Government’s planning reforms will cost it votes, says Tory peer

The government’s controversial plans to further liberalise the planning system will cost the Tories votes, one of the party’s most senior local government leaders has warned.

While housing secretary Robert Jenrick had spelled out to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester earlier this week moves that will make it easier to add storeys to existing homes, Lord Porter, who was leader of the Local Government Association until this summer, told a fringe meeting at the conference it wasn’t the planning system that was holding back new housing.

Pointing to the high levels of unimplemented planning permissions across the country, he told the meeting organised by the think tank Bright Blue: “If we are stupid enough to go down the PDR route and allow anyone owning a piece of land to build what they want we will have no infrastructure to support those properties and electricity and water shortages will increase.”

And the peer, who is leader of the South Holland council in Lincolnshire, warned that extending a planning free-for-all to residential roads would hit the value of neighbouring properties.

“The worst thing is you will devalue the value of the assets people already own. Homeowners generally vote Conservative and if you tell them their home is going to be worth less, they won’t thank you.

“We will be punished by the electorate and we will deserve to be. We need to come up with sensible sustainable way to increase supply that flattens the housing market and doesn’t crush it.”

Outlining the government’s plans to fast-track planning rules to allow the redevelopment of redundant commercial buildings for residential use, housing secretary Jenrick said those wishing to demolish tired 1960s and 1970s commercial buildings would be able to do so using the ‘permission in principle’ regime introduced in the 2016 Housing and Planning Act.

And he said he was looking at allowing automatic refunds of fees if councils take too long to decide on specific planning applications.

“We’re looking at an automatic rebate on your planning fees if those deadlines are missed,” he said, adding that these new penalties could be introduced alongside moves to increasing council planning department resources by allowing them to set higher fees.

Both moves are expected to be taken forward in the upcoming Accelerated Planning green paper, which is pencilled-in for publication next month.

Also speaking at the Policy Exchange event James Jamieson, Porter’s successor as leader of the LGA, called for the introduction of a presumption against development not in line with the relevant local plan provided that the local authority is delivering number of homes required in that area.

Jamieson, who is also leader of Conservative-run Central Bedfordshire council, said: “We get one speculative appeal per annum in the green belt and hundreds in the non green belt.

“If you provide that certainty will free up huge amounts of planners’ time. Between 30 to 35% of planning departments’ time is spent on speculative appeals,” he said, adding freeing up time this time would be more valuable than a 20% increase in fees.