In April this year the Labour Party published the green paper ‘Housing for the many’ which set out the party’s plan to re-engineer the housing system focused on building enough homes and ensuring that housing is affordable to those that need it.
The review was led by John Healey MP, the Shadow Housing Secretary and set out key proposals for consultation including redefining affordable housing, setting councils’ a ‘duty to deliver’, creating an English Sovereign Land Trust to make more land available and creating new borrowing freedoms and central funding to get councils and housing associations building at scale.
A call for evidence is now to be published on 25th October 2018 alongside regional meetings which will feed into the paper.
Roberta Blackman-Woods MP, Labour’s spokesperson on planning has outlined how this will create a “system of local plan making that is genuinely democratic” with a suggestion that a rethink of the system will give communities greater influence and future proof the system.
The Conservative policy seems to be moving far more back to a regional approach through joint planning such as in Oxfordshire where the Government has confirmed a reduction in land supply requirements from five years down to three following a growth deal with a commitment to a Joint Statutory Spatial Plan (JSSP).
The review will include the various tiers of planning and has been welcomed by those supporting SME housebuilders for whom the system has become too complex and expensive.
How can TFA help?
Our team can assist you in taking part in this important review of the housing and planning system being undertaken by Labour. We can assist in shaping coherent policy positions, engaging with key stakeholders in the process to inform the future direction of the party’s policies to address the housing crisis.
