Select Committee supports TCPA calls for review of Housing Need Assessments by councils

Published by Fiona Mannion for TCPA in Housing and also in Central Government, Communities, Local Government

Leading planning think-tank, the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) has welcomed the report today from the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, ‘Abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies’. The Committee report, which builds upon the TCPA’s evidence to the inquiry, highlights both the hiatus caused to the planning system by the removal of the regional tier and the need to review and monitor housing need assessments by councils to ensure they are planning for the level of housing needed in their local communities. The Committee report also looks at the role the proposed New Homes Bonus will have on delivering housing in the absence of housing targets. 

Kate Henderson, TCPA Chief Executive said:

“Today’s report is an important milestone in setting out the importance of a fit for purpose planning system which must offer a strong mechanism for planning large areas where strategic issues are too big in scale or timeframe to be resolved within a single local planning authority area. What is most striking is that the planning system (outside London, which retains its regional London Plan) will have to deal with the challenges of housing shortages, demographic change, economic recovery and climate change at a time when both the framework and the resources have been significantly reduced.”

“In assessing the housing need of their communities, it is important that local authorities consider both local needs and wider patterns of housing demand. The removal of the regional tier means that comprehensive guidance is needed to ensure an open, fair and consistent approach at the local level.”

“The Committee report rightly highlights that the effectiveness and fairness of the new planning regime will depend not just on the Localism Bill, but also on a wider package of changes – including the introduction of the New Homes Bonus, designed to incentivise housing growth, changes to Housing Benefit, and a new National Planning Policy Framework, which will set the key national policy direction for planning.”

On 22^nd March 2011 the TCPA, in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, will be launching the first report of its kind, an analysis of planning and housing reform agendas to build up a picture of how they will play out across the country. Speakers will include the shadow Housing Minister, Alison Seabeck MP and Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, Chair of the National Housing Federation.  The aim of this study is to inform the ongoing debate about the future of planning and housing in England by drawing together planning and housing reform measures, including new incentives such as the New Homes Bonus and changes to housing benefit, in order to try and understand the implications for housing provision and social justice.