Plan for change

Ben Leather, managing director of Spitfire Homes, shares his thinking on the current planning system and the barriers it presents to housing delivery.A complete overhaul of the planning system is clearly overdue. As a regional housebuilder we experience issues daily – something that is felt throughout the industry – and even though we have just secured planning at three separate sites, the process of securing permission has been an extremely difficult and drawn-out process.

In particular, the planning consent for our Radcliffe-on-Trent development took nearly 12 months to secure despite having no objections from statutory consultees. The delays incurred included a debate over garden sizes and numerous revisions to appease officers’ own design and landscape comments, which included a visit to our Bishop’s Cleeve development earlier this year.

Our development in Halesowen is on a brownfield site which should be an easier process for planning but was challenged by unjustified design and highways requests, a change in the planning officer in March and a drawn-out Section 106 process. Our new Crowle site was also deferred from the June committee due to a last-minute objection from the LEA who later withdrew their comments fully and reverted to their original request for a financial contribution.

These are just a handful of examples of how the system is broken and prevents housebuilders from delivering homes that are needed in strategic locations within acceptable time frames. Housebuilders must continue to work proactively with LPAs and stakeholders given the pressures they are under so that unnecessary planning delays are avoided because as things stand, they are having a significant impact on new developments up and down the country.

We support the principle of paying higher planning fees if it means LPAs spend those additional fees on increasing the resources within their teams and it isn’t diverted to other council departments. The intention is increased planning fees will result in a more efficient, fair and better resourced system.

With increases in interest rates, the cost for SME housebuilders to put sites on hold whilst waiting for planning approvals can be crippling for small businesses, so this change is essential to promote the future success of these businesses and ensure their continued contribution to the economy.

The recent Save Our SMEs campaign championed by the House Builders Federation further demonstrated the sentiment from housebuilders like Spitfire Homes, with 166 businesses signing the open letter to Government in response to recent policy amendments which remove the requirement for mandatory local housing targets, further throttling the amount of planning permissions granted for new homes. Its vital housing targets are reinstated and are not reliant on conversion of commercial and agricultural buildings to provide more homes.