Regular readers of CapX may be passingly familiar with development orders – I have mentioned them here once or twice. For those unfamiliar, here’s my previous summary:
Set out in Section 59 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, development orders are instruments of extraordinary potential scope. Here are the two most crucial bits:
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Paragraph 2(a): an order may ‘itself grant planning permission for development specified in the order or for development of any class specified’.
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Paragraph 3(b): an order may be made ‘as a special order applicable only to such land or descriptions of land as may be specified in the order’.
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Had he sufficient will and political backing, the Housing Secretary could effectively year-zero the planning system…
Full-fat planning reform is, of course, the ideal. But as we have seen time and again, the odds of our getting it remain extremely small. The Conservatives proved incapable of it, despite Robert Jenrick’s spirited attempt as Housing Secretary, and despite their rhetoric Labour don’t seem interested in trying hard enough.
Development orders offer ministers an out – and, as I set out in a new paper for the Adam Smith Institute published today, they could give Labour a chance to get their various housing reforms back on track.
Local authorities dragging their feet designating ‘grey belt’? Simply write a new building code and create a permitted development regime for such sites. Do the same for ‘brownfield passports’, while you’re at it. Serious about getting new towns built? Identify the sites, and issue development orders to bypass the planning system.
The same holds true for other focused fixes, such as creating special planning regimes near railway stations or to spur redevelopment of urban industrial land.
Such a system isn’t perfect, by any means. The biggest drawback is the lack of long-term certainty: that which can be issued by ministerial decree can be rescinded just as easily. Legislation would give developers and the construction industry the sort of long-term certainty needed to drive really transformational change.
But British politics has a nasty habit of making the perfect the enemy of the good, and just because a strategy focused on development orders wouldn’t be perfect doesn’t mean it wouldn’t offer real advantages over the status quo. In ‘New Orders: Using Development Orders to Solve the Housing Crisis’, I identify four broad benefits:
Security
At least for the lifetime of the Government, a permitted development regime offers more security to builders in much the same way as zoning: if their proposal fits the requirements set out in the order, they can build it. This would cut down on both the costs and delays of navigating the planning system. Ministers could further enhance this by liaising with developers while drawing up the orders.
Diversity
The costs of getting through the planning system are a big factor in the dominance of the British housebuilding market by a small number of developers. Broad application of development orders would create better market conditions for small and medium-sized developers (not to mention self-build). This is especially true for orders targeted at smaller sites, which might be less attractive to large housebuilders.
Celerity
One of the big challenges for the current Government in fulfilling its promises on housing will be how long it takes for new developments to progress from the drawing board to spades in the ground (even without accounting for enacting changes to the National Planning Policy Framework and letting those filter through the system), especially in light of the very low numbers of new starts in recent years. By cutting out years of application, deliberation, obstruction and appeals, a development order-led approach could significantly speed delivery, and increase the volume of housing completed in this Parliament.
Specificity
Most importantly, turning to development orders would circumvent the internal dynamics which killed off the Conservatives’ attempt at planning reform. Not only can MPs not block it, but the Secretary of State has full discretion over where and to what extent any order applies. They can thus safely concentrate development in areas a) where it is needed and b) which vote for somebody else.
I admit, this approach – issuing development orders from the centre that countermand local objections – runs contrary to the instincts of ministers and, it must be said, much of the Yimby movement.
The former prefer to make it someone else’s problem – think Michael Gove’s enthusiasm for Local Development Orders, or the Labour Government’s emphasis on devolution.
The latter, meanwhile, have an unfortunate if noble focus on trying to find solutions by somehow making everyone happy, most obviously through the beauty agenda. Sadly, many Nimbys are being perfectly rational, if extremely selfish, when they oppose new developments. If some can be won round, that’s great – but many simply need to be taken on and defeated.
Development orders give ministers the means to do that. Ministers ought to have the best incentives when it comes to getting things built (which is to say, the exact opposite incentives of councillors); they have the perspective to recognise the national benefit of new development, and minimal exposure to the concentrated anger of the minority of local voters who turn out in council elections.
Finally, using these powers gives Westminster the opportunity to set an example. It is no good exhorting local authorities and mayors to make more aggressive use of their powers when ministers, who have far less to lose, refuse to use their own.
Will Labour take advice from a Conservative journalist? Any reluctance would be very understandable.
But having passed up the opportunity to pass real planning reform in the King’s Speech, and given the delays involved in getting new regulations in place, overcoming council resistance and getting spades in the ground, the Government will likely find itself up against it as the next election – and its self-imposed housing mission – draws closer. When that happens, the TCPA 1990 will be waiting for them.
‘New Orders: Using Development Orders to Solve the Housing Crisis’ is published by the Adam Smith Institute. Read the full report here.
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