, due to be published after Regenerate went to press, was expected to recommend further changes to the planning system. The Treasury sub-national review, published 17 July, proposes transferring strategic planning powers from regional assemblies to regional development agencies.

The assemblies have blotted their copybook with the government for their resistance to its housebuilding ambitions. Earlier this month housing minister Yvette Cooper described as “bonkers” the reduced housing targets being put forward in the draft South East of England regional assembly’s draft plan.

Brown’s eco-towns will rely heavily on release of public land. But owning land does not mean it is in the right place to build

Martin Leyland, David Wilson Estates

But that is not the only planning obstacle, as local plan making is in similar disarray, with approximately half of plans submitted so far being declared unsound at inquiry. Because of this delay in implementing new policy, the CLG has been filtering advice through to housebuilders to use a paragraph in PPS3, which advises how applications should be considered in the absence of Local Development Documents, to win planning approval.

In his legislative statement, Brown suggests that he is taking housebuilding in the UK back to the boom period of the post-War years with his plans to increase housebuilding numbers and give a greater role to local authorities. But the public sector’s role in 2007 will not be developing council housing to the extent that it did in the post-War period. CLG’s consultation paper on Communities England, published last month, sets out different roles for local authorities in vehicles such as local strategic partnerships with Communities England, and, notably, in releasing land assets.

Public land has a part to play. Martin Leyland, managing director of David Wilson Estates, part of Barratt Group, said: “If Gordon Brown is going to achieve what he wants with eco-towns, that will rely heavily on the release of public land. But in releasing public land there are questions about what will happen to normal checks and balances of development, such as location. Owning a piece of land does not mean it is in the right place to build.”

In the post-War years, high housebuilding numbers were achieved at the expense of housing quality. Leyland is among many in the industry who believe delivering numbers and quality will be a challenge.

He says: “The government is trying to achieve greater numbers and make improvements to housing, like modern methods of construction and zero carbon. It will be vital to keep those two in balance. If we do not constantly check the delivery agenda against the standards agenda we could end up with the housing quality that we saw in the post-War period, or with over-demanding standards putting pressure on the viability of development and hindering land sales. That is the crux.”