Landlords don’t believe Housing Secretary Michael Gove’s planning reforms will help build a million new homes in England, claims a buy-to-let broker.
In July Gove announced a review of permitted development rights in a bid to shake up planning rules, setting out plans to make it easier to convert large shops — such as takeaways and bookmakers — and offices into homes.
Gove also said red tape could be cut to enable barn conversions. The proposals to relax rules around the use of retail space are designed to provide greater density of housing in inner cities.
But a poll of 270 buy-to-let landlords conducted by Mortgages for Business found that only seven per cent thought the reforms would be successful.
When asked “Do you think Michael Gove’s proposed planning reforms will help the government build 1mn new homes in England by the end of the current parliament?” 59 per cent of landlords said they thought the results were “unlikely to scratch the surface”.
While only seven per cent thought that Gove’s review was likely to achieve a great deal, 15 per cent said the reforms could work “to a small degree, but not at scale”.
Gavin Richardson, the managing director of MFB, says: “Britain needs more homes to fulfil more dreams of home ownership and increase choice for renters.
“It's great that these proposals mean that fewer empty shops or offices are left gathering dust while we have an urgent need for more homes. But on their own, a review of the rules around permitted development rights is not going to achieve very much.
“This is a small piece of a very large puzzle — on its own, there’s no way it is going to fix the housing crisis.”
In July, Gove also promised the creation of city development corporations with the power to buy up brownfield land and sell it on to housing developers. His big-city building drive will involve ministers seizing control of brownfield areas to push through new projects.
Gove said he was planning more than a dozen new development corporations that would be able to use compulsory purchase orders and grant planning permission to boost building in urban areas.
However, when asked if the country could tackle the housing crisis by building on brownfield sites alone, almost a quarter of landlords said they thought it was possible.
Three times that many (76 per cent) thought the housing crisis could not be solved by building on brownfield sites alone.
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It’s always been a dream 🛌 of my children that their first home would be a converted, abandoned Chinese takeaway, in let’s say the less desirable part of town 😂😂😂. This government are lost 🤷♂️.
It doesn't matter how much he eases up planning permission. Houses will only be built at the rate they can be sold for top money. Big building companies are experts at keeping supply short to keep prices high.
With the current interest rates very few people earn enough to pass mortgage affordability criteria for a property they would like to buy. There's absolutely no point buying the wrong property in the current climate.
A few people may self build, which will be nice for them, but insignificant in terms of numbers.
Local Authorities don't have enough money to do much. Even if they increased Social rents to something commercially viable it would take a very long time for them to be able to bankroll significant house building.
That leaves co-living and Build to Rent. Theoretically great ideas at the right price for the end user. Unlikely that will be the case though. Developers and owners of such developments are going to want chunky profits every year.
Totally agree Jo, it also costs a lot of money now to build a house, materials have rocked in costs as have labour, when you can even find it, then of course there is all the red tape and BS thrown at you from building control and planners, developers are businesses there to make a profit like any other business, we have seen many developers and builders go bust in recent yrs
M&S fell foul of the redevelopment on Oxford Street, how on earth did they think they could demolish a period building to chuck up a block of flats..?!?! They are more stupid than they look. We all have to abide by rules around period buildings yet they think they can crack on without a care in the world. Government are all at sea regarding all housing policies...
Most developers in my area would simply set fire to a problem property getting in the way, seen it time and again, we all know who set fire to them and why
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