Will automatic planning consent lead to more homes?

Housing and home ownership are a top priority in the UK and last week new proposals were announced in the Productivity Plan (see page 11 section 9)

• introduce a new zonal system which will effectively give automatic permission on suitable brownfield sites
• take tougher action to ensure that local authorities are using their powers to get local plans in place and make homes available for local people, intervening to arrange for local plans to be written where necessary
• bring forward proposals for stronger, fairer compulsory purchase powers, and devolution of major new planning powers to the Mayors of London and Manchester
• extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants, and deliver 200,000 Starter Homes for first time buyers
• restrict tax relief to ensure all individual landlords get the same level of tax relief for their finance costs

Automatic planning consent on Brownfield sites, when approved, follows a number of other important incentives such as the Starter Homes initiative 20% discount.

The 20% discount is achieved by waiving local authority fees for homebuilders of at least £45,000 per dwelling on brownfield sites.

At the heart of the Starter Homes initiative is a change to the planning system. This will allow house builders to develop under-used or unviable brownfield land and free them from planning costs and levies. In return, they will be able to offer homes at a minimum 20% discount exclusively to first time buyers, under the age of forty.  Under the proposals, developers offering Starter Homes would be exempt from those Section 106 charges and Community Infrastructure Levy charges. The homes could then not be re-sold at market value for a fixed period – making sure that the savings are passed onto homebuyers.Gov.uk

To qualify first time buyers must be under the age of 40 and living in England.

Also the Help to Buy ISA for first time buyers where they could qualify for a £3,000 bonus

There is also the Help to Scheme where home buyers may only need a 5% deposit