Oven-Ready Planning Reforms

Some ideas Britain's new government can steal from its last

The first days of a new government are an exciting time. Instantly, the realm of what’s politically  possible expands. Ideas that were written off because they were too radical or simply too difficult to get through parliament are all of a sudden back on the table.

But, it’s also a deeply frustrating time. Dozens of good (and not-particularly ideological) ideas that will have worked their way through the Whitehall machine for months (or even years) will either be put on the backburner or simply dropped altogether. Every government is entitled to pursue their own priorities, but policies put on ice when governments change hands often find themselves back on the agenda years later.

Labour made stability a big theme of their election campaign. One advantage of political stability is the way it allows policy to develop. Implementing major change on important, but not headline-grabbing, issues typically means carefully developing policies and winning arguments over years. Too often without the context of how and why a policy was developed, it is hard for a Minister to grasp why implementing it will be in their interest.

With that in mind, I thought I’d flag some policies developed under the last Government that a new Labour government keen to make it easier to build new homes and infrastructure in Britain ought to carry the torch on. These are ‘oven-ready’ quick wins for the new Labour government.

Cambridge New Town

Labour have pledged to create a new generation of new towns so it’d be surprising if they scrap (or simply scale back) the most mature and exciting new town proposal developed by the last Government.

Extending Cambridge with 150,000 new homes in a brand-new science quarter would bring down sky-high housing costs in the city and allow more people to benefit from the job opportunities that come from hosting a world-leading research institution.  Labour’s rhetoric on R&D and streamlining planning for laboratory space is welcome, but it’s essential that one of the UK’s biggest engines of innovation isn’t artificially constrained.

Let’s be clear, this won’t be easy – there are big challenges around water due to the UK’s failure to build reservoirs - but it is the biggest new town prize there is and it is an idea where lots of the groundwork has been done already. 

National Development Management Policies (NMDPs)

Our planning system is a bureaucratic nightmare and the cost of navigating it for small builders has risen massively in recent years. Planning consultants Lichfields estimate that the cost of gathering all the evidence to get an outline permission has risen more than fourfold since 1990.

One major problem is that every single local authority has slightly different policies on things like flood risk or climate change. Having 300 or so different flood risk policies is not only administratively burdensome but also generates massive uncertainty. All of this is a barrier to delivering new housing.

Take climate change, although it's a global problem best dealt with at the national level, councils across the UK all have their own planning policies to address carbon emissions. This causes problems, as Ant Breach of the Centre for Cities puts it, “developments that may pass carbon policy in one local authority will be rejected in others; while places which reject proposals on climate grounds are likely to be subject to an appeal due to contradictions with national policy.”

National Development Management Policies (NDMPs), a measure in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, are a way to radically simplify and standardise the planning system. Instead of every council having its own policy on carbon assessments or flood risk, NDMPs could set a single nationwide policy for each.

This isn’t merely a red-tape slashing exercise, though it would eliminate plenty of unnecessary red tape for small builders, it is also a way to ensure policies are designed by those with real expertise. How many of the 300 or so floor risk policies are set by the nation’s leading experts on the matter?

Mansards

One powerful YIMBY reform that snuck under the radar are the changes to National Planning Policy Framework permitting considerate mansard roof extensions on buildings. The rule change allows households to add a mansard floor to their property provided there was a local tradition of mansard construction when the building was first erected and the mansard floor is in keeping with the style of mansards at the time. Crucially, the policy prevents councils from insisting that a row of mansards be erected simultaneously, instead allowing houses to add mansards one by one.

When the change was first announced many planners were confused as to why the National Planning Policy Framework went into such detail about mansards. But already, a number of planning authorities have had their local decisions refusing permission for mansards overturned on appeal as a result of the policy. Significantly, the policy applies to homes in conservation areas.

Over time, as awareness of the policy grows, it could have a major effect on housing supply. According to Create Streets, if just 10% of the 4.7 million pre-1919 homes in England added mansard floors, it would create almost a million new bedrooms without a single demolition being necessary.

When Labour redraft the National Planning Policy Framework and reverses some of the recent anti-supply changes, they should make sure to keep the mansard policy. In fact, they should go further and create a mansard specific National Development Management Policy. This would have the effect of removing uncertainty, give homeowners confidence in the policy, and, as a result, boost uptake.

Labour have expressed a willingness to pick fights over planning. But not every YIMBY change requires a fight, making it easier to extend properties upwards with mansard extensions is a rare policy that increases housing supply without enraging NIMBYs.

Community Land Auctions

When planning permission for new homes is granted on undeveloped land, it can shoot up in value by as much 80 times. This is known as planning gain. Labour have expressed a lot of interest in using compulsory purchase orders to allow councils to buy land at existing use value to capture some of this planning gain, but there’s another interesting method for capturing planning gain that they now have at their disposal.

Contained within the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act was a provision for councils to trial Community Land Auctions, an idea dreamt up years ago by furlough inventor Tim Leunig and strangely enough Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, and endorsed by literally every think tank under the sun from the IPPR and Resolution Foundation to Policy Exchange and the IEA.

What is this idea and why has it been able to win such broad support?

Community Land Auctions work by having councils invite landowners to submit offers of land to be developed. As it's a competitive process, landowners are incentivised to offer their land at fair prices rather than the full value with planning permission. The council then makes its choice, based on both the land’s suitability and the potential windfall from selling it on with planning permission attached. The winning sites are bought and then sold on to property developers with planning permission granted in advance. As planning permission makes the land much more valuable, councils stand to make a substantial surplus which they can use to spend on their own priorities whether that’s social housing, filling potholes, or social care.

It is a win-win approach that could avoid some of the long-drawn out legal disputes that are often associated with compulsory purchase. As local councils capture the planning gain, it gives them a powerful bottom-up incentive to approve development. A Labour government could use this policy to ensure that communities benefit from building on the grey belt.

Street votes

Labour’s approach to planning reform could be described as top-down pressure. While not dictating exactly how local councils deliver new homes, Labour’s plans are to force councils to plan for new development by reimposing mandatory housing targets. There’s a lot to be said for this approach, but it has limits. It doesn’t solve the underlying political problem that under our planning system it is often rational to oppose new development. Top-down approaches are somewhat hostage to political fortunes as a result. Starmer’s riding high now, but if polls shift his Cabinet may be reluctant to pick fights with intransigent councils in marginal constituencies 

There’s an alternative and crucially, more politically durable, way to get more homes built: allow people who say yes to development to share in the benefits of it. In other words, turn NIMBYs into YIMBYs by ensuring that affected residents, not just developers, benefit when permission is granted.

One of the best examples of this ‘bottom-up’ approach is a measure in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act to allow individual streets to agree to grant themselves planning permission to add additional floors to their homes, subject to certain conditions (e.g. it does not result in loss of daylight to other streets). In the parts of Britain where housing is most scarce and in demand, the freedom to add an extra floor or two would be extremely valuable. In some cases, it could mean a property price boost of hundreds of thousands of pounds. As a result, it could unlock development in areas where trying to obtain permission via traditional routes (e.g. allocation in a local plan) would be far too controversial.

Will it single-handedly get 1.5m million homes built over the next Parliament? Almost certainly not. But, it could still quietly deliver tens of thousands of homes each year in the background. Crucially, because the incentive to vote to add floor-space is strongest in the places where the housing shortage is greatest, houses delivered via street votes will have outsized impacts on affordability.

If Rishi Sunak had not frustrated the Housing Department’s efforts by calling the election as they worked on the details, it is likely that Street Vote Development Orders would be the law of the land. All the Primary Legislation is sorted and the specific implementation was consulted on months ago. All that is left to do now is to pass the enabling secondary legislation. This could be the policy equivalent of David Nugent scoring against Andorra for England.

Environmental Outcome Reports

One of the biggest barriers to delivering infrastructure quickly is the requirement to produce lengthy environmental impact assessments (EIAs). For example, Sizewell C’s environmental impact assessment was a staggering 44,000 pages long. Producing these reports is expensive and can take years.

Outside of the European Union, Britain has the freedom to take a different approach. The Levelling and Regeneration Act gave the government new powers to replace the old system of Environmental Impact Assessments and Strategic Environmental Assessments with a new system of Environmental Outcome Reports focused on real-world outcomes, not just potential impacts.

EIAs have become a box-ticking exercise and while paperwork burdens have risen massively, EIAs haven’t stopped Britain becoming one of the most nature depleted countries in the world. A better approach is possible: one that replaces 10,000 page EIAs with hundred page EORs and unlocks more money for nature restoration.

The EOR regime has the potential to massively speed up infrastructure delivery and help Labour deliver a clean grid by 2030. It is vital that the good work done developing this regime isn’t abandoned and we are not just left with a renamed version of the old broken system.

Reforms to tackle inappropriate legal changes to infrastructure projects

Labour’s infrastructure plans, particularly clean power by 2030, are reliant on dramatically streamlining the planning timelines. One problem that must be addressed are the increasing numbers of legal challenges causing delays to legal challenges. Labour haven’t ignored this issue, but so far their solutions only address part of the problem. Publishing clearer statutory guidance on consultation and updating National Policy Statements as Labour have advocated will close some avenues for legal challenge, but it won’t solve the problem altogether.

One issue is that even unsuccessful legal challenges can still cause major delays. Take the challenge to Hinkley Point C’s attempt to dump some mud at a mud dumping site. Or the challenge against the A308 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet road projects. Both unsuccessful, both putting construction dates back by a year and costing millions in the process. One issue is that both challenges benefitted from the Aarhus Cost Protection Cap, which protects litigants from being counter-sued for legal costs when they’re unsuccessful.

In the government policy paper last year, Getting Great Britain Building Again, there was a commitment to review ways to tackle inappropriate legal challenges to major infrastructure projects while guaranteeing the constitutional right to access of justice and meeting the UK’s international obligations. In March, Lord Banner KC, a leading environmental lawyer who also happens to chair the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee, was appointed to carry out that review. If Rishi had not called an election, I suspect the review would have been published.

If Labour are serious about tackling delays to major infrastructure projects, then will consider Lord Banner KC’s assessment (and recommendations) very carefully indeed.

Statutory Consultees

In theory, statutory consultees, which range from the Environment Agency to niche outfits like the Theatres Trust, should make the planning policy process work better by ensuring decision-makers receive expert advice on complex topics. To gain planning permission, developers must first consult these independent bodies

But there’s a problem, over decades the number of statutory consultees has grown massively, and so has what we ask of them. As statutory consultees have not benefited from a commensurate funding increase, the result has been a planning system beset by delays. 

If Labour wants to speed up the planning process and get Britain building again, then reforming the statutory consultee system should be a key priority. Last year, then-Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove commissioned my boss, Britain Remade’s own Sam Richards, to look at the system and suggest ways to radically speed things up.

The Richards Review is yet to be published, but I know for a fact it’s been written. To get moving on this somewhat baffling area of policy, Labour should publish the review at the earliest possible notice and get to work on implementing its key recommendations. 

Siting reforms for Nuclear

Labour’s target of a Net Zero power grid by 2030 is, in general, good news for the cause of planning reform. After all, without major changes to the way energy projects are planned and consented, Britain will struggle to get to Net Zero power by the last Government’s 2035 target, let alone Labour’s 2030 target.

It is, however, a mixed bag for nuclear. It is unlikely a new nuclear project will be online before 2030. As a consequence, nuclear power is likely to drop down the list of priorities. This would be a pity if it meant changes that are vital to ensuring nuclear has a future in Britain aren’t made.

In January, the last Government set out its Civil Nuclear Roadmap. Within it were a number of policies that must be implemented if Small Modular Reactors are to have a future in Britain. One was a commitment to recognising the work of other international regulators so designs approved overseas can be brought to the UK more quickly. Another was a new approach to siting. 

At the moment, it is next to impossible to build a new nuclear power station anywhere in Britain that isn’t specifically designated for nuclear. This is not a huge problem for giga-scale nuclear power stations, but for smaller designs like SMRs or Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) it poses problems. First, access to a designated site isn’t easy to obtain. Second, smaller reactors do not have the same requirements as large-scale nuclear reactors in terms of water. SMRs could operate safely on a much wider range of sites, including on industrial sites and ex-fossil fuel generation sites. Before the election, DESNZ was consulting on removing the requirement to only allow nuclear plants on designated sites and moving to a regime where any site can be used provided it meets conditions around biodiversity and proximity to civilian populations.

Labour should follow-through on this for two key reasons. First, AMRs could potentially play a massive role in industrial decarbonisation, but only if they can access a wider range of sites. Second, demand for base-load power is set to increase massively with the rise of AI. SMRs have the potential to meet that demand, but will need access to more than just the small number of designated sites.

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What struck me when writing this piece, particularly going through the measures in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, is how it is easy to over-egg the importance of legislating. Legislation is clearly important but it is far from the end of the story. When it comes to actually getting things done, whether that’s speeding up infrastructure or building homes, it is the implementation that really matters.