CPC23: ‘Fundamental change’ needed to solve housing crisis, says Clarion’s head of development

Mr Cook said to build infrastructure, you “plan for it”, with some housing schemes being 10 to 15-year projects. 

“For us to want to commit to invest – last year – over £700m into building new homes, we need long-term policy decisions, not short-term decisions.

“When we see long-term decisions, we can plan for it,” he said, adding that policy change is “holding us back”.

For example, he said that Clarion is an advocate of building second staircases in tall buildings, but there is still no written policy on the issue.  

“We’ve currently got 3,000 homes stuck that we can’t build because, actually, we don’t know what we’re doing around second staircases. So we need that policy,” Mr Cook said. 

He added that “underlying all of this is skills and capacity”. 

“Because if we don’t fix this, we lose the skills in our industry,” he said, adding that “we need to elevate the standing of our industry”. 

He welcomed the announcement by government that there will be grant funding for regeneration, but said it still only applies outside London.

All panellists said the planning system needs to be reformed.

Ike Ijeh, head of housing, architecture and urban space at Policy Exchange, said the system is “too slow, inefficient and doesn’t mitigate against risk”.

“We have to find a way of dealing with that if we’re going to increase supply,” he added. 

Mr Ijeh also said there is a need for more council homes. “We can’t get away from the fact that as well as the supply issue, there is a clear affordability issue with housing as well… we have to ensure that we build houses for those on the lowest incomes.”

He added: “At the moment, the government spends £30bn on housing benefit – that is expected to rise to £71bn by 2050. 

“You have a crazy system where the government is subsidising private landlords.

“Surely a more efficient way of using that public money would be actually building homes… a long-term investment where those on the lowest incomes could live.

“You increase supply which would help with the crushing affordability issues that you have with housing.”

Panellist Rachel Maclean, minister for housing and planning, said the government is reforming the planning system through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which will be back in the House of Commons “very soon”. 

She said the government will take some of the “discretionary nature” of planning out, “while still respecting local democracy”. 

“We want to modernise it, we want to make it much faster,” she added. 

Ms Maclean also said the government will be pushing on with scrapping nutrient neutrality rules, despite the defeat in the House of Lords. 

She spoke about the government’s plans to reform the leasehold system and said if she were a “gambling woman”, she would be “happy” to bet that it would be announced in the King’s Speech in November.