Letwin Review of Build Out

I recommend that the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government should convene such tripartite discussions [between relevant government departments, the major house builders and Construction Industry Training Board, and the trade unions] in order to construct both new models of employment and a new training programme for bricklayers. (paragraph 1.10)

I recommend that the Committee should have access to experts with detailed local knowledge in relation to the consideration of specific large sites. (paragraph 3.13)

I recommend that Ministers should seek to provide incentives for the house builders to accept changes to their existing site plans [through introducing conditions to any government funding available either to house builders or to potential purchasers on large sites, making receipt of such funding dependent upon the site being developed in conformity with the new planning policy and new secondary legislation for large sites]. (paragraph 3.15)

I recommend that Ministers should also consider (as part of the spending review) allocating a fraction of whatever would otherwise be the total funding made available by government in support of house building to a new large sites viability fund administered by Homes England. (paragraph 3.16)

I recommend that the Government should, as part of the new primary legislation, introduce a power for local planning authorities to designate particular sites within their local plans as sites which can be developed only as single large sites and which therefore automatically become subject to the new planning rules for large sites. (paragraph 4.2)

I recommend that the Housing Secretary (when issuing updated viability guidance alongside the new planning framework) should guide local planning authorities towards insisting on levels of diversity that will tend to cap residual land values for these large sites at around ten times their existing use value. (paragraph 4.4)

I recommend that the new primary legislation should also give local authorities explicit statutory powers to draw on precedents in England and on models of development which are entirely familiar in much of continental Europe [to play a more active role in ensuring the diverse and rapid development of large sites that have yet to be allocated in areas of high housing demand]. (paragraph 4.6)

I recommend that the Government, working with Homes England, should encourage the creation of further MDCs, NTDCs and UDCs, and should in future use the considerable leverage that Homes England has over these bodies to ensure that all such development corporations not only comply with the new planning rules that I have recommended in section 3 but also go beyond this to create, proactively, models of well-planned diversity on the large sites that they own and control. At the same time, I recommend that Homes England should itself go beyond mere compliance with the new planning laws and proactively create models of well-planned diversity on the large public sector sites that it is developing on behalf of the taxpayer. (paragraph 4.9)

I therefore recommend that, in addition to the changes in planning rules identified in section 3, and in addition to the allocation rules suggested in section 4.2-4.4, one further amendment to primary legislation should make it possible in future for a local planning authority (or a group of local planning authorities) in an area of high housing demand to establish a new form of development vehicle to develop the site through a masterplan and design code which increases the diversity and attractiveness of the offerings on site and hence its build out rate. (paragraph 4.11)

I recommend that, in areas of the country where there are both primary and secondary authorities, local planning authorities seeking to establish LDCs or LAMPs should be strongly encouraged by MHCLG to involve both levels of local government in order to ensure that critical public interests in relation to large sites (such as the provision of transport infrastructure, schools and health and social care) are built in to the master planning of such sites from the beginning. (paragraph 4.13)

I recommend that, under either structure, the LDC or LAMP should be enabled to apply for a small amount of seed funding to enable it to hire dedicated and qualified staff. I believe that the relatively small amount of funding required to cover the costs for the master planning of diversified large sites can conveniently be top-sliced out of the existing MHCLG Land Assembly Fund (following a change in the Government's remit for this fund). Amounts disbursed to successful LDCs or LAMPs would be repaid once development finance had been raised for the site in question so that only one initial injection from the Land Assembly Fund would be required. I recommend that applications to the fund should be judged and disbursements from the fund should be made by Homes England. (paragraph 4.14)

I therefore recommend that the Government should adopt a new set of planning rules specifically designed to apply to large sites. The purpose of these rules should be to ensure that all sites in areas of high housing demand whose size exceeds a certain threshold are subject to an additional form of planning control that requires those owning such sites to provide a diversity of offerings on the site which are able to address the various categories of demand within the local housing market. (paragraph 3.3)

I recommend that the new body [National Expert Committee] should be established as an Expert Committee – a non-statutory body of independent specialists, which would be administered and resourced by MHCLG and would be a non-classified government entity; Ministers would make appointments to the Committee. (Annex B)

I recommend that Ministers should consider using these methods [Written Ministerial Statement, new secondary legislation and new planning policy document] to ensure that the new rules begin to have an effect on the planning system even before they are given full statutory backing. (paragraph 3.4)

I recommend that an adequate notice period should be given by the Government for the implementation of the new rules. (paragraph 3.5)

I recommend that the amendment to primary legislation should: define large sites both in terms of a size threshold (which might, for example, be set initially at 1,500 units) and in terms of boundaries (to ensure that a site which is allocated as a single entity in a local development plan qualifies, even if it benefits from a number of different outline planning permissions); require local planning authorities, when granting allocations, outline permissions or final planning permissions for any large site or any part of a large site in areas of high housing demand, to comply with the new secondary legislation and the new planning policy relating to large sites – and, in particular, to include within all outline planning permissions for large sites in areas of high housing demand a requirement that 'housing diversification' on such sites should be a 'reserved matter'; and establish the principle that all permissions for reserved matters granted in relation to such large sites should contain diversification requirements in accordance with the new secondary legislation and the new planning policy for large sites. (paragraph 3.6)

I recommend that the new secondary legislation should: amend the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure)(England) Order 2015 to include type, size and tenure mix (alongside the current provision for prescription of access, appearance, landscaping, layout and scale) as characteristics that can be prescribed as reserved matters for large sites in areas of high housing demand; and require any applicant making an outline planning application for a large site or an application for final permission for a phase of a large site in an area of high housing demand to prepare a diversification strategy, specifying the types of diversity that will be exhibited on that site or in the part of the site to which the application refers. (paragraph 3.7)

I recommend that the new planning policy document should set out the diversification principles that are to apply to all planning decisions relating to such large sites in areas of high housing demand in future. (paragraph 3.8)

I recommend that the Government should establish a National Expert Committee [to arbitrate on whether any application that causes a disagreement between the local planning authority and the applicant satisfies the diversification requirement, and is therefore likely to cause high build out rates]. (paragraph 3.9)

I recommend that the Housing Secretary should guide local planning authorities to consult the National Expert Committee before approving any such large site application in an area of high housing demand. (paragraph 3.11)