A timely intervention from the Chair of the Lord's Built Environment Committee, highlighting the problems with the Government's approach and the need for action now in order to meet their stated objective of building 300,000 homes per year.
The appetite for wholescale reform of the planning system has predictably waned, no doubt accelerated by the outcomes of recent by-elections. However, the continued absence of any direction for reform (or even a timetable for such direction) is both baffling and concerning.
It is encouraging that Baroness Neville-Rolfe rightly mentions the skills gap in planning - a key point that anyone who works in the planning system has highlighted for years. Perhaps if that system is properly resourced, and talent retained, we may find that it is not completely broken after all.
"Uncertainty and delays to planning reforms have had a ‘“chilling effect” on housebuilding and created uncertainty for housebuilders and planners, Neville-Rolfe said...Local authorities have complained that after 11 years of austerity measures, which has forced them to push through 40% cuts to day-to-day budgets, planning departments are only a fraction of the size needed to assess applications."
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