To give it its full name, the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill proposes a variety of reforms including to town and country planning, infrastructure, and the environment. It is intended to give local councils and communities more of a say in what, how and where new homes will be built. 

The Bill is currently at the third reading stage, which means that this is the final chance for the House Of Commons to debate the contents. That being the case we thought it timely to reflect on some of the key policy changes that are being introduced.

Changes to how local plans are made

Local plans are to be made cheaper, easier and quicker for LPAs to produce and implement. Despite the current NPPF policy having been in place since 2012, Lichfields reported in May 2022 that only 42% of LPAs outside London even have a local plan in place.  Councils will be obliged to make local plans within a 30 month timescale and update them at least every five years. Whilst some details around this legislation are yet to be confirmed, having more local plans would mean more clarity, structure and more strategic planning opportunities for developers.

Updates to housing targets

It has now been confirmed that Government housing targets will become a starting point to local plans, with flexibility for councils to change these to reflect local circumstances. The Government is to consult on how to create these targets to take better account of local needs and population density.

There are also plans to remove the obligation for councils to keep a rolling five-year land supply, as long as they keep a local plan up to date. Currently LPAs failing to meet housing targets must create new buffer zones of housing land and/or invoke the presumption in favour of sustainable development. We’ve written more about the implications of this in our review of the 2021/2 housing test results.

Powers to prevent land banking

More proposals are to address land banking – that is perceptions of developers achieving planning permission, and then failing to build out a site within certain time periods. These include:

Development commencement notices

Amendments to the Town and Country Planning Act (TCPA 1990) will require developers to serve a commencement notice to their LPA before any building has begun. Notices are to include the expected start date, proposed delivery rates and completion date of their project. The Bill’s explanatory notes include details of the notices, and a helpful example for ease of reference. 

Completion notices

In order to speed up the process on serving completion notices, local authorities will no longer need these to be confirmed by the Secretary of State.  The Government is also considering introducing financial penalties, plus with-holding future planning in the local area, when developers have failed to build out on existing permissions, in what they consider to be a reasonable time.

Of course, withholding future planning does not guarantee completion of a current development, so this feels somewhat self defeating. Conversely, it may offer new opportunities for developers trying to break into a highly competitive local market. 

Council power to capture land values

Powers are to be introduced to allow the piloting of Community land auctions.  Under these schemes, landowners could sell local authorities their development site. The authority would then allocate land based on planning considerations and the option price, and auction the future development rights. The difference between the option price and development price paid would be retained by the local authority, and used "to enhance local infrastructure and services" (UK Gov, 2022).

Concerns raised by industry commentators include that this may “skew” the site allocation process in the favour of LPAs, and that it disincentivises profit focused landowners from selling. Conversely, however, with councils potentially funding planning applications, community land auctions may open up more sites that might otherwise have unattractive profit margins.

What’s next in the pipeline for the Levelling Up Bill?

With changing amendments ongoing, we’ll be keeping an eye on how the Bill moves through Parliament. Meantime, SearchLand continues to add more and new data to our platform, as a comprehensive resource for land and property, for you to make informed and strategic decisions on your site sourcing and planning applications.

If you have any questions about how to make the most of SearchLand’s powerful tools and data, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

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