The government recently published its new National Planning Policy Framework, and there are some important changes proposed for the UK housing sector.
Since coming into power in July, new Labour prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has made it clear that ‘getting Britain building’ is going to be a cornerstone policy for the party.
Headed up by the likes of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner – the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities – and housing minister Matthew Pennycook, a big aim of the document is to open up more space on which to build much-needed homes for the country.
Since it was published at the end of last month, the new draft National Planning Policy Framework has been open for consultation, with a deadline of 24th September 2024. It has been published showing ‘tracked changes’ from the previous government’s version, to demonstrate the specific changes Labour wishes to make.
While some are arguably more minor and may not make a drastic difference to the property sector, others are significant in their scope, and will be of interest to both developers and property investors assessing the potential future direction of some of the country’s housing.
Key changes from the National Planning Policy Framework
- Minimum housebuilding targets: When Labour first came to power, it almost immediately reinstated previously scrapped mandatory housebuilding targets for councils. The aim now is to hit an annual target of 370,000 new homes, looking at growing the country’s housing stock by 0.8%. The targets are binding, meaning councils must prove their inability to hit their quotas, or face penalties. They will be based on housing need in each local authority, with some councils having drastically higher quotas to meet than others.
- The National Planning Policy Framework also sets out more information about Keir Starmer’s plan to unlock more green belt and ‘grey belt’ land for building. This is defined as land in the green belt that was previously developed on, or areas of green belt that make a “limited contribution to the five green belt purposes”. It means councils who cannot meet all their housing needs by building on non-green belt land can unlock additional spaces and potential.
- Labour has also included certain caveats when developers do build on green belt sites, including making at least 50% of the new homes affordable (with an appropriate proportion being for social rent, subject to viability). Another stipulation is that the development must involve necessary improvements to local or national infrastructure, as well as the provision of new (or improvements to existing) green spaces accessible to the public. It also proposed land value capture policies to curb speculative land pricing.
- Social housing is something Labour wants to place a key focus on in its National Planning Policy Framework. This may be done through reducing or removing homeownership quotas in developments, meaning there will be more scope for homes to be made available to social tenants.
- There has also been a notable shift away from the term “beauty” towards a focus on good design in the latest National Planning Policy update. Those who read the draft framework would notice that the term “beauty” has been crossed out and replaced with terms focusing more on the “pattern, scale and design quality of places”. Speaking on this topic on Radio 2, Angela Rayner said: “All that wording was doing was blocking and preventing development. That’s why we think it’s too subjective,”, adding: “I don’t buy this idea that I’m just going to build a load of ugly houses.”
You can read the full National Planning Policy Framework document here.
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