Give mayors US-style zoning planning powers to tackle housing crisis, report says

The new Government has made planning reforms a centre-piece of its drive for growth, allowing more building on the green belt and bringing back mandatory housing targets.

It has pledged to review the green belt, which is made up of buffer zones to prevent urban sprawl around cities such as Sheffield, Leeds and York.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves also wants to encourage building on the “grey belt”, which refers to parts of the green belt, such as wasteland and old car parks, which appear like brownfield sites.

However, the Centre for Cities’ report has found that instead of approving housing developments across the green belt, changing the planning system should ramp up house building in cities.

It called on the Government to change planning laws from the current discretionary system, where councillors or officers decide on applications, to a flexible zonal set up, where developments would be approved on set rules.

There would be different requirements in different planning areas across cities, which could include a city centre zone or a suburban zone.

If a developer complied with the rules of a particular zone, their proposals would be guaranteed to get planning permission.

This would bring the UK into line with many countries around the world, including the USA, Canada and New Zealand.

Andrew Carter, chief executive of Centre for Cities, said: “The Government is right to put housebuilding at the centre of its plan to raise prosperity.

“Its willingness to consider all the tools to reach its housebuilding target is hugely welcome, given the scale of Britain’s housing shortage.

“As we await the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, government is considering making the planning system more rules-based.

“Other countries including New Zealand and many of our European neighbours already have a rules-based zoning system for planning and have far better housebuilding outcomes.

“To move toward a rules-based system, we recommend the Government limits the use of discretion in individual planning decisions as far as appropriate, introduces the National Development Management Policies, and makes changes to existing legislation to establish a national rulebook for planning.

“Creating a more certain and stable planning system will make the UK a much easier place to build homes and for businesses to invest.”

Ms Reeves has already indicated that some form of zoning system around transport hubs, which would ensure a “presumption in favour of building”, could be part of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

The Centre for Cities wants the Government to go further, and also give the powers to mayors.

The proposals have gained the support of Northern leaders. Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “The value of making plans across our major city regions is that we can start to plan housing, commercial and residential development in a joined up way with transport and energy infrastructure for instance.

“The more we can be clear with those investing to deliver developments about what we need and where it needs to be then we can get more done, with less delays.

“The current system isn’t working well enough, improving it is the right thing to do.”