New priorities for the government's multi-billion pound housing budget, along with the Housing and Planning Bill, are likely to reduce the planning system's role in providing affordable homes to rent, experts have said.

In last week's spending review, chancellor George Osborne reaffirmed the government's overriding objective of increasing homeownership. In his statement to Parliament, he said the housing budget would be doubled to more than £2 billion a year. "Above all, we choose to build the homes that people can buy," Osborne said.

A five-point plan for housing in the spending review is intended to deliver 400,000 affordable housing starts by 2020/21, with funding pumped into low-cost homeownership products rather than affordable and social rented housing. "Affordable means not just affordable to rent, but affordable to buy," Osborne told MPs.

Of those housing starts, the spending review said, 200,000 will be the Starter Homes pledged in the Tories' general election manifesto, available at a 20 per cent discount to the under-40s, with a £2.3 billion fund to "support the delivery of up to 60,000 of these, in addition to those delivered through reform of the planning system". Osborne also pledged 135,000 shared ownership houses and 10,000 more rented homes that will let tenants save for a deposit.

Please see my below opinion piece, which was published in today's City AM (26.10.2015).

"The capital’s housing crisis is an issue often swept under the carpet in people’s cramped, sub-standard living rooms.

Having just launched its Housing and Planning Bill, the government is continuing to reassure people about that its plans to roll out one million new homes by 2020 in order to solve the sticky situation in which London finds itself. Yet just where these homes are going to be built, together with the speed of delivery, remains the crux of the problem.

There are three purported solutions about where best to house a population that is set to stand at 10 million by 2030. Firstly, building up around transport nodes in central London and other accessible locations. Secondly, support Boris Johnson in his plans for 200,000 homes in a ‘city in the East’ and thirdly, utilise land on the fringes of London.

Welcome to Iceni’s inaugural year book. We wanted to find a way of marking ten years in business which reflected our approach to team work, client care, and our love of the job - and a yearbook seemed a pretty good way of balancing those objectives. As you might expect within that context, there’s a rich mix of articles on our team, from individual pursuits to company activities, both in and outside of office hours. We’ve also incorporated a number of profiles to reflect some of our growing areas of work, from ‘Booming Barking’, to growth in food distribution, to 'planning for real’ activities in East Tilbury. The intention is that we will issue future yearbooks every October, and it will be fascinating to see how subsequent years unfold; what our people do, how our client activities pan out, inevitably the political landscape, and how we both react to, and anticipate in advance, change.

Iceni Projects took part in a historic job swap with HM Treasury in the second half of 2015. Iceni’s Associate Planner, Jamie Sullivan, was seconded in to advise on planning and housing reforms whilst HM Treasury’s Planning Policy Advisor, Simon Dilly, moved in the other direction for three months. The job swap is understood to be the first of its kind for HM Treasury. The move helped further strengthen Iceni’s already considerable political insight, whilst providing a key member of the HM Treasury team with development sector experience.

As part of the Government’s drive to speed up the planning system, Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis has recently announced his intention to simplify the Local Plan making process. He is following the tried and tested strategy of setting up a panel of property and planning experts to recommend a series of measures and reforms for achieving this. The panel is similar in make up to the one that created the first draft of the National Planning Policy Framework and their recommendations are likely to form the back bone of future reforms.

The Housing and Planning Bill was published yesterday (13 October 2015).

Following an extensive period of uncertainty, the Housing and Planning Minister, Brandon Lewis today (13 October 2015), announced that the temporary permitted development rights allowing the conversion of offices to residential use have been made permanent.

This week the man of the moment and the hot favourite to lead the Conservative Party in to the 2020 election, George Osborne, spoke at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. In what was a less showy speech, Osborne instead of pulling a rabbit out the hat he decided to deliver a speech that was rather more technical than usual.

The itinerary said be at the event for 6pm. I arrived early, as I didn't want it to look like I'd just waltzed in straight off the London train. I'd done my homework - the RICS Residential Policy paper (released last week) sat freshly marked up in my bag. I had my points to get across, and I wasn't afraid to use them. This is the new era of open debate amongst the Labour Party after all. I didn't think they'd mind some straight talking from an outsider.

Roger and Trevor, the RICS representatives, were there to greet me, and very amiable they were too. RICS were sponsoring the event, and they were keen to get it right. They'd rolled out their paper at the Liberal Democrats conference, and it would be re-run at the Conservative party next week. They were looking to stimulate a debate, and they had a good running order: Angela Eagle MP, Shadow First Secretary of State; Roberta Blackman-Woods MP, Helen Hayes MP, vice chair of the all party parliamentary group for housing and planning, Michael Newey of RICS, and myself. I was effectively first up, and I was to give an industry perspective on the Paper, and my thoughts more generally on ways to speed up the delivery of, and supply of, housing. After the politicians had had their say, we were to embark on a question and answer session with the audience.

Property Week’s recent opinion poll on the merits of releasing Green Belt land for housing (04 September 2015) was - not surprisingly - thought provoking.

The industry has been calling for a revised position on the Green Belt for years. The poll serves as a useful reminder of a growing disparity between realistic solutions to the housing crisis and Government policy.

74 per cent of Property Week’s respondents suggested restrictions should be relaxed to some degree. I would suggest this doesn’t go far enough. The factors restricting development delivery in this country are as much about perception as they are policy. Any relaxation of rules should be accompanied with an honest message about why certain areas of land are suitable for development – because the social, economic and moral arguments for housing our population far outweigh the often limited environmental value of many of these sites. Likewise, this has to be about a long-term approach. We need to recognise that any relaxation will be a short-term realignment before looking ahead to how we can plan more productively in the future.