Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation on how the Localism Bill will change the supply of affordable housing:
Our assessment of what is likely to happen with this system, as we understand it, is that it will probably deliver new homes, but at intermediate rents. The overall stock of property available for letting at what we currently call social rent will significantly diminish—probably by between 125,000 and 130,000. There will, in fact, be a transfer away from social rent to higher intermediate rents.
Chief Executive of Shelter, on the effect the Localism Bill will have on the vulnerable:
Regarding the first part of the question about the impact on vulnerable groups—not just 16 and 17-year-olds—we think that the provisions to allow the discharge of homeless duty into the private rented sector will significantly threaten the stability that they might have. We will see a revolving door, with people constantly being in short-term lets in the private rented sector re-presenting as homeless. It does not give them a secure settled home and does not understand the nature of the problems they are facing. We would strongly contend that this is the wrong solution and that it will create significant difficulties in those areas.
On the private rented sector:
[...]
What this proposal lacks, if the Government wish to go down this route, is any licensing or regulation of the private rented sector. It will see a greater dispersal of very vulnerable people into the already least regulated sector. One of the Government’s first moves was to remove any agenda in the Rugg review or any desire to put more regulation into the private rented sector. That is a mistake.
And on private sector rents:
[...]
Let us be clear for a start: only 30% of the private rented sector in any one area will be available under the proposals because the Government have made it clear that that is the rate at which [Housing Benefit] will be paid. All those people who are being discharged will go into that—the bottom 30% in any one area. The Government are acting on the heroic assumption that landlords will put their rents down. We have seen no evidence from landlords or anyone else that rents will go down. Everything would suggest a marketplace with an increased demand and no increase in supply, where the prices will go up and up. We have pushed and pushed the Government on this, for their evidence as to what it suggests, and we have pushed the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministers for the evidence, and they have shown us none. We are fearful that a lot of these assumptions are based on the misconception that rents will go down. It is a significant problem both for this Bill and the welfare Bill.
MD of Harrow Estates, a major national housebuilder, on planning:
The Bill provides for the abolition of regional spatial strategies, which is a high profile issue, and that removes one layer of the planning system. However, the Bill then introduces neighbourhood planning frameworks, so we are effectively removing one tier and replacing it with another. The number of hurdles that must be considered in order to navigate the planning process and deliver housing remains effectively the same. [...] The neighbourhood development plans can potentially introduce a plethora of issues, but at an extremely local and detailed level. The burden on the house building industry—the cost and investment of resources in order to deliver houses—potentially remains the same.
Chief Executive of Taylor Wimpey, another one of the UK's largest house-builders, on rent levels:
Having heard the tail end of the previous discussion about [private] rents falling, I would very much concur: I can’t see that happening at a point when the availability of capital is low and house prices are still relatively high. The only meaningful long-term solution involves a greater degree of housing supply, because that brings down the overall cost of housing, whether for private owners or the rented sector.
On when the housing industry will be able to build houses at 2007-8 levels, which it should be noted was still below the level of demand:
Without the Bill, with the status quo, it would probably be somewhere around six years before you saw the industry producing at the same level. With the Bill, I would estimate longer, because I think the transition will slow things down. Plucking a year out of thin air, that would be more like seven or eight years. It will make a difference to the speed of planning permissions, but it will be slow. It will not be slow because of the industry’s ability to build. It will be slow because of mortgage and planning permission availability.
[the other developers state that they agree with this view]
[...] can I tell you my great fear? In three years’ time, it all stops. We are operating currently on existing consent and on land banks. We need a flow of consents coming through the process to maintain and grow business. I fear that we will reach a point, in about three years’ time, when what we have currently on the stocks runs out, where in fact we have not got that supply coming through. That is the big challenge. That is the sort of transition [...] which so badly needs to be addressed.
President of the Planning Officers Society on the cost of Neighbourhood Plans:
[...] resources are a significant issue. What we have proposed in our response is that there should be some mechanism for councils, working with their communities, to resolve priorities. In my borough in London, for example, we have many very deprived wards, and we are already doing a lot of master-planning work with communities. It is not quite in this form [...]
Those are very expensive processes. They can take around 12 to 18 months. As well as using staff in the council—perhaps the equivalent of two full-time workers throughout the period—we have to employer master planners, urban designers, traffic consultants and the like. You are talking about £130,000 to £150,000 for a community of about 10,000. Even then, that is not a very detailed set of proposals for the whole place—one focuses on key issues. We have spent up to £250,000, or something of that order. These are places that need that master-planning work, not only because they are very deprived communities, which need to see change and investment, but because they are part of our growth area, so there is a wider benefit to creating more homes and more jobs for more people.
How does that sit as a priority alongside the neighbourhood planning proposals, which could come from other parts of the borough that we would not necessarily regard as having the same need?
Chief Planner for the Town and Country Planning Association on climate change:
The challenge [...] is what we are going to do with the major issues like climate change and renewable energy, and all sorts of forms of development that play out at a regional or national scale. My point is a tough one, and I do not really like to represent it because it is unpopular: will the sum total of 350 individual local authority decisions on carbon deliver the effective action we need on climate change—or on housing or on retail development?
On Neighbourhood Fora of the 'My House of Me & Two Housemates' type:
Planning suffers from a lack of legitimacy. The nightmare scenario is three people standing together as a neighbourhood forum in an urban area and taking on considerable powers. Looking at the detail of the schedules, I am conscious of two things: that local government, having once approved them, cannot dissolve them; and that as non-public bodies, none of the equalities duties would apply to them, the climate duty would not apply to them, and the sustainable development duty would not apply to them.
To conclude, an exchange between MPs.
Barbara Keeley, Labour MP:
I have a strong impression that this Bill was not ready. Parts of it have had very little consultation. In fact, I think that the community empowerment section has not had any scrutiny whatever; that was admitted in the note from the Department. To start with, as we have to spend our time on this for the next five weeks, I want to ask whether the Bill was not ready, and whether perhaps there has been a rush to get it out there. Is that why there are 126 order-making powers for the Secretary of State?
[...] in many of the sessions we have had this week, very negative concerns have been expressed about bringing chaos to the planning system, and getting to situation where we are not building the homes that we want and causing levels of homelessness. The difficult environment in communities and local government means that there are not the resources to do the necessary things. There are themes that have come across again and again in all the sessions. I had the impression sometimes that they were surprisingly negative and very strongly expressed by witnesses.
[...] there has not been enough scrutiny or consultation. Before I came here I was told that consultation was promised that never happened. Any Bill is poorer for that. There is no reason I can see to rush this Bill. If you are trying to make a profound cultural change, you need it to be accepted and not bridled at.
And the response from Robert Neil, Conservative MP and CLG Parliamentary Under Secretary of State:
[...] My judgment is that this Bill is in a good state of readiness.
Even though experts are saying very clearly that the Localism Bill would have massive unintended negative effects, I do not think the government is listening. The Housing Minister definitely isn't, as despite this bill determining the future of affordable housing, he is not even on the public bill committee.
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