Michael Gove is to relax planning rules in England in an effort to create more homes in “the hearts of our cities.”
The levelling up secretary says he wants to make it easier to convert empty retail premises and betting shops into flats and houses. But critics say such conversions are often poor quality. It comes as Rishi Sunak insists his party will meet its commitment to building a million homes before the next election, expected in 2024.
A report by the Commons housing committee earlier this month found that while ministers are on track to deliver its 1m homes target, they are not expected to meet their other commitment to deliver 300,000 new homes every year by the mid-2020s.
Hitting that figure became harder after the government was forced to water down its housing targets for local councils following a fierce backlash from its own MPs, many of them in rural constituencies.
The prime minister said his government would not be “concreting over the countryside”. However, the Office for National Statistics reported in October last year that residential property covers just 1.3% of all the land in the UK, plus 4.9% allocated to residential gardens. This means that only 6.2% of total UK land is allocated to homes and private gardens.
Sunak added: “Our plan is to build the right homes where there is the most need and where there is local support, in the heart of Britain’s great cities.”
Lisa Nandy, Labour’s shadow housing secretary, said: “It takes some serious brass neck for the Tories to make yet more promises when the housing crisis has gone from bad to worse on their watch.”
In a speech in central London, Gove said the government would “unequivocally, unapologetically and intensively concentrating our biggest efforts in the hearts of our cities.”
He added he would be “using all of the levers that we have to promote urban regeneration rather than swallowing up virgin land”. As part of his plan to build more homes he said he wanted to make it easier to convert shops, takeaways and betting shops into homes.
However, the Local Government Association has warned that offices, shops and barns are not always suitable for housing, and could result in the creation of poor quality homes.
Industry reaction
Following Michael Gove’s speech, Marc Vlessing at Pocket Living says: “Whilst we welcome the Government’s announcement to support housing delivery across England, we remain concerned that the announcement falls short of providing immediate solutions to the growing challenges facing an industry under siege. We need housing today, not tomorrow, and that is why for the last year we, along with almost 50 organisations ranging from Barratt Homes, G15, the National Housing Federation to countless SMEs, have been campaigning for a small site planning policy.
“Through simple changes to national policy, which could be enacted overnight through ministerial direction, the Government could unlock literally thousands of small brownfield sites across England with the potential to deliver up to 1.6m homes. But sadly, thus far, the Government has not delivered against our initiative as they have kicked it into the long grass of ‘NPPF consultation’.
“However, we need action now to halt the planning blight that is stopping the delivery of small sites and much needed affordable housing. So we, along with the growing industry coalition, urgently encourage the Secretary of State to fast-track plans around small sites, which will provide a lifeline to both SMEs and affordable housing providers across the country.”
Paula Higgins, CEO of property advice website HomeOwners Alliance, comments: “We support action to build more homes, making use of inner-cities and brownfield sites to build more homes. While making it easier to convert empty retail premises into flats and houses is welcome in principle, these conversions are often of lower quality with poor ventilation.
“Government must learn from its mistakes (after) creating a wild west of office to resi conversions. Developers must be required to meet all building and space standards; these developments must be properly inspected by a third party and buyers should receive a full structural warranty.”
Clive Holland, presenter at Fix Radio, adds: “The government target of 300,000 houses to be built per year, even before COVID was extremely unrealistic for a couple of reasons. After Brexit, a lot of our support teams went back to their own countries, we didn’t have enough people in our industry, and we are already short of trades people as it is. But now you’re in a situation where a lot of house builders have mothballed a lot of their sites because they can’t sell them due to rising interest rates.”
