Planning Reforms? Where have they gone?
By Award winning Author, Journalist and Broadcaster John Swinfield
A strange quietness has descended on Government plans for putting a rocket under local planning authorities. A week or two ago there was much excitement when it seemed serious consideration was being given to speeding up development applications and liberalising swathes of outdated and arcane planning law.
One encouraging idea was to allow empty or derelict retail premises to be turned into residential accommodation. It seemed a great way to revitalise clapped-out city centres.
Towns which are to thrive need people as well as shops. There’s nothing as depressing as boarded up shops in moribund shopping areas in towns where councils have encouraged out of town retail parks and permitted the unfettered march of the multiples.
It was also said councils which stuck to bizarre political diktats – such as those who say they want family houses rather than flats because they have suddenly seen the light and now want families not singletons – were going to be giving a dressing down.
Councils tut-tutted while watching the gradual rundown of their boroughs. They’ve left it too late to suddenly become ‘family friendly.’ Families with children were forced to flee for greenery and open spaces long ago.
Such policies have hampered the creation of small flats which could be sold to youngsters seeking a foothold on the property ladder (the government must also whip lenders into line and make mortgages available which are not dependent on massive deposits and all the other stifling demands).
Old shops and impractical rambling houses could be converted into bed-sits and small flats to be sold at sensible prices, giving first-timers a home and the developer a return. Councils tend to forget the importance of the last bit: a developer who risks his capital deserves an ordinary reward. Why take the risk if there’s not even a small margin?
And if such modest flats were not to be sold they could be let. Everything possible should be done to encourage the buy-to-let market. There is a desperate need for small one-bedroom flats to be sold or let out at sensible rates, especially in cities such as London. If the property market is to be resuscitated, and it is central to the government’s plans that it should be, then private landlords, developers and builders must be given every encouragement and incentive. Planning departments should be forced to toe the line, and the hidden political agendas which are adhered to by so many councils, outlawed.
So what’s happened to the reforms? Perhaps it’s Libya? Or Gaddafi? Or another of the thousand crises engulfing the government. Let’s hope so. And that when things have quietened down that the Cabinet will once again set its beady eye on the desperately outmoded planning laws and the Town Hall Johnnies who administer them.
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