Budget gives planning inspectorate new role in increasing supply of land for housebuilding

The Budget Report has outlined a number of new measures to increase the supply of land for housing, including a new role for the planning inspectorate and amendments to the s106 regime.

The Planning Inspectorate is to be given an ongoing role in testing and reporting publicly on the position across the country with the sanction from 2010-11 that the Government will withhold the relevant elements of the Housing and Planning Delivery Grant from local authorities that fail to produce satisfactory five year land supply assessments.

Targets will be introduced across Government for the number of homes that will be built on public land. For the first time, comprehensive checks of local land supply strategies were commissioned and published alongside the Budget.

The government also intends to put existing policy tests for planning obligations on a statutory footing and is shortly to launch a consultation on how a “scaled back” s106 would operate. The government said that “it will work with local authorities to ensure local targets are proportionate, respond to economic conditions and do not overly constrain development”.

The Budget Report also announced the creation of a new joint government and industry action group which will develop an action plan to address the key challenges faced by the housebuilding sector - supply of viable land, the regulatory costs on industry and the skills and innovation within the industry.