Conservative planning green paper 'to create new homes and jobs'

David Cameron has unveiled plans to reform England's 'broken' planning system and create new homes and jobs in the process.

The Conservative leader claimed the party's 'Open Source Planning' green paper contained policies which would see 'one of the biggest shifts in power for decades'.

The Tory green paper outlines proposals to use 'open source democracy' and neighbourhood involvement to encourage sustainable development.

Whitehall targets and unelected quangos will be scrapped, to be replaced with a democratic system for national infrastructure and incentives to promote local homes and jobs.

Launching the paper in a speech to the Post-Bureaucratic Age conference in London, David said Conservative plans showed 'how a system that was controlled by a few can be run by the many'.

Caroline Spelman, Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, described Labour's planning system as "bad for democracy, bad for the environment and bad for business".

She added: "Too many decisions taken by unelected quangos, there is too much unnecessary red tape and there are no incentives for local residents to back sustainable development. We will put local communities in the driving seat."

The National Housing Federation, meanwhile, said it welcomed many aspects of the green paper, but warned that the current proposals posed 'too great a risk' to the delivery of affordable housing.

The Federation said it applauded the proposed shift in the planning system towards a presumption in favour of sustainable development and the greater scope for local communities to shape development in their area.

And it also hailed the expectation that councils should provide local people with good quality information on housing need in each neighbourhood. In addition, the Federation said it liked the principle of giving local authorities and individual communities incentives to build more homes.
 
But it expressed concern at the proposed scrapping of Section 106 agreements, which it claimed could lead to a reduction of up to 40% in the number of affordable homes delivered each year.

Under Section 106, private developers are obliged to build a minimum number of affordable homes on sites on which they are given permission to build new properties.

Around 64,000 of the 162,000 affordable homes to be built in England between April 2008 and March 2011, will be delivered through Section 106 agreements. And, under existing government plans, at least another 162,000 affordable homes are planned for the period between April 2011 and March 2014.

The Federation believes that any system that replaces Section 106 must be robust and deliver affordable housing where development is wanted and ensure affordable homes can be built, where necessary, even where there is some local opposition.

The Federation is also concerned that the Tories’ proposals to offer incentives to local communities to accept proposed building through the council tax system may not prove sufficient, as Federation research suggests the affordable housing incentives will add less than 1% to a typical council’s budget.

Federation chief executive David Orr said: “Much of what the Conservatives propose in their green paper is positive, and we support the party’s drive to create a simpler, more transparent and consistent planning system."

However he added: “The proposal to scrap Section 106 and replace it with a tariff system requires a leap of faith that the delivery of new homes will be maintained.
 
"Section 106 delivers 40% of all affordable housing, but the Conservative proposals as they stand will put this delivery at too great a risk.
 
"If a new planning system operates as the Conservatives envisage, all will be well; if it doesn't, we could lose up to 64,000 new affordable homes over three years.
 
"The National Housing Federation is committed to working with all political parties to improve the planning system to support the delivery of new homes."