A new government can transform promises for housebuilding into sustainable development, writes Localis researcher Sandy Forsyth.
“In the spirit of Clement Attlee,” announced deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner in a speech at the UK Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum, “our approach to housebuilding will be both proactive and strategic.”
In our report, Design for Life: The Smart Regeneration Journey to 2030, Localis addresses the most pressing concerns for local regeneration policy, landing upon a suite of recommendations that can guide policymakers towards a more resilient planning system to unlock housebuilding and urban development from a perspective that values the local as a transformation vehicle.
As Rayner noted, partnership working – with local authorities, with developers, with communities – is key to attracting investment into communities and engendering social benefit from infrastructure and development. While local leaders – and combined authorities in particular – are at the heart of place partnerships, effective place leadership is complicated in the UK by a government unwilling to cede authority to its regions.
Levelling up
Even the rhetoric of levelling up entrenched Whitehall as the conductor of local outcomes, waving its baton at authorities struggling to keep up with a tempo defined by sticking-plaster solutions and hurried commercialism.
Rayner does, however, acknowledge that the solution will be in empowering regional and local leaders. Mayors, she promises, will receive the tools for local housing delivery. It seems devolution has staying power as a priority for whichever government comes out of this campaign cycle victorious, but there needs to be a well-thought-out route to empowering regional development that cannot rely purely on government grants.
Single budgets for local authorities with fewer restraints – or regeneration accounts in the vein of housing revenue accounts – may provide some of the freedom place leaders require to mould housing supply to local needs. Strategic regional planning, with funding for regeneration tied to the setting and realisation of long-term targets by local authorities, would engender a shift of power away from central government and into place.
The next parliament must take on long-term investment in regeneration. A long-term settlement for local government and investment into the capacity of community housing initiatives would also be welcome.
Targets
Design For Life recognises that no regeneration policy, no matter how many millions of houses are promised, is complete without a holistic approach to the challenges of place development, including net zero. Labour seems to have taken this in its stride with its criteria for green spaces, habitat restoration and cross-departmental work to ensure that the UK’s environment flourishes.
There is more to do to support an urban infrastructure that mitigates and is resilient to climate change – mandatory whole-life carbon assessments, for instance, and better instruments to invest in energy-efficient local housing stock.
For a new government to actually be proactive and strategic about housebuilding requires systemic change hinged on trust between tiers of government and towards local leadership. Without this – and planning reform – the housing crisis will continue to spiral into catastrophic magnitude.
Author: Sandy Forsyth - Lead Researcher - Localis
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