Yorkshire council may be able to force property owners to sell land for new housing developments

According to the Financial Times, Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy intends to reform how land is valued when acquired by councils through “compulsory purchase orders.”

If Labour is elected in 2024, Sir Keir Starmer’s party would reportedly introduce legislation allowing local authorities to buy land at a much cheaper price than if they had planning permission.

Think Tank the Centre for Progressive Policy says: “The awarding of planning permission dramatically increased average agricultural land values from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare for average residential values for new builds in 2016/17 across England; an increase of more than 275 times.”

Executive member for housing, planning and safer communities at the City of York Council Coun Michael Pavlovic said: “I think it’s got a lot of potential in a place like York.

“If they are planning on doing something then I think it will be a massively positive change for the city because it will free up land to be used for more affordable housing.”

He added that private building firms “have much deeper pockets and don’t have the imperative to build social housing.”

Coun Pavlovic added: “York has a housing problem and anything that ceases that has got to be a positive thing.”

However, Mark Tufnell, president of the Country Land and Business Association, rebuffed the proposal.

“Forcing hard-pressed farmers to sell their land for a fraction of its potential value, only to then – via local authorities – put it in the hands of developers who make hundreds of millions of pounds profit every year, is a strange way to level up the country,” he said.

“We desperately need sensible housing development in rural areas, where a small number of homes are built in a large number of villages.

“This is necessary to recruit workers for rural businesses and to strengthen our rural communities.

“The failure of politicians at a local and national level to provide a planning system that works for rural towns and villages is at the heart of the problem.”

The Labour Party has been approached for comment by the Yorkshire Post.

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “We want councils to be able to unlock more land for affordable housing, which is why we are reforming compensation for compulsory purchase orders.

“The current rules can significantly increase costs for councils and our reforms will ensure the taxpayer gets the best value for money, by removing ‘hope value’ where justified and in the public interest.

“It will ultimately be for the Secretary of State to decide whether a compulsory purchase order can be approved and if the removal of hope value is appropriate.”