Housing Minister Pledges to Investigate Delayed Guildford Housing Development Scheme

Published on: 31 Oct, 2019
Updated on: 2 Nov, 2019

Anne Milton speaking in the Parliamentary debate she requested on Building Out Extant Planning Permissions – Image parliamentlive.tv

By Martin Giles

“Local authorities simply do not possess enough tools to force the hand of [property] developers,” Guildford’s MP Anne Milton told Esther McVey, Minister of State for Housing and Planning, during a Westminster Hall debate in Parliament yesterday (October 30).

Ms Milton had requested the debate on Building Out Extant Planning Permissions to express her frustration that slow progress by developers meant many sites with planning permission were left undeveloped while people suffered from housing shortages.

She cited the borough’s town centre, brownfield “Plaza” site, on the Portsmouth Road, and Weyside Urban Village, in Slyfield, as examples of the problem faced by councils trying to deliver much-needed housing.

Before the debate, she had said: ‘While there is a requirement on developers to begin building within a set period from the granting of planning permission, there is no equivalent requirement to finish what they start, let alone a deadline to do so. This leads to building land left abandoned and unused housing completions lagging behind housing need and leaving people without homes.

Ms McVey was there to represent the government but only two other MPs attended.

The debate was attended by only two other backbenchers and the Housing Minister – Image parliamentlive.tv

Ms Milton told the minister: “There are numerous options available to government to make a real difference in getting the homes that we need built.

“We need houses that people can afford in areas such as Guildford and Cranleigh, where prices are eye-wateringly high (the average house price in Guildford is more than £550,000), and get the socially rented homes we also need.

“But it sometimes feels as if successive governments are simply unwilling to do anything that will upset the developers’ apple cart.”

“There are about 3,000 on Guildford council’s waiting list for social housing and many more are unable to buy a home due to the high prices. Rents are commensurately high.”

Ms Milton called for “more homes in the right areas, with good transport links and all the necessary infrastructure, without increasing the risk of flooding, while protecting our green belt”.

She added: “In Guildford in 2018-19, the number of homes built was 284. There is a requirement for 518 this year and 928 in 2021-22. In simple terms, that will cover only the backlog of unmet need.

“There is also a need, year on year, for 570 so-called affordable homes, although what is called “affordable” in Guildford is not affordable in many other parts of the country, or even in Guildford itself, so the word is open to some debate.”

About the Plaza site, Ms Milton said: ”It was demolished in, I think, the 1980s. It stands right in the town centre, minutes’ walk from the station, but nothing is being built on the site.

“In an area such as Guildford, where 89% of the borough is green belt, it is criminal that people who need homes, socially rented homes, homes to rent, and homes to buy at prices they can afford, see that site sitting empty.

“Despite my numerous meetings with ministers from the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Guildford’s infrastructure, both road and rail, is under extreme pressure, as is the two-lane stretch of the A3.”

“Developers will build only where there is a commitment to the delivery of infrastructure. [They] will not build without it; they go elsewhere, where it is easier to build.

“Local authorities simply do not possess enough tools to force the hand of developers. The housing delivery test is based on the completion of new dwellings, rather than planning permissions granted.“

Alex Cunningham MP

Labour MP Alex Cunningham, who represents Stockton North in the North East, said his area had similar problems, adding: “There is no doubt in my mind that the failure of developers to get on with the job and build the homes for which they have permission is a major factor contributing to our failure to meet the needs of people in this country.”

Ms McVey said: “When we talk about the number of homes coming forward, we all agree there have been many decades of not building enough. Demand has outstripped supply for many years. In the past year, more than 220,000 homes have been built, more than in all but one of the past 31 years.

Esther McVey MP

“We need to do more, and more is being done, but a significant amount has been done already. We are going in the right direction. The government are putting another £44 billion into home-building.

“What we are doing is bringing forward an accelerated planning Green Paper. There will be not just a single solution that ensures that developers build out; there will be an array of solutions, using both carrot and stick approaches. Those methods will be set out in our new Green Paper, which is coming forward.”

But Caroline Nokes, the Independent MP for Romsey and Southampton North, said of the Green Paper: “It is not about remediation, infrastructure or any outstanding obstacles; it is about a developer who simply finds it more economically convenient not to build than to build.

Caroline Nokes MP

“I am very frustrated that what we are hearing from the Green Paper is that there will be lots of carrots and sticks for future development, but nothing that helps now.”

Ms Milton described development of the Weyside Urban Village (previously SARP, the Slyfield Area Regeneration Project) as “oven-ready”, being “one of the few large sites that nobody objects to”.

Ms McVey undertook to, “look into the scheme to see where it is and I will write to my Right Honourable friend with an answer”.

The whole debate can be viewed here: https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/b9634f92-f2f6-4245-a8a9-2bc5858e8143