The political conference silly season has drawn to an end. Yet again the Chancellor has announced the speeding up of the planning process without really thinking about what that means. We at Brighton Planning aren’t sure if we’re any wiser about any party policies but continue to hope common sense finds a way. What we did notice is that the issue of housing seemed to feature highly in all the main political parties’ agendas. The problem is that housing is such a complex topic. Just saying supply outstrips demand pays poor lip service to a real national emergency.
There aren’t enough homes. The homes that do exist are unaffordable, a large percentage of properties are underoccupied or over occupied depending on circumstances, and nearly all homes are poorly insulated and are not energy efficient. Over the next year we hope the conversations continue to gather force as a real housing debate cross party is needed. Decision makers and developers need to look at tenure, size, affordability and retrofitting to make sure that new housing developments are more than just numbers, but actually meet the needs of the communities it is serving.
Planning has a major role to play in making clear what those needs are and hopefully together we can start to address this gigantic problem.