Invest & Fund blames fragmented systems for slowing down homebuilding
Invest & Fund has said that antiquated and often fragmented systems, in combination with clashing government policies, are creating stalemate situations when it comes to homebuilding across the country.
Citing the recent example of Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, rejecting M&S’s plans to demolish its flagship Oxford Street store – even though Westminster council had approved plans to let them demolish their Art Deco building near Marble Arch and upgrade to a more contemporary site – the peer-to-peer development lender noted the “polarising objectives” of the planning system.
“Now this is a commercial enterprise, so it’s a tenuous reach for us to debate this; however, one of the themes we have discussed relating to housing is the polarising objectives of all facets of the planning system, how do you both preserve and progress at the same time and how do you provide clarity to businesses and run an appeals based system?” it said in a blog post on its website.
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“This is an excellent example of a decision that was made and overturned, potentially for noble reasons, but those reasons should have been apparent and addressed before an initial decision was made, and could be, with a sufficiently overhauled and algorithmically driven planning system.”
It cited a recent article in The Times, which said that four out of five sizeable applications are now facing delays, sometimes by more than two years. Invest & Fund stated that the residential housing stock delays are causing a shift change, adding that the “interesting thing here is that the narrative is changing around why these delays are occurring.”
Invest & Fund said for “several years, the post-pandemic malaise, a give-up around office work, was put squarely in the frame for backlogs; … but with the benefit of hindsight, was a discretionary system in an age that requires rapid expansion, always just destined to fail?”
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The company said if the early dart idea is explored, taking the approach of an algorithmically centred zoning system would be the likely tool and should this be explored, it “would create certainty in the system and develop rules enshrined in law that protect the rights of locals, the environment, and the local planning objectives, stimulating private sector homebuilding and diminishing the backlog.”
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