If the same speed with which the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats reached an agreement on their joint programme is reflected in the introduction of new legislation, everyone involved with social housing is in for a busy 18 months.

Following the Queen’s speech last Tuesday we know what is in the pipeline, but to work out what details to watch out for we can look to source material, including the recently agreed The Coalition: Our Programme for Government plus two Conservative Party publications on detailed planning and housing policy.

The programme for legislation is underpinned by a firm commitment to ‘disperse power [and opportunity] more widely to people [and community groups] rather than hoarding authority within government’

Planning
On the planning front, early primary or secondary legislation is anticipated to:-

• Abolish regional spatial strategies and housing targets
• Radicalise the reform of the planning system to give neighbourhoods more ability to determine the nature of their areas through more local consultation by developers. This predicates any developers, including housing associations, discussing plans with local people to obtain support for controversial schemes before planning consent is applied for
• Abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission

Housing
While separate announcements are to be made on grants for social housing, speedy action has already been taken to suspend the disliked home information packs. Some key policy initiatives have also been highlighted:

• Promotion of shared ownership schemes and help for social tenants and others to own or part-own their home. This reflects the Conservative party policy to offer social tenants a 10 per cent equity share in their home which can be cashed in when they leave the sector
• The creation of new trusts to make it simpler for communities to provide homes for local people. This reflects the landmark housing initiative to create local housing trusts based upon the success of the community land trust model. Thus, if the local housing trust (whose board will consist of people living or working in the area) is able to persuade its community to agree on the size and type of housing development it wants, there will be a mandatory presumption in favour of development
• Promotion of ‘home on the farm’ schemes that encourage farmers to convert existing buildings into affordable housing
• Provision of incentives for local authorities to delivery sustainable development through additional grants for each new house
• Introduction of new powers to help communities save local facilities and services threatened with closure. This would involve an extension of the powers under the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 which gives members of the public power to activate a public request order disposal whereby the secretary of state for communities and local government can direct a local authority to dispose of unused or underused land or property to a community group

Conclusion
The above measures will all be subject to the deficit reduction programme and the speed of implementation for those involving extra finance will depend on what decisions are made in the comprehensive spending review.

srandall@wslaw.co.uk

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