Last Tuesday (1st September) I was invited to a housing workshop at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) along with major players in the housebuilding industry.
The session mainly focussed on regulations affecting housebuilding and where these regulations were unnecessary or ‘gold-plated’, with the intention of freeing up the process for increasing the delivery of housing. The issue of Section 106 contributions was unsurprisingly top of the list at the brainstorming discussion, and another common theme was the lack of consistency in the application of local planning. Additionally, unintended consequences of green and ecological issues (bat surveys, etc) taking precedence over common-sense planning paths was also tabled.
Essentially, it was a starting point for ministers to understand and assess what issues might be hindering the UK housebuilding process compared to our European counterparts.
