Plans to boost UK house building, jobs and the economy

The government’s recently announced ‘major housing and planning package’, aims to boost affordable housing, the construction sector and major infrastructure projects.

These are some of the measures:

• Developers who can prove that a local authority’s costly affordable housing requirements are making their development project unviable will see them removed.
• The Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill will include guaranteeing the debt of housing associations and private sector developers for major infrastructure projects.
• Big commercial and residential applications are to be directed to a major infrastructure fast-track process. Where councils are poor at processing decisions, developers can opt to have their decision taken by the planning inspectorate.
• More applications will go into a fast-track appeal process.
• Permitted development rights are to be increased to enable extensions to homes and businesses for a temporary three-year period. Permitted development rights will also allow change of use from commercial to residential purposes.

As with all such schemes, the devil will be in the detail. We look forward to seeing how things operate in practice once they are introduced.

As always, if you need commercial and pragmatic legal advice, we’re here to help so please get in touch.

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