New chancellor Rachel Reeves has recently announced changes to the planning system to boost housing and infrastructure delivery. It’s still early days and not all the details are out, but there is a commitment to brownfield-first approach and a relaxation of restrictions to some areas of Green Belt known as “Grey-Belt” land that are currently acting as a buffer to urban sprawl but have been eroded by previous development consents. Though yet to be defined, “Grey-Belt” is likely to be the areas close to motorways such as the M4 or M25 that can be used for employment growth and housing which will not be impacting on the openness of the countryside.
There has been an emphasis given to the provision of affordable social housing, but again, details on this have yet to emerge as to what “affordable social homes” mean and whether this will be provided through private developers, or whether social housing providers will be given additional powers and funding to bring forward rented housing which is desperately needed.
Smaller developments are not likely to be affected by the announcement and it will be a while before any policy changes are made that help small and medium sized developers get back to building again. However, housing targets are now mandatory for local authorities, and this will mean increased pressure to meet targets, so there is likely to be some scope for small scale private sector market housing to be brought forward. If you’ve a development or project that you’d like advice on, then contact Brighton Planning.