The Chancellor set out to fix an economy that is not working well enough for working people, talking about high bills, squeezed living standards and the need to “get ahead” again. That is the right diagnosis.
But from a planning and development perspective, the cure still feels partial. The government has made some positive moves, particularly on planning reforms and proposed muscular interventions to help speed up consenting with newly proposed call-in powers, yet the big structural issues that hold back housing delivery remain untouched with no fiscal stimulus or relief to restart a stagnating economy which is seeing sustained low business and consumer confidence.
Despite this, continued rhetoric to deliver 1.5 million homes remains a high priority and seen as the key driver for growth, but without the demand side of the housing equation addressed, the government will be struggling to even get anywhere near the million mark in this parliamentary term.
What the sector needed most from this Budget was certainty. Businesses across the property sector will invest in skills, digital tools and innovation if we can see a steady pipeline of consents and construction ahead.
HOUSING DELIVERY
As a medium sized business, we want to grow and create the capacity to meet the housing delivery and green infrastructure transition challenge – but we need the government to play its part in supporting these endeavours.
That means multi-year commitments to housing and infrastructure investment, not politicking with another round of eye-catching announcements which are rehashes of monies already announced or are in-play.
Both businesses and consumers need to be supported to generate confidence and in turn create growth.
Recent rising unemployment rates which peaked at 5%, the highest since the Covid period, is a stark warning that intervention is need to underpin the market with suitable support incentives, not adding more burden, cost and taxation.
HOUSING SUPPLY GOING BACKWARDS
For all the talk of “tearing up planning rules” and transforming housing delivery, the numbers are heading in the wrong direction.
Net additional homes in England have slipped back to a little over 200,000 a year, several percent down on the previous year and nowhere near the trajectory required to hit 1.5 million homes by 2029.
Around a third of those completions are affordable, which is welcome, but still far short of need.
At the same time, the forward pipeline is shrinking. Recent Housing Pipeline data show planning permissions for new homes down by approaching a fifth year on year, with approvals at their lowest for more than a decade and the number of sites gaining consent at the weakest level since records began.
STARK PICTURE
England is now consenting barely 60% of the homes a year that the government’s own target implies we need.
In London the picture is starker still. Planning applications are down, permissions are down and viability has been hit by a combination of higher costs, higher interest rates and a policy environment that keeps changing the rules mid game.
The capital is supposed to be a driver of the 1.5 million homes ambition.
At present it risks becoming the anchor and while there is real merit in what the Housing Secretary and Mayor for London are seeking to adopt in their proposed planning changes, they do need the Chancellor to also play her part in supporting the housebuilding sector, not only for major homebuilders but crucially the medium sized operators.
The uncomfortable truth is that you cannot tax and regulate your way to higher output while approvals fall and sites stall. The Budget has not yet squared that circle.
PLANNERS MEAN BOTTLENECKS
The announcement of £48m to hire around 350 additional planners and set up a planning careers hub is, on the face of it, a positive step. Our local planning authorities are stretched and any fresh resource is welcome.
The timing, though, is curious. The government has only recently announced that degree planning apprenticeships via the apprenticeship levy will no longer be funded, even though that would have been a more cost effective route to rebuild capacity.
The RTPI’s own data show that a fifth of planners have left the profession in only three years.
Recruiting a few hundred new posts without addressing pay, conditions and career progression may simply keep us treading water.
