Organisations within the construction, property and rental industries have welcomed the government’s new Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
The bill, which has been introduced to Parliament, will see significant measures introduced to speed up planning decisions to boost housebuilding.
Brendan Geraghty, CEO, Association for Rental Living, said: “The Association for Rental Living broadly welcomes the introduction of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and its proposed reforms.
“We have long called for the reform and investment in the planning system required to reduce barriers and speed up the delivery of both housing and the infrastructure so critical to support it.
“We especially welcome the proposal for mandatory training for planning committees and certain mayoral planning functions and call upon the government to include specific training on Build to Rent, in all its forms, as part of this.
“With the ability to deliver two million additional, quality rental homes, Build to Rent (BtR) is an essential part of a diversified housing mix, one which the government itself has explicitly recognised in the revised NPPF, and thus the understanding of the BtR proposition and development dynamics is vital for local planning committees and officials.
“Pulling the BtR lever is a proven way of increasing the volume and speed of housing delivery, as well as attracting investment into the UK.
“The government must now build on these planning reforms to remove barriers to large-scale investment in housing and then increase its support of the rental living sector.”
The bill aims to remove unnecessary blocks and challenges to the delivery of vital developments like roads, railway lines and windfarms.
Key measures include streamlining planning decisions through the introduction of a national scheme of delegation that will set out which types of applications should be determined by officers and which should go to committee.
It will also have controls over the size of planning committees to ensure good debate is encouraged with large and unwieldy committees banned, and mandatory training for planning committee members.
Councils will also be empowered to set their own planning fees to allow them to cover their costs – with the stretched system currently running at a deficit of £362 million in the recent year.
This money will be reinvested back into the system to speed it up.
A Nature Restoration Fund will be established to balance the needs of the economy and nature by ensuring builders can meet their environmental obligations faster and at a greater scale by pooling contributions to fund larger environmental interventions.
Development corporations will be strengthened to make it easier to deliver large-scale development – like the government’s new towns – and build 1.5 million homes alongside the required infrastructure.
These were used in the past to deliver the post-war new towns and play a vital role when the risk or scale of a development is too great for the private sector.
Mr Geraghty added: “The BtR Code of Practice, an Association for Rental Living initiative currently out for industry consultation, mandates, as one of its seven principles, the embedding of professional standards with signatories required to ensure all property management staff participate in Association for Rental Living-recognised qualifications and professional development programs suitable to their roles.
“We feel this principle should now be applied to the mandatory training proposed in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the Association for Rental Living, on behalf of the BtR sector, stands available to the government to deliver this.”
Neil Jefferson, chief executive of the Home Builders Federation (HBF), said: “The swift moves to address the failings in the planning system are a very welcome and positive step towards increasing housing supply.
“Removing blockages, speeding up the decision-making process and ensuring local planning departments have the capacity to process applications effectively will be essential to getting more sites up and running.
“If the other constraints currently preventing house builders delivering more homes can be tackled, the changes made to planning will really allow output to accelerate.”
