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MHCLG reveals plans to tackle ‘hope value’ to boost housebuilding
Councils are expected to be able to buy land more cheaply for development, under new news plans announced by the government.
New measures, part of an eight-week consultation launched this week, include expanding current rules allowing ‘hope value’ to be removed in “more circumstances where social and affordable housing is being built”.
The government said the changes would allow councils to “buy cheaper land through the use of compulsory purchase orders and build much-needed homes and infrastructure”.
Currently, local authorities have to pay inflated hope-value costs, where they pay for what the land is estimated to be worth if developed in the future.
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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said this meant councils were forced to pay out “thousands of pounds more” to buy plots to develop.
Councils, mayoral combined authorities and other public bodies, including Homes England, will all benefit from the changes, the MHCLG said.
A recent report by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) research body found scrapping hope value would slash the cost of building 90,000 social homes a year by £4.5bn.
It is hoped the changes will help the government to meet its target of building 1.5 million new homes as part of its so-called Plan for Change.
As well as providing more homes, the government said the proposals will allow a positive use of “unsightly” and vacant land.
Matthew Pennycook, the housing and planning minister, said: “In our manifesto, we committed ourselves to further compulsory purchase reform to deliver more housing, infrastructure, amenity and transport benefits in the public interest.
“The consultation we are launching today is the next step in fulfilling that commitment – proposing reforms that will make the process faster and more efficient, enabling more land value to be captured and then invested in schemes for public benefit.”
The findings of the consultation will be used to develop the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is due to be introduced next year.
Last week, the government announced an overhaul of the planning system and landmark changes to the National Planning Policy Framework.
As well as new mandatory housing targets for councils, areas will receive an extra £100m to hire more staff and consultants, as well as fund more resources to carry out technical studies and site assessments.
