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Significant increase in new housing consents

House builders want to see the Chancellor announce measures to help boost the supply of much needed new homes in this week’s Budget statement.

PROPERTYdrum

builders_new_housing_consenThere has been a sharp rise in the number of housing permissions by local authorities in the last year, according to new data published by the Home Builders’ Federation (HBF) and Glenigan.

The latest HBF/Glenigan Housing Pipeline report reveals that permissions in principle for over 195,000 new homes in England were granted in 2014, up 12 per cent on the previous year and 39 per cent on 2012. The volume of permissions for private homes was up 23 per cent.

Over the past 18 months, house building activity has increased significantly, with figures released last month showing the number of new homes started in 2014 was up 36 per cent on 2012. As demand for new homes continues to increase, due to improved consumer confidence and the Help to Buy equity loan scheme, existing housing sites are getting built out quicker, and so builders are looking to get on to more new sites more quickly than before, the report said.

stewart_beasley_hbf“Over the past 18 months, demand for new homes, largely driven by the Help to Buy equity loan scheme has increased markedly,” said Stewart Baseley (left), Executive Chairman of the HBF. “Housebuilders have responded by significantly increasing house building activity.”

However, whilst the increases are positive, they can only be translated into much needed needed new homes if local authorities ensure their planning departments have the capacity to process these permissions to the stage that they can actually be built, according Baseley.

He points out that too many housing are “stuck” in the planning system, with an estimated 150,000 plots at “outline permission” stage awaiting full sign off by local authorities.

Baseley continued: “We are still only building around half the number of new homes the country needs. Getting the required number of permissions, in a timely manner, is absolutely key to the industry’s ability to deliver. In addition more needs to be done to speed up the plots that are awaiting final approval to allow construction to commence.

“These figures are a barometer on potential future build rates. But to turn them into actual construction sites requires Local Authorities to process them in a timely fashion to the stage when builders can build.”

Though new Government initiatives to introduce “deemed discharge” of conditions will greatly assist in making sure the planning system will not be a constraint on increased housing provision, Baseley insists that the overall resourcing of planning departments remains a concern.

The Chairman of the HBF want to see central and local Government prioritise proper resourcing of planning departments to give authorities a greater chance of being able to efficiently process more applications, as recommended by the HBF in its representations to the Chancellor in advance of this week’s Budget.

In its submission to the Treasury, the HBF has asks the Chancellor to focus on driving further improvements to the end-to-end planning process, ensuring that planning authorities are equipped to deal with increased demand, and securing a long-term supply of land that can be built out more quickly and is accessible for local and regional house builders.

With the country in the grip of a housing shortage, new findings from the British Social Attitudes Survey show that public support for new house building is increasing, with the number of people saying that they are supportive of new homes being built in their area having risen from 29 per cent to 56 per cent over the past year.

brian_berry_fmbCommenting on the findings, Brian Berry (right), Chief Executive of the FMB, said: “These shifts in public opinion suggest that recognition of the need for more new homes has risen significantly and continues to rise. This should be an encouragement to all concerned. The house building industry, Government and local communities need to capitalise on this shift in public opinion and work together to deliver the homes people clearly want to see.”

Berry continued: “Smaller local house builders in particular are ideally placed to engage with communities, to produce quality designs in keeping with the local area and to make use of smaller brownfield sites which people want to see built. In return, local planning authorities need to continue to enable them to build by minimising bureaucracy and delays, and making more of smaller sites for the delivery of housing. Local and national government between them also need to make sure that planning offices are sufficiently resourced so that the planning system can do its job speedily and efficiently to deliver more homes.”

March 20, 2015

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