National Planning Policy Framework

John Milne Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. First, I thank the Minister for his assistance in progressing the local plan in my constituency. Horsham faced a unique problem with water neutrality, which the previous Government showed no sign of ever grappling with, and I am grateful for his personal involvement in that.

However, when it comes to the national house building strategy, I have to be critical. Difficulty with obtaining planning permission is only one, and no longer even the most important, of the many obstacles to house building, so why do we obsess over it to the exclusion of all else? Local targets are set through a compulsory process called the standard method, under which an area that has high local house prices, but only modest local wages, will have steeper housing targets. That formula is a terrible way to assess local housing need in practice, but its worst aspect is how it destroys local authorities’ negotiating power against developers.

Like most planning authorities, Horsham district council builds very few council houses directly, so the vast majority of its new housing stock must come from private developers. Developers are not stupid; they know that if a council has a target to build 1,800 homes each and every year—a target that Horsham may face—it will have to say yes to practically every site put in front of it, no matter whether a site was rejected the year before. Try explaining that to residents.

Developers with options for the land bid against each other, with a price based on the highest possible outcome, but achieving that price means them having to build zero social rent homes and lots of highly priced, executive homes. That is a bizarre case of competition only ever driving prices up, not down. Incredibly, in Horsham, we would be better off if we negotiated a monopoly for a single company to develop the whole district. That is why we have the paradox of having a chronic housing shortage at the same time as 1.5 million unbuilt houses with planning permission.

Meanwhile, as collateral damage in this process, we are ripping apart local democracy. Councils are forced, with zero local consent, to approve sites that are deficient in transport and water supply and that are mostly on greenfield sites. Local authorities have to take the word of statutory consultees as gospel; even where authorities know perfectly well that land will flood, if the Environment Agency says it will not, that is the end of it.

I know that the Minister is committed to solving the national housing problem, and I wholeheartedly support him in that, but the current situation is all sacrifice with no benefit. The sites we approve today will sit on the housing market like a dead-weight for years to come. High land prices are being locked in for wasteful schemes that take up three times the land that they need to. We need a reset, so I hope the Minister will agree to meet me to consider alternative solutions.