Letwin report targets planning rules

Tasked by the government to investigate how to close the gap in houses delivered compared to those planned, Sir Oliver Letwin has delivered his final report, and calls for a major shake-up of planning rules.

The report has not found any evidence that major developers are “holding land as a purely speculative activity” as their business models rely on selling houses, but that too many of the large sites are presenting identical properties to buyers and have limits on how quickly these can be sold.

The report has advised a new set of planning rules should be produced for sites with more than 1,500 homes to speed up property building. The new rules would require developers to build a wider range of properties with different designs and tenures, to speed up build out rates.

The government will now consider the report before deciding on next steps.

Dealing with the housing crisis is a priority for the government, with an aim of delivering 300,000 homes a year, last year over 217,000 new homes were delivered and Sir Oliver’s recommendations will help the government towards their target.

In his final report, he calls for:

• new planning rules which require homebuilders to offer a range of different types of properties on big sites, so they can be completed more quickly without “flooding” the market with a large number of identical properties
• a new National Expert Committee to be set up to advise councils on the different types of properties that should be offered on large sites; they would also handle appeals where there is a dispute between developers and local authorities
• incentives for homebuilders to change plans for existing sites so they start offering a variety of property types immediately
• councils to be given a more muscular role in guiding major homebuilding projects – and the power to purchase undeveloped land for ten times its existing use value; this would make it viable for more affordable housing to be built

Rt. Hon. Sir Oliver Letwin MP said: “I found that the main reason developers are slow to complete building on large sites is that there is only a limited demand each year for the highly uniform properties they are building on those sites.

“My final report sets out some policy levers that government can use to increase the variety of homes on sites, so they can be built out more quickly.”

Secretary of State for Communities, Rt. Hon. James Brokenshire MP, said: “There is no mission more urgent than making our housing market work, and building the homes our country needs.

“Sir Oliver has found that it takes 15 years to complete building on some of the largest sites, which is far too long.

“It is clear action is needed so developers work with us as partners to deliver 300,000 properties a year by the mid 2020s. We will consider the recommendations in Sir Oliver’s report to determine next steps to ensure we build the homes our country needs.”

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