One of the headlines from the Government’s long awaited Housing White Paper indicates Westminster’s backing for a standard method for a housing supply assessment. It sets out the Government’s intent to consult upon options regarding the introduction of a standardised approach to the assessment of housing requirements, in the hopes that it will allow for a more consistent approach to be established for local authorities lacking an up-to-date plan.
The new methodology, proposed to be implemented from April 2018, will be used as an incentive for councils to prepare local plans. The White Paper document states that the Government “want councils to use the new approach as they produce their plans and will incentivise them to do so”, it continues, stating that they will expect “councils that decide not to use the new approach to explain why, and to justify to the Planning Inspectorate the methodology they have adopted in their area.”
It is indicated that the consultation for this new methodology is to be published at the “earliest opportunity” this year, and will subsequently lead to changes recorded in the NPPF. A consultation will also be held regarding what a reasonable justification for departure from the regulated methodology entails, in order to ensure there is also a standardised approach to this. The outcome of this will again be made explicit within the NPPF.
The standard methodology aims to aid in making the housing supply process clearer, to try to make it more easily recognisable exactly how many homes are needed in specific areas. They state that the current unstandardised methodologies utilised cause delays to local plan timetables, due to the extensive debates which occur regarding the questionable validity of methods adopted by some councils.
However, since we have a lack of detail regarding what the procedure will actually be at this stage, we will need to interrogate the structure of it as it emerges as, for the procedure to be meaningful, it will need to go beyond trend based assumptions regarding headship rates, and hidden households, if the Government is serious about making a real and lasting change to the planning system. The reality of this is Councils will be required to identify significantly more land for development, they will also need to do it over significantly longer timeframes to crystallise supply and guarantee the delivery. This of course takes bold, generation changing decisions from our local politicians.
In order to avoid frustration to the planning system, the Government needs to commit short term parochial political decisions, like we have witnessed in a number of recent cases where unsatisfactory local authority plans have been thrown out for failing to demonstrate a sufficient housing supply.