In the face the ongoing housing shortage, the Local Government Association has called for sterner penalties for slow housing developers.
Builders that fail to construct new housing promptly when planning permission has been granted should be punished, according to the body. It has called for builders to pay full council tax on homes that are not built before the planning permission expires.
Delays
The LGA said that 475,000 with planning permission were not completed in 2014-15, adding that councils were not to blame.
Further research is said to have uncovered a bumper backlog of homes waiting to be built in the UK. This, the LGA said, has, ‘grown at a rapid pace over the past few years.’[1]
In 2012-13, the total number of unimplemented planning permissions was 381,390. However, in 2013-14, this figure rose to 443,265 and to 475,647 in 2014-15.
‘To tackle the new homes backlog and to get Britain building again, councils must have the power to invest in building new homes and to force developers to build homes more quickly,’ believes Peter Box, LGA housing spokesman.[1]
Mr Box went on to say, ‘skills is the greatest barrier to building, not planning. If we are to see the homes desperately needed across the country built and jobs and apprenticeships created, councils must be given a leading role to tackle our growing construction skills shortage, which the industry says is one of the greatest barriers to building.’[1]
Housing developers should be fined for slow work-LGA
Building again
A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government was bullish about the comments, stating that there has been a, ‘25% increase in the number of new homes delivered over the past year alone.’ He went on to say that the government had, ‘got Britain building again.’[1]
‘Alongside this, we’re working closely with developers to ensure Britain has the skills it needs-and saw 18,000 building apprenticeships started in 2014. We’re also directly commissioning thousands of new affordable homes and recently doubled the housing budget,’ the spokesperson added.[1]
Misleading
However, Sadiq Khan, Labour’s candidate for Mayor of London, commented, ‘under the Tories, the UK and London in particular, has been falling far short of building the number of homes we need. We need powers to get developers building-alongside support for councils and housing associations which are building too.’[1]
John Stewart of the Home Builders Foundation, said, ‘speeding up the rate at which permissions are granted,’ was one of the keys to, ‘significant and sustainable,’ increases in property construction.
He went on to say that, ‘too many sites are stuck in the planning system, with an estimated 150,000 plots awaiting full sign-off by local authorities.’[1]
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35245313