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Anya MartinThe Thinkhouse Review: housing researchers’ take on effective planning reform
The government is unveiling a radical shake-up of the planning system, so it’s no wonder the sector has got planning on the brain. Anya Martin runs through some of the latest research, in this month’s Thinkhouse Review
The government is taking action on planning. First, a few sudden and perhaps quite radical changes to the planning system were pushed through as part of its aim to “build, build, build” its way out of the current economic crisis.
Then there was the planning white paper. Few would say we don’t need a serious look at how we plan for and deliver new homes, but exactly how it should be reformed is a real bone of contention.
Luckily, the sector’s diligent researchers and policy wonks have been plugging away at the issue and we’ve seen several new reports addressing the issue.
Transport for New Homes’ report, Garden Villages and Garden Towns: Visions and Reality, looks at how well the utopian visions of garden cities are implemented in practice.
“Getting rid of housing delivery targets without determining how else we boost housebuilding to meet years of backlog would be throwing the baby out with the bath water”
It opens by asking how often we spot a large new development plonked in the middle of a field, far from any train station. It investigates a set of metrics for transport accessibility and, alarmingly, finds that across 20 “garden” communities, as many as 200,000 car-dependent households will be created – while all the plans presented charming images of walkable, “self-sufficient” places, the reality was very different. All in all, the report gives the distinct impression that we’ve failed to learn from the mistakes of our car-centric planning past.
The report thus highlights a huge tension at the heart of how we build. Whenever development is proposed where infrastructure already exists, there is a predictable backlash, as there are already vocal groups of predominantly home-owning residents nearby. Local planning authorities understandably prefer to avoid this hassle by building out less densely occupied areas. The result is that people are forced into car-dependent lifestyles that they may not even want.
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Garden Villages and Garden Towns is a very interesting report and the effort to measure transport accessibility independently of development plans’ promises is welcome. However, the report’s criticism of housing delivery targets fails to recognise that they exist because of a very real need for housing. While it seems clear we often build in the wrong places, we need to address this by determining where the right places are and building there. Getting rid of housing delivery targets without determining how else we boost housebuilding to meet years of backlog would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I would be interested in further research about how and why the link is broken between ambitious visions and the somewhat messier reality of delivering new homes and infrastructure. We would also benefit from looking abroad to the many other countries that address these problems more successfully – there is a strong tendency to insularity in the UK policy world, especially in housing and planning.
“If this is how badly we account for future changes we can see coming, imagine how poorly we must plan for changes we can’t see”
Thinktank Policy Exchange also published a series of essays. Economist Bridget Rosewell’s piece addressing some of the challenges in forecasting housing need caught my eye.
She gives an example of an area that expected substantial growth in jobs and inward investment because of a local logistics investment programme; however, the regional plan didn’t propose building additional housing for these expected new residents, because the forecast did not provide for such investment, which would have been a departure from past trends.
If this is how badly we account for future changes we can see coming, imagine how poorly we must plan for changes we can’t see. Ms Rosewell rightly points out that plans can’t be untouchable monoliths – the best are flexible to changing circumstances.
Another paper is Planning For the Future, written by last year’s Thinkhouse Early Career Researcher’s Prize winner Anthony Breach of Centre for Cities. This garnered much debate, because it provides a pretty direct challenge to the fundamental ideas that sit behind our planning system.
It takes the interesting approach of using a framework developed to explain shortage-ridden Soviet economies and comparing this to how we ration developable land in the UK. He argues that the current approach is the predominant cause of the housing crisis and goes on to propose a zonal land-use system to address it (now chiming with the white paper).
“I would like to see more housing associations produce reports like this, addressing some of the practical challenges we need to tackle before we have a real hope of improving housing affordability”
There’s no doubt that some people – especially planners – will find these ideas very challenging. But I would strongly recommend having a look. Whether or not you agree, you will certainly come out having considered something in a different light.
Finally, Reuben Young of Network Homes has published Making Land Deliver. This paper highlights the poor incentives developers and landowners face, which encourages speculative behaviour at the expense of affordable housing contributions.
The author proposes some practical measures to take pointless negotiations out of the process by replacing developer contributions with a flat rate tax. Local authorities could use the proceeds to buy homes at a pre-arranged price on-site or spend elsewhere.
The paper provides welcome recognition of how systemic incentives determine behaviours and how they can be improved, away from simplistic explanations of market baddies. I would like to see more housing associations produce reports like this, addressing some of the practical challenges we need to tackle before we have a real hope of improving housing affordability.
Anya Martin, head of policy and research, PricedOut
Thinkhouse.org.uk is an online library of research pieces, policy publications and case studies that propose ways to increase the amount and quality of the UK’s housing stock and the related economic, social and community benefits of doing this. The site is curated by an independent panel of experts drawn from across the sector who select the best and most innovative reports for particular attention in our Must Read section. To promote new research and encourage a new generation of experts the panel have created an Early Career Researcher’s competition.
