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New Planning Bill 'could threaten delivery of new social housing'
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The National Housing Federation has warned that a key part of the Planning Bill could threaten the delivery of urgently needed social homes.
The bill, which receives its second reading in the House of Commons today, proposes the introduction of a new Community Infrastructure Levy, payable by developers to local authorities, to fund improved infrastructure.
But the Federation, which represents England's housing associations, fears that this will lead to local authorities accepting a fixed cash payment instead of negotiating with developers to deliver more social homes.
The new levy is intended to work alongside the current system, known as Section 106, where councils can negotiate with house builders to include social homes and other facilities on new developments.
But according to the Federation, the Bill fails to protect this. Money generated by granting planning permission could in future be spent on a wide range of other schemes.
The Federation believes there is also a danger that social homes will be shunted onto cheaper sites, away from local amenities and other housing, if planning authorities accept the levy instead of requesting provision of social homes within housing developments on higher value land.
This is because Section 106 agreements are often the only way of ensuring that social homes are built as part of private residential developments.
"Money that should have been used to tackle the rising tide of housing needs may well be siphoned off for other public infrastructure, to the detriment of new social homes," said David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation.
"There is a real danger that hard-pressed planning authorities, faced with a choice between cash from the developer or a Section 106 negotiation, would rather simply take the money.
"With the country in the grip of a desperate affordable housing shortage, we can't allow social homes to be lost in this way.
"We urge the Government to design the new system carefully so that the Community Infrastructure Levy works alongside Section 106, not against it."
