We cannot level up while we lose affordable homes

We have been made aware that the need to build affordable homes could be ‘relaxed’ in planning reforms.

According to The Times, ministers have drawn up plans to exempt developers from having to build affordable homes and to scrap environmental protections . One of the biggest concerns is the potential rise in the threshold at which affordable homes must be built - from developments with ten homes to those with 40 or even 50 homes. Moving this threshold would reduce the supply of the affordable homes the country so badly needs. Plans to increase the threshold for affordable housing in this way were first floated as part of the 2020 planning reform proposals and were dropped after significant backlash from the sector, including calls from CIH.

These changes to planning obligations will have repercussions on affordable housing in rural areas in particular, as rural areas are disproportionately reliant on small sites and s106 homes and often suffer from issues of affordability. In the three years from 2016 to 2019, 70 per cent of affordable homes in rural areas were secured through Section 106 (s106), compared to 48 per cent in urban areas.

S106 is not a perfect system and has a mixed reputation. However, we know how important it is in the delivery of affordable homes - currently s106 is the single biggest contribution to building new affordable homes in the country with around half of all homes completed by housing associations being acquired via s106. The country is facing a worsening economic crisis and a worsening affordable housing crisis. Long-term, sustained investment in social housing is the only way to change this and there is a compelling case for putting an ambitious programme of new affordable housebuilding at the core of any plans for economic growth.

Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Simon Clarke MP has stated that he also wants to expand “permitted development rights” and has proposed making it easier to convert commercial and agricultural properties into homes. We have previously expressed our concern about extending permitted development rights in certain situations. The Levelling Up secretary wants to end a moratorium on the construction of 100,000 homes in parts of Norfolk, Hampshire, Devon and the northeast designed to protect the health and biodiversity of wetlands.

Given that the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill is currently at committee stage in the House of Commons, we need urgent clarity on the legislative framework to deliver on new housing supply and the impact on affordable housing provision. At present, it certainly doesn’t sound a great deal like ‘levelling up’. Reading about any potential plans that may stop the building of the genuinely affordable homes this country so badly needs is deeply worrying.

We are producing an updated ‘what you need to know’ on planning reform which we will publish soon.