How government’s levelling up plans will affect farmers

A less stringent housing delivery target, greater emphasis on “beautiful” developments, and improvements to the planning system have been confirmed as the government’s Levelling Up priorities.

The government used the recent Queen’s Speech to set out a legislative programme of 38 Bills.

A key component was the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which experts say aims to help improve rural communities in England by bringing struggling regions up to the economic output and social life of the best parts of the country.   

Jeremy Moody, secretary and adviser to the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers, explained during his organisation’s podcast that the Bill followed on from a radical planning White Paper published in August 2020.

See also: Farm buildings: Know your permitted development rights

That was aimed at delivering 300,000 new homes a year via zone-specific targets, but this became politically very controversial because house prices clearly indicated that people most wanted to live in the areas that most objected to new developments, said Mr Moody.

This was apparently evidenced by the Chesham and Amersham by-election, which resulted in a Liberal Democrats victory for a seat that had always been Conservative.

Mr Moody said: “That led to an amendment, with the increase set to be channelled into the larger cities, and what we now have is housing secretary Michael Gove very much reducing the emphasis on the 300,000 number.

“He is shying away from viewing it as a hard target and he is moving towards local communities having much more say on what housing is where.”

This includes the concept of neighbours voting on whether planning permission should be given for developments in their local area, as an alternative to the traditional process.

Further commitments

Other policies from the White Paper that have been included in the Bill are setting specific design codes for new housing, creating a new infrastructure levy, and digitising the planning system to make proposed plans more accessible.

The first is drawn from the work of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, and the results from the design code trials will explore how it will work in practice and any additional pressures it brings, such as increasing the cost of the building.

The new national infrastructure levy is intended to replace the community infrastructure levy and much, if not all, of Section 106 agreements.

“It has been suggested that this is where the money for affordable housing will come from, possibly now no longer an obligation on the development, but with money transferred to local government to deliver affordable housing,” said Mr Moody.

“In the White Paper it was proposed there would be a national threshold above which it would be charged, which would clearly apply more levy on higher-value areas, but the new paperwork suggests this might be a locally set levy, so there’s quite a lot more to understand about this.

“Not all development markets will offer particularly rich pickings for such a levy and those may be the areas where the government may most want development, so this is always a very difficult and complicated area.”

Following Brexit, the government plans to amend environmental impact assessments to prioritise different species depending on their prevalence in the UK, as opposed to the EU, such as the Great Crested Newt, hedgehogs and voles.

Change long overdue

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) said reforming the planning system was long overdue and fixing the housing crisis was at a critical stage.

The proposals to overhaul the “one size fits all” planning system, which had disadvantaged rural areas, was potentially an encouraging step forward, the association said.

Getting as close as possible to the annual 300,000 new homes target was also a crucial part of solving the rural productivity gap.

The more affordable houses there were in rural areas, the more likely that people could afford to live where they worked, which kept money within local communities.

The CLA said it was important that these projects were delivered in all types of settlements, including organic and incremental growth of small rural villages and hamlets, not just focusing on urban expansion.

Renters reform

There were four landmark announcements in the Renters Reform Bill:

• The application of a Decent Homes Standard, meaning all rented homes must be free of serious hazards
• Landlords will be required to register with a new private rented property portal where property information will be available in one place
• The abolition of Section 21 evictions, also known as “no-fault” evictions, alongside introducing stronger grounds for possession where a tenant has not paid their rent for a long time or where they have conducted anti-social behaviour
• The introduction of a Private Rented Sector Ombudsman.

Mr Moody said: “We have seen the private let sector fall by a quarter of a million houses in the last two years, which can only drive rents up and make it harder for people to find rented accommodation.

“We’re also seeing housing move into holiday lets as an alternative way of managing it, and that is putting pressure on the housing that many people need.

“This is a complicated area. I see the government here as trying to manage the symptoms of not building enough houses, rather than actually striking to the root of it.”