Briefings and responses

The Autumn Budget has taken a step forward by lifting the housing borrowing cap for some councils. We welcome this announcement, but it does not go far enough.

Councils are working hard to deliver the right kind of homes, and are currently approving nine out of ten planning permissions.

Councils are working hard to deliver the right kind of homes, and are currently approving nine out of ten planning permissions. However, planning departments are severely under-resourced. Taxpayers are subsidising the costs of planning applications by around £200 million a year.

Local government supports the collective national ambition to build one million new homes by 2020, but house building is currently well below the levels required for an efficient and fully functioning housing market.

Local government's ambition is much greater than the White Paper, which lacks substantive measures to support councils in enabling housing growth, and to build the genuinely affordable homes for those at the sharp end of the housing crisis.

A summary of the key developments for local government on Neighbourhood Planning and Local development documents.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill, House of Lords, Second Reading, 17 January 2017 Key messages

Local government shares the Government's ambition to increase housing supply. Councils want to play a lead role in building new homes and support measures that will enable councils to capture the value from increased land prices on land they acquire for development.

House of Commons, Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 25 October 2016 Key messages

We support Amendment 23 tabled by Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods MP,Teresa Pearce MP and Jim McMahon MP. This would remove from the Bill all the provisions relating to restrictions of the use of planning conditions by local planning authorities