Planning to be relaxed to boost householding

The Daily Telegraph is reporting that planning minister Nick Boles has told some of the country’s biggest developers current planning laws are to be overhauled in a bid to boost housebuilding.

Rules on development in areas designated as protected greenbelt land could be relaxed, while laws designed to stop new buildings becoming eyesores are to be revised.

It comes as Wednesday’s budget promised to consult on allowing “further flexibilities” in planning rules to “support change of use from certain agricultural and retail uses to residential use to increase responsiveness within the planning system”.

Speaking to the developers shortly after the budget, Mr Boles said:”Our simple view is that the fundamental idea of the planning system is that property owners should be able to do some things if they want to without asking anyone.

“There are things that have impact that is substantial on the community, on neighbours, that then they need to go through a process, and what we want to do is we want to expand the number of things you can do without having to ask for planning permission.”

Larger extensions

Mr Boles said the government had already proposed allowing homeowners to build larger extensions and to make it easier to convert commercial properties for residential use.

However, planners have warned that this could damage city centres as business districts by driving people out of town.

But Mr Boles said: “I think we will be looking for more such liberalisations which don’t nevertheless fundamentally change the planning system and which in fact should relieve local authorities of some workload.”

The measures support government support for homebuyers announced in the budget, which promise to lend potential property owners as much as 20 per cent of the value of the home to make it easier to get a favourable mortgage rate.

Today Mr Boles said: “Further liberalisation of changes of use will make it easier to convert existing developed property into homes which will reduce the number of houses that need to be built on green fields.”

It comes as new government figures highlighted today by housing charity Shelter show a sharp increase in the number of homeless families over the past year. In 2012, 34,080 households with children were accepted as homeless, an increase of 12 per cent on the previous year.

At the end of 2012, 76,790 children were living in temporary accommodation, an annual increase of 11 per cent.