Since then, Mr Shapps has abolished the regional spatial strategies which underpinned Labour’s old centrally controlled system, but has yet to replace them with his widely-trailed incentive-led approach.
So far, the system has responded, but not in the way the minister, or the industry, or the 1.8 million families on England’s housing waiting lists would have wanted. The prophecy of a planning hiatus has begun to come worryingly true. Reports are now emerging of planned housing numbers across England being either placed under review or simply cut - to the tune of 84,000 homes according to recent research by planning consultant Tetlow King.
The government is facing at least one legal challenge over its plans and house builders are said to be reluctant to make any major planning applications in the absence of a clear government planning framework. It is little wonder then that Mr Shapps has this week been at pains to stress the details of his proposed ‘new homes bonus’ which will reward development with financial incentives to local authorities. However, this new framework will not be in place until sometime next year.
The simple answer to avert disaster would be for regional spatial strategies to be reinstated until the new framework is ready to be implemented.
iven that planning and development is the first area in which the localist doctrine is being tested, this would be political suicide and hence a complete no-go. The only other option would seem to be for Mr Shapps to hold the hands of the newly emancipated local authorities a little more tightly. The letter last week from the Royal Town Planning Institute and signed by 28 other housing and planning bodies effectively called for this. Even this slight step back towards the centre might be anathema to the staunchly localist Mr Shapps. But, if he doesn’t do something, beating the 87,360 English housing starts in 2009/10 will begin to look a pretty tall order.
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Readers' comments (5)
Sidney Webb | 13/08/2010 2:25 pm
Did I not say that Shapps and Pickles will be the new Laural and Hardy - yep, another fine mess.
It's all obviously someone elses fault.
Perhaps its time to look around the government benches to see if there are any more competent fools to take the job, or will they worry that it will start to look like the last governments revolving housing failure.
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Bernard Townroe | 13/08/2010 5:53 pm
Anyone could be excused for doubting anything Shapps has to say given his repeated lies about the housing funding 'black hole' and rather quaint belief that all that is needed to get councils (sic) building again is to give them incentives to approve more planning permissions. I mean, anyone would think that there are thousands of homes with permission already in place that are not being built for some other, apparently unrelated, reasons to do with the state of the market. Sorry, my mistake, Pickles and Shapps don't believe in the 'state'.
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Chris | 14/08/2010 2:15 pm
Shapps seems purely to deliver words. As with the Mandelson Mob he grabs headline after headline but achieves nothing.
Could someone list the achievements of Shapps so we can understand on what basis this person was put in charge.
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Anonymous | 14/08/2010 10:06 pm
100-days now passed, still not a single positive action from Shapps, still just words and plans. Achievements: house building stopped, builders bankrupted, tenants insecurity, governance weakened, formal oversight abandoned, planning sent into disarray, communities divided, and homeless now forced to eating vermin.
How proud the Minister must feel. Perhaps he is looking to follow Lady Porter into infamy and contempt.
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Chris | 19/08/2010 4:37 pm
.................. tumbleweed .........................
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