BMF comment: backlog of unbuilt homes
26 February 2020
Reacting
to new analysis from the Local Government Association that more than a
million homes granted planning permission in the past decade have not
yet been built, John Newcomb, Chief Executive, BMF, said: “The Local
Government Association’s findings are part of a long-running debate over
whether (or not) housebuilders and property developers are land-banking
on a significant scale”.
“It is understandable why the LGA wants the Government to grant their
members the power to take action on unused planning permission. Their
main proposal is to make it easier to use compulsory purchase powers on
land where much-needed homes remain unbuilt”.
I am reminded of what the-then Labour Leader, Ed Miliband MP, told his
Party Conference in 2013. The BMF were in the Brighton Conference Centre
to hear him unveil a new “Use It or Lose It” policy aimed at builders
who do not start work onsite straightway. Labour wanted to persuade
property speculators to release land for building before ministers
stepped in to force their hand”.
John Newcomb noted that two separate independent enquiries - Kate
Baker’s Review of Land Use Planning (in 2006) and Sir Oliver Letwin’s
Review of Build-Out (in 2018) - had both found no real evidence of
land-banking. And in his October 2018 Budget, former Chancellor, Philip
Hammond MP, said speculative land-banking was not part of the business
model for major housebuilders.
John Newcomb concluded: “The LGA is right to say no-one can live in a
planning permission, or a half-built house where work on a site has
begun but not been completed. That is why in our advocacy, the BMF wants
to see unrelenting determination by government and business to simplify
and speed up the process to increase the number of completions to
narrow the gap between housing demand and supply. The whole thrust must
be implementation to enable BMF members to invest confidently in the
people and materials and products needed to ‘Get Britain Building’”.
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