Use Development Orders to Build the Homes We Need
The Adam Smith Institute is calling on the Government to use existing legislation to help fix the housing crisis;
By using Development Orders, a mechanism which already exists in legislation from 1990, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government could circumvent the UK’s restrictive planning regime to build new houses at pace;
Britain is facing a housing crisis, caused by a restrictive planning system which incentivises local authorities to block new developments and which has made development complicated and expensive;
Despite the scale of the problem, neither of the two major UK parties have committed to extensive planning reform;
But the Government could achieve its housing goals without actually having to implement new legislation;
Development Orders allow the Secretary of State either to grant planning permission to a specific project, or to any project in a defined area that meets whatever conditions the Secretary of State decides in the Order;
By making greater use of Development Orders, the Labour Government could accelerate the building of the new towns and developments on the grey belt that were promised in its manifesto;
Development Orders would allow Ministers to bypass the costly and slow planning system, unlocking higher volume of attractive housing at pace- in areas where it is politically viable for them to do so.
Britain’s failure to build the houses and infrastructure that we need has been a national disaster. House prices have spiralled, whilst renters in England are, on average, now working for 125 days a year just to pay their rent.
Our current planning framework, which was established by the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, is to blame. It has granted local councils powers to block development projects. This has created a bottleneck, where local authorities prioritise short-term local interests over the country’s long-term housing and infrastructure needs. The system also requires developers to use vast resources to prepare proposals and navigate the planning process, making development much more complex and expensive.
Despite having large parliamentary majorities, neither the previous Conservative Government or the current Labour Government have delivered comprehensive planning reform.
But in a new paper for the Adam Smith Institute (ASI), report author Henry Hill shows that there is already a mechanism within existing legislation which gives ministers powers to authorise ambitious new developments.
By using ‘Development Orders,’ introduced in the Town and Country Planning Act (1990), the Secretary of State can grant permission to a specific project, or grant permission- or require the local planning authority to grant permission- to any project that meets any requirement that the Secretary of State sets out in that order, in any area of land they choose to specify. That can include all of England.
This regime is used only to provide limited Permitted Development rights for home modifications and a few other uses, but it could be much more widely applied.
The ASI is calling on the Government to use Development Orders to build the homes in England we need at pace. This could include automatically approving mansard roofs or creating a bespoke regime for any houses built within a 10 minute walk of a railway station.
Development Orders could also be used to make sure that Labour’s proposed new towns and developments on the grey belt are built quickly. Ministers could grant approval to proposals that fit their criteria on grey belt land, rather than waiting for changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to filter through the system. And, rather than setting up even more quangos, the Secretary of State could apply a Development Order to a given site for a new town, granting permission to build there, subject to whatever conditions the Secretary of State wishes to attach.
Henry Hill, report author, said:
“Our systematic failure to build enough houses in this country has been a national disaster. Britain’s young are facing a double-whammy of never being able to afford to buy a house, and being barely able to afford sky-high rents in our most productive areas either. Even so, it still seems that neither Labour or the Conservatives will commit to full-fat planning reform.
But there is a potent weapon in the Government’s arsenal that ministers have so far used only to a very limited extent: Development Orders. These can be used to unlock a high volume of new homes at pace, precisely where the Government has political space to build- and can be laid down by the Secretary of State without a vote in Parliament.
Just as the Conservatives could, and should, have used Development Orders to their advantage, so should the new Labour Government now use them to deliver on their manifesto commitments.”
Maxwell Marlow, Director of Research at the Adam Smith Institute, said:
“The nationalisation of the planning system in 1947 has been catastrophic for Britain. Local councils are incapable- and unwilling- to approve enough new developments to keep up with demand.
We’ll keep campaigning for comprehensive planning reform- but while politicians refuse to touch it, we urge them to make use of Development Orders instead.
This would mean that ministers are able to cut through red-tape and bypass our current sclerotic planning system in order to build the new homes and infrastructure we need at pace, and without having to introduce any new legislation.”
-ENDS-
Notes to editors:
For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact press@adamsmith.org | 0758 477 8207
Henry Hill is the Deputy Editor of ConservativeHome.
The Adam Smith Institute is one of the world’s leading think tanks. It was ranked first in the world among independent think tanks and as the best domestic and international economic policy think tank in the UK by the University of Pennsylvania. Independent, non-profit and non-partisan, the Institute is at the forefront of making the case for free markets and a free society, through education, research, publishing, and media outreach.