Planning system in England is ‘not working well’

[megilleland]

The latest National Audit Office report concludes planning system in England is ‘not working well’

(extracts from The Guardian article today)

Targets for new homes are likely to be missed by half of England’s local authorities, according to a damning assessment of the government’s housing strategy, while increasingly profitable building companies are getting away with paying less for infrastructure and more than half of councils have failed to draw up adequate plans to solve the housing crisis.

The National Audit Office (NAO) concludes that the planning system in England is “not working well” and says councils are struggling to negotiate successfully with developers, leaving swaths of the country vulnerable to either housing shortages or situations where the wrong homes are built in the wrong places. Since 2010 there has been an almost 40% real-terms cut in spending on planners, according to the public spending watchdog.

Government figures show that while the average contributions agreed with developers for public infrastructure such as schools, health centres, roads and social housing remained at about £19,000 per new home between 2012 and 2017, average house prices increased by 31% in that period. The top five developers’ average operating profit margin increased from about 12% to 21%.

Planning for new homes
Background to the report
This report assesses how effectively the Department supports the planning regime to provide the right homes in the right places.

More facts and figures of financial sustainability of local authorities 2018 with visualisations from NAO.

Information on:
Revenue Spending Power
Service Spending (net current expenditure)
Social Care
Reserves
Budget vs Outturn (service spending)

[Denise Lloyd]

I have not got the qualifications that these guys and gals have nor do I get paid the sums of money they do - but you know what this is precisely what I have been saying for years - developers rule!

[ragwert]

We have never built nor ever will the houses needed now or in the future.
 

[Denise Lloyd]

Well that might well be true but at the very least they should be affordable to the people who live in this county they should be of the size/type and they should be built in the right places!

[megilleland]

Listening to H&W radio this morning and main story about no thought been given to the support infrastructure concerning building 5000 houses around Worcester. The Worcester Royal says a lack of funding £7.7 million from the developers will exasperate the running of A&E, already under pressure. The hospital once a city hospital and now a county hospital, and I predict to become a regional hospital, it seems amazing that there is no overhaul strategy, and if there is, it is drastically in need of life saving attention.

Hereford will also end up in this state until it becomes absorbed into a regional Clinical Commisioning Group, already being talked about with Worcester and people will die being transferred 26 miles and waiting in queuing ambulances.

Add in housing developments planned all around Herefordshire and the infrastructure will collapse. Building bigger hospitals mean local community hospitals being closed.