Long-term Plan for Housing and Nutrient Neutrality

Monday 4th September 2023 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)]

Over the summer I have taken further decisive action to boost housing supply: first, through setting out this Government’s long-term plan for housing; and secondly, by unblocking housing stalled by nutrient neutrality rules, alongside my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary.

My plan builds on this Government’s strong housing record which has increased delivery, improved quality, and focused on safety. On delivery, despite a challenging global economic backdrop our approach has ensured we are on track to meet our manifesto target of delivering 1 million new homes in this Parliament. Since 2010, over 2.2 million new homes have been delivered and millions of people have moved into home ownership. Since 2010, we have delivered over 659,500 new affordable homes, including over 458,700 affordable homes for rent, of which over 166,300 homes for social rent. We have focused not just on supply but on quality, and there has been a significant reduction in the number of non-decent homes across all tenures.

Long-term plan for housing

On 24 July, I set out more detail on this Government’s ongoing commitment to housing supply and regeneration, including 10 principles which underpin my Department’s long-term plan for housing, as well as transformational plans to deliver a new era of regeneration, inner-city densification and the delivery of beautiful, safe, decent homes. This detail builds on our existing commitments to deliver one million new homes by the end of this Parliament and continue our progress towards achieving 300,000 new homes per year, whilst maintaining the protections that matter most to local people.

The 10 principles which form our long-term plan are: the regeneration and renaissance of the hearts of 20 of our towns and cities; supercharging Europe’s science capital; building beautiful, and making architecture great again; building great public services into the heart of every community; communities taking back control of their futures; greener homes, greener landscapes and green belt protection; a new deal for tenants and landlords; ensuring that every home is safe, decent and warm; liberating leaseholders; and extending ownership to a new generation.

The first and most important component of that plan is our programme of urban regeneration to densify our inner cities, unlocking benefits for the environment, productivity, and a renaissance in city culture which is already supporting regeneration in towns and cities across the country. As the next stage of this work, I announced ambitious programmes in a further three English cities, to deliver transformational change in Cambridge, inner London, and central Leeds.

Cambridge’s potential has been circumscribed by a lack of new space for laboratories and the new housing necessary to attract and retain talent. In Cambridge, we will therefore be taking action to unblock development and create a new urban quarter for the city. These ambitious plans will combine beautiful design with sustainability, delivering space for cutting-edge laboratories, new homes, and business. We are establishing a Cambridge Delivery Group, chaired by Peter Freeman and backed by £5 million of funding, to take immediate next steps. We recognise that water scarcity is a top priority to unblock growth in Cambridge and we will work with relevant partners, including the local authorities and industry, to identify and accelerate plans to address water constraints. To this end, we are investing £3 million into a pilot to support measures to improve the water efficiency of existing homes and commercial property across Cambridge, to help offset demands created by new developments.

The homes we need in London are not being delivered—just 21,000 new homes were started in the capital last year, a third of the 66,000 homes the Mayor identified in his own assessment of housing need in London. Housing need in the capital is likely to increase further and a failure to redevelop inner-city London will add to pressure on the suburbs. That is why we are planning to intervene, using all the arms of government to assemble land, provide infrastructure, set design principles, masterplan over many square miles and bring in ambitious private sector partners. Our ambition in London is a Docklands 2.0—taking in the regeneration of Thamesmead, Beckton and Silvertown to deliver up to 65,000 new homes. We will look at how we can ensure better transport connections from east to west to help crowd in local and private investment. We are also allowing the affordable homes programme to be directed towards regeneration, with up to £1 billion available in London alone.

We have also committed to working with local partners in Leeds to regenerate the city centre, identify the remaining barriers to delivery of housing across key sites, and support the development of the West Yorkshire mass transit system. We will provide additional revenue funding to accelerate this work.

I also announced the allocation of £800 million from the £1.5 billion brownfield, infrastructure and land fund to unlock 56,000 new homes on brownfield sites and enable us to take an infrastructure-first approach to developing our cities. £550 million of this funding will be overseen by Homes England, alongside landmark investments of £150 million for Greater Manchester and £100 million for the west midlands.

As well as our targeted, place-based interventions, I announced a number of reforms to the planning system that will speed up new developments, put power in the hands of local communities to build their own homes, and unlock planning decisions. Our additional funding package, totalling £37.5 million, includes the £24 million planning skills delivery fund, designed to clear existing backlogs and improve the skills of planners. A new “super squad” of specialists will support delivery of sites, including a trailblazer in Cambridge of £500,000. Alongside this, we are increasing the amount developers pay in planning fees for the first time since 2018 to support planning departments in local authorities across the country.

The Government’s commitment to development and regeneration in and around existing town and city centres is also guiding our consideration of the more than 26,000 responses we received to the consultation on updating the national planning policy Framework. The Government want to make it easier to progress such developments, and to that end I am clear that: development should proceed on sites that are adopted in a local plan with full input from the local community, unless there are strong reasons why it cannot; local councils should be open and pragmatic in agreeing changes to developments where conditions mean that the original plan may no longer be viable, rather than losing the development wholesale or seeing development mothballed; and better use should be made of small pockets of brownfield land by being more permissive, so more homes can be built more quickly, where and how it makes sense, giving more confidence and certainty to SME builders.

Later in the year, subject to completion of its passage through Parliament, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill will put in place our reforms to the planning system, and the Government will publish updates to the national planning policy Framework.

New development must keep local people in mind. We have established the Office for Place in Stoke-on-Trent, led by Nicholas Boys-Smith, to support councils to ensure that new places are created in accordance with the best design principles embodied in a simple design code supported by local people.

To speed up the delivery of new development, we launched a consultation on proposals to make plans simpler, faster to prepare and more accessible. We are also consulting on proposed changes to permitted development rights to turn more existing commercial, agricultural, and other businesses into new homes, as well as changes to farm development, and will consult again in the autumn on how permitted development rights can better be used to support existing homeowners to extend their homes.

On safety, I announced that 18 metres is the threshold the Government will introduce for second staircases to be included in new residential buildings. This decision will provide clarity to the sector and bring us in to line with other major countries and territories. It aligns with the expert view of several relevant professional bodies, including the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the National Fire Chiefs Council. To minimise the impact of the change on the supply of new homes, we are working with industry and regulators to design transitional arrangements that will secure the viability of projects that are under way and avoid delays where there are other appropriate mitigations.

The measures announced as part of our long-term vision for housing comprise a balanced strategy that will empower local areas to deliver the right homes in the right places, promoting beauty in design and fostering real pride in place. This is central to the Government’s continued commitment to levelling up.

Nutrient neutrality

On 29 August, the Environment Secretary and I announced a plan to unblock housing stalled by nutrient neutrality rules, while at the same time protecting and restoring our precious natural environment.

At present, legacy EU laws on nutrient neutrality are blocking the delivery of new homes, including cases where planning permission has already been granted. This has affected home building of all types, from the redevelopment of empty spaces above high street shops, to affordable housing schemes, to new care homes and families building their own home. The block on building is hampering local economies and threatening to put SME local builders out of business. Nutrients entering our rivers are a real problem, but the contribution made by new homes is very small compared with that from other sources such as industry, agriculture and our existing housing stock.

The Government is therefore responding to calls from councils across the political divide who want to be able to get on with meeting housing need in their local areas, by tabling amendments to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill at Report stage in the House of Lords. These amendments make targeted and specific changes to the habitats regulations, alongside a wider package of environmental measures which will ensure housing development can proceed at the same time as water quality is improved as a result of these reforms. Agricultural and industrial development will continue to be dealt with by separate permitting and regulatory processes. The Government have taken this approach following consideration of the underlying causes of nutrient build-up in affected catchments and after listening to the concerns of local communities, local authorities and house builders, including in relation to the mitigation schemes currently used in some areas to facilitate development, which while positive are moving too slowly with no guarantee that demand can be met imminently. On that basis, the Government therefore believe making this targeted change is the right way to provide certainty and confidence such that much-needed housing can be built for families. Based on the average annual housing delivery in the catchment areas covered by nutrient neutrality between 2015-16 and 2017-18, which is the most recent three-year period unaffected by covid-19 and prior to the first nutrient neutrality guidance issued, the Government estimate that around 16,500 per year are currently affected by nutrient neutrality rules, which amounts to over 100,000 homes by the end of the decade.

Alongside this legislative intervention, the Government are taking more action to tackle the underlying sources of nutrient pollution, restoring nature, and leaving our environment in a better state than we found it. This will not lead to regression in environmental outcomes and our reform package will in fact improve the condition of these habitats sites.

We are significantly expanding investment in and evolving the nutrient mitigation scheme run by Natural England, doubling investment to £280 million to ensure it is sufficient to offset the very small amount of additional nutrient discharge attributable to up to 100,000 homes between now and 2030. Natural England will work with local authorities, the private sector and others to tackle nutrient pollution and work towards the long-term health and resilience of the river systems. The Government is clear that developers should continue to play their part in tackling nutrient pollution, which is why we are working with the Home Builders Federation to structure appropriate and fair contributions, which we both agree are needed.

The Government will then accelerate work on full site restoration through further work on new protected site strategies, which Natural England will draw up in partnership with local communities to set protected sites on the path to recovery in the most affected catchments with the highest housing demand. These bespoke plans will help identify the wider actions needed to restore habitats and species in specific areas.

The amendments tabled in the House of Lords on 29 August also include measures that directly respond to points raised during passage and expand on the existing provisions which mandate water companies to improve their wastewater treatment works to the highest technically achievable limits by 2030. Those provisions alone will more than offset the nutrients expected from new housing developments by putting in place wider upgrades for the long term. These upgrades will benefit existing homes, not just new homes, providing an effective approach to reducing wastewater nutrient pollution. The new amendments further demonstrate our commitment to improving water quality by enabling catchment-based approaches to be taken, and making explicit on the face of the Bill that nature-based solutions may be used when upgrading wastewater treatment works.

Alongside these measures, we are going further to help farmers to grow food sustainably and protect the environment, increase productivity, and build a more circular economy for nutrients. We are opening a new £25 million nutrient management innovation fund, investing £200 million in slurry management infrastructure, and consulting this year on modernising our fertiliser product standards to drive the use of products based on organic and recycled nutrients. This autumn, we will also launch a River Wye action plan to address the unique nature of the river and how we will work with local farmers, house builders and Welsh Water to reduce nutrients at source.

All of this action is in addition to our new biodiversity net gain policy, which we have strengthened during the passage of the Bill, and builds on our ambitious “Plan for Water”, which sets out stronger regulation, tougher enforcement and more than £2 billion of accelerated investment from water companies.

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