New figures published by the House Builders Federation’s (HBF) reveal that there were only 32,928 approvals for new homes in Britain in the third quarter of 2011 – a 10 per cent fall on the same period last year.
The HBF’s New Housing Pipeline Q3 2011 report also said that planning permission was granted for only 29,059 homes across England in the same period – a 50 per cent drop in the average number of home approvals in 2006 and 2007.
The report went on to state that the number of homes being built is now lower than at any time since the 1920s and called on the Government to continue with its proposed planning reforms in order to address the current housing crisis.
However, the Government’s planning reforms may be facing a serious challenge. In its review of the draft National Planning Policy Framework (NAPF) this week, the parliamentary Communities and Local Government Committee said that the Government’s proposals to reform the planning system should be re-written to give greater protection to the environment and to ensure that developers build on brownfield land and within town centres. The Committee also said that an adequate definition of “sustainable development” was missing from the proposals and put forward its own alternative definition. Full details of the Committee’s report are here.
The Committee claimed that the default answer of “yes” in the planning reforms, which gives the go-ahead to development unless the adverse effects “significantly and demonstrably” outweigh the benefits, should be removed as it could lead to poorly planned, unsustainable development.
The Government has said that it will “carefully consider” the new definition of sustainable development offered by the Committee, so we shall see what happens.
The Government is due to implement its final version of the NAPF in early 2012.
